Homemade cheese and cider press

Step 15: Giving it the ol' college try

A friend gave me some large Wolf River apples, and I tossed them into the box. While I still need to build a hopper (a large scale funnel that will feed a bushel of apples into the masher) and fine-tune the sprockets, I was itching to give it a go.

When I fed the apples into the mash-box, they wanted to bounce on the rollers at first, but then started to grind up. I think that if I had a hopper, the weight of the other apples would help to push them through. Also, I need to get the rollers reoriented, but it was encouraging to see it chew the apples up some.

I'm happy with the way everything turned out, but eventually, I plan to hook up the mashing assembly to a stationary mounted bike and make it pedal powered! To be continued...

Comments

[sdaupanner]

Nice Job but I was wondering if cutti ng the apples in half or maybe into Quarters might help. Also did the oak clean up OK after you finished and did you have any flavor from the oak??? MAPLE is the wood to use around food processes it is tight grained so it helps fight Bacteria. That is why there are very few Butchers Blocks made of OAK it is maple that they use.

[Lunarpancake]

nice! but be careful dont expose the apple to too much metal or it will ruin your cider!

[duotone]

I think you did a great job! Good idea about the bike powering it Do you think an extra roller would help or is 2 fine? Would the rollers being at different heights help? So one roller would push the apple into the other roller. Would rollers spinning towards one another help to mash the apples up better?

[aristocob]

Well done! I agree with your idea for a hopper. You might also benefit from a few more screws and perhaps if they wouldn't hit the opposite roller you could raise them up a bit too. Thanks for posting this Instructable and good luck!