The Cider Press

I am pleased to introduce a new, exciting, extra fancy addition to our homestead; the cider press. I have managed to borrow or rent various cider presses every fall, and have always wished I had one of my own. Unfortunately, they are not cheap. One of my friends who happens to be an inventor and tinkerer heard me say this enough times that he and his girlfriend went ahead and built us one from scratch! They delivered it as a surprise for my birthday, and it was without a doubt one of the best birthday presents ever. It’s beautifully crafted out of oak and ash, and they even did all the welding and fabricated the whole iron press part themselves. It’s a functional work of art.

This is an heirloom style press with two baskets, so one person can be running apples through the grinder to fill one basket, while another is pressing the other basket. We like to have a big cider pressing party every year where everyone brings their apples, and this makes things go so much faster than a single basket press.

 but the cool and different thing about it is a Champion Juicer is the
motor and shaft for the grinding blades. As if  the Champion weren’t
versatile enough already, it’s also a piece of equipment that I use for
grinding cocoa beans when making chocolate, so this is a part of the
design I really like.

We got our five gallons of cider pressed and fermenting away in the kitchen, and probably ran around 100 lbs. of apples through the press this last weekend. It is getting well broken in and I have no doubt it will get a lot of use over the years. It will be the bell of the ball at many a cider pressing party.

Here’s to ingenuity, DIY-ers, and cider!

Press on!!!