Anyone made a cider press?

I fancy making a cider press for next autumn, has anybody made one and got some plans they would recommend? or come to that an old one they want to flog?
I have a nice small hydraulic ram from a lorry cab i could use, i suppose i could push the rusting wreck on the drive over some apples, might as well get some use out of it

 

No but I love cider and being from the West Country I could be your chief taster I know a good drop or two

 

I use one, an 18 litre one, but it's a lot of effort, I need a bigger automated one really.

Don't forget you need a scratter first, you can't just press em, so ideally you should make the automated scratter fill the press, saving a job, and then the press dump the dry fruit into a wheely bin, saving another job.

 

you'd need a cage/basket to hold the fruit to press reasonable volumes.
My press is a lot of effort too, was think about converting it from screw to hydraulic using a bottle jack.

 

Well, let me know how you get on, I literally fill a Wheely Bin with the dry fruit after its been through the press (the wife complains its so heavy when I do that, ha), and pressing usually takes a couple of days of ball ache, although to be fair the cider press works better with ripe Damsons...

 

........in distress!

 

We made one a couple of years back. Used an old bar stool as the frame, and the adjustable jack beam from an old ladder.....it's the bit at the bottom, with a screw thread for plumbing the ladder when the ground is uneven. As a scratter, we used an old food blender and chopped the apples to bit chunks....you sort of have to bash it, rather than chop it.
The other good thing to remember, is that if you don't have enough juice to make the batch, get to tesco and buy some blue stripe value apple juice and launch that in.....that'll work too ;0)
I think ours came out at 8% on the hydrometer (correct instrument term?), and was better than average tramps brew....it was actually nice when your taste buds adapted!
And it got you totally spannered!

 

Mmm...never cheated with Tesco Apple Juice, tut, tut.

In 2011, a bumper crop year, I made 40 gallons of Cider at 10.5%, 2012 was a crop disaster, it rained at all the wrong times of the year, and the slugs overran everything, all I managed that year was about three buckets of Damsons, and decided to freeze all the fruit.

During early 2013 I made Damson Wine, a lot of it, indeed I only have two bottles of that batch left now, it was 14%.In 2013 I decided to upgrade my filtration kit to an electric pump system that filters 5 gallon of Wine in about 20 minutes, and 2013 was a fairly good crop for Apples and Damsons. I made 15 gallons of Damson Wine at 12% (wife felt the 14% was too strong), and 26 gallons of Apple Wine, plus 5 gallons of Sparkling Cider at 4.5%. The neighbour gave me 2lbs of Greengages, so I have a gallon of Greengages Wine on the brew.

I'll be producing 170 bottles of Apple Wine at 13.6%, which tastes like dry white wine, not Cider, and in total 84 bottles of Damson Wine at 12%, I've been picking up old wine racks for the shed, ha.

Homebrew also in my shed, Irish Stout, Bitter, Real Ale, Pale Ale, India Pale Ale, and Lager, about 25 gallons or so.

I'm thinking I might buy a Still.