Apples

[homebrewer]

Hi where can i buy apples in bulk for cheap for cider making also how many apples is needed to make 25 litres of cider thanks.

 

[danb]

Depending on the efficiency of pressing you will want around 50kg.
I only had 8kg last year and wanted to buy more but its very expensive at that amount. So for this year I started looking for trees early and had others looking too. Come pressing time, I did just over 100kg and could of had at least another 300kg but ended up in hospital.
Just have a look rround, you should find plenty.

 

[OnlyFerment]

As Dan says - hunt around for people with 'unwanted' apple trees - probably a good idea to see if you can find some hedgerow crab apples too to get a better mix of flavours as you don't want all desert apples. You need a mix of sweet, cooking and bitter apples to make your cider. As a first time cider maker this year I didn't like to go knocking on doors saying 'do you want those apples?' then saw most of them go to waste laying in gardens and in one case fully laden trees being cut down. Perhaps a better way of thinking is going round early and say you are offering a service to clear apples / windfalls from gardens and best of all it costs them nothing.

As for buying you won't get the bitter apples and the desert and cooking apples are going to be expensive as shop bought apples are graded for correct size and perfect skins rather than sheer quantity to just be piled into a pulper. Its too late this year to collect apples so your best bet is probably to make turbo cider this year from cartoned juice to learn some of the art of cider making (if you don't already know how to make cider) and then start early locating trees for next year come spring / early summer time.

Dave

 

[LeithR]

I've also had luck in the past by approaching wholesale Fruit and Veg sellers. They often have Fruit which is past its best for selling to retailers. You may also find that availability is not seasonal.

 

[danb]

Concentrate on some turbo cider for now, and get yourself prepared for next year. A good way of scratting and a nice press.
Small amounts are OK in a food processor before pressing but for big amounts spending some money on other options will make life easier. The first year I used a food processor and a small homemade press and it was a ball ache but worked.
Knowing I wanted to do a lot more this year, I bought a sinkerator which ate apples quicker than I could feed it, and the pulp was very fine. A lot of juice ran of the press while filling the cheeses before any pressure.
Then I used the same design for the press as it wworked just wasn't big enough. So I used some nice mahogany 4 x 2 instead of cheap softwood. And a 10 tonne jack for pressure. There was no flex in the press at all.

 

[danb]

Old press


Scratter


New press

 

[user 4004]

Is is still worth looking for apples now, when I was driving around to day I passed a couple of trees that still had a lot of apples on, I know it helps being in a higher vehicle but when looking over hedges there are also a lot of apples on the ground under trees in old neglected orchards which people are happy to get rid of as they don't want the bother, where I stopped this weekend the apples were like a carpet on the ground under the tree.

I don't work in weight but I usually get about 25 - 30l of juice out of a dustbin of apples.

I will also say if you are clearing apples for people don't be picky, take everything and sort them later.

 

[rosie]

5 kilos of apples consistently produced 2 litres of juice last week -that was through my small SS scratter and SS fruit press. 13 X 5 = 65 kilos should do it.

Try a farmers produce market/auction.


These record breaking apples are the variety I used.
http://www.gardenappleid.co.uk/index.ph ... ate-wonder

 

[Manitude]

I seem to remember reading that a small company which started out by putting ads up in the local area asking for unwanted apples and got way more than you'd need as an individual, so you could try that.
For those interested, there's more info on them here:
http://www.herefordtimes.com/archive/20 ... e/?ref=arc
http://skyborrycider.tumblr.com/

 

[Bernie]

Depending on the efficiency of pressing you will want around 50kg.

Does the efficiency vary very much between apple varieties? I've seen many apples as fallers e.g. Staymans as well as others will these produce enough juice to be worth the effort?

 

[danb]

I can't tell you much about varieties but depending how ripe they are, how good the pulp is and how good the press is. Will all effect extraction amounts.