Cider Quantities and all that.

[golder247]

Hello all,

I have a little time yet but I will have 5 trees to get apples from, bloody marvellous. That said I am unsure what to expect in regards to quantities of apples (and therefoe juice) and the right equipment to get things moving.

I am likely to get hold of a relatively small (tabletop) fruit press and apple chopper. This is very generous of the person lending to me, but I am thinking it may well be way off the size I need when I pick all these fabulous fruits.

I have a 2 5gl FV's and a dozen or so demijohns etc but is this going to be even halfway close?? (i do also have a 100l blue poly mini water butt kind of thing which I am thinking may be useful)

Your thoughts and assistance will be ruddy marvellous!!

Thanks in advance

 

[Duncs]

Last year, I got a bin bag full of apples from my friends tree, he managed to fill almost 15 bags full of apples from just one tree. Half a bag of apples made 2 gallons of cider for me and the other half went off to a local pub to make apple pie

 

[evanvine]

My average has been 2kg/Ltr.
At that rate you'll never process the apples from 1 tree, never mind 5!
Would suggest you take a mix from all your trees for best results.
Look at the posts for cider making to get the idea of the equipment you will need.
I built my own press, but must admit that I bought my apple/grape crusher.
The apples will be ready Sep/Oct, so you have plenty of time.

 

[user 1290]

Approx 14 (my very best!) - 20lbs of milled apples are required to press one gallon of juice.

It takes me about half an hour spent milling and pressing per gallon when working efficiently + there's all the time spent gathering apples, setting up, cleaning up and clearing away.

I've got 2 mature cooker trees and 5 mature eating apple trees, of which 2 will produce up to 400 lbs of fruit in a good year (but not much the following year - biennial copping), so probably around 200 lbs from each, I get nearly all the apples from my in-laws eater tree, I also gather from wild trees and scrounge windfalls, etc. whenever/wherever I can. I also get to pick the pears from a friend's two trees.

In addition I've also some young trees that are only just starting to produce fruit, consisting of 1 cooker, 6 eaters and 8 cider apples, plus I started grafting this Spring and 9 out of 10 have taken and I've planted 4 root stocks so hopefully I'll be producing my own root stocks for grafting next year.

So it's a lot of work from August (Bath Beauty & Worcester Pearmain)- November and sometimes I wonder why I bother when you get deals on carton AJ like that one at Tescos a short while ago when you could get 1.5 litres for 50p plus buy two get one free so only a pound a gallon.