tonyhibbett
Landlord.
I have just picked up what appears to be an old hand-cranked grape mill, although the vendor was of the opinion that it was for breaking up cattle cake, which may well be the case.
It consists of a galvanised hopper, 18 x 18 inches with a hollow cast aluminium drum at the base, covered in conical 'spikes' 1 cm high, with some longer ones for grip, which, when turned by a metal shaft fixed through the centre of the cylinder to a handle, pass between an array of cast aluminium 'teeth' beneath. The cylinder is 10 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. The whole thing is mounted on a wooden 'stretcher' which can be placed over a collecting bin, although this could be very unstable! A better idea would be to place it top of a defunct gas barbeque, with the collector in place of the gas bottle!
The lower interior of the hopper is sound but has lost most of it's galvanic coating and therefore needs rust treatment plus a coating of 'food safe' primer and plastic paint to prevent the acid in the grapes from reacting with the exposed steel, which. I have discovered, turns the juice black!
In the past, I have used 'foot power' to crush the grapes, but processing up to 80 kilos has to be done in batches and is tedious and somewhat messy. Using this device should enable me to process gallons of pulp in a single batch but I anticipate considerable arm ache as a result!
So I would like to fit an electric motor but I am no engineer. The drive shaft is 20 mm diameter, so a variable speed electric drill could not be directly attached to the end, and anyway, I am not sure this would deliver sufficient torque. I have seen hand-powered apple crushers with the handle mounted on the outside edge of a heavy flywheel and geared, which is why they are expensive and very heavy. Although grapes are nothing like as hard as apples, my 75 kilos of foot power still takes some crushing time. Apart from raw power, the revs have to be right. I certainly don't want to puree the pips and stems!
Ideas, anyone?
It consists of a galvanised hopper, 18 x 18 inches with a hollow cast aluminium drum at the base, covered in conical 'spikes' 1 cm high, with some longer ones for grip, which, when turned by a metal shaft fixed through the centre of the cylinder to a handle, pass between an array of cast aluminium 'teeth' beneath. The cylinder is 10 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. The whole thing is mounted on a wooden 'stretcher' which can be placed over a collecting bin, although this could be very unstable! A better idea would be to place it top of a defunct gas barbeque, with the collector in place of the gas bottle!
The lower interior of the hopper is sound but has lost most of it's galvanic coating and therefore needs rust treatment plus a coating of 'food safe' primer and plastic paint to prevent the acid in the grapes from reacting with the exposed steel, which. I have discovered, turns the juice black!
In the past, I have used 'foot power' to crush the grapes, but processing up to 80 kilos has to be done in batches and is tedious and somewhat messy. Using this device should enable me to process gallons of pulp in a single batch but I anticipate considerable arm ache as a result!
So I would like to fit an electric motor but I am no engineer. The drive shaft is 20 mm diameter, so a variable speed electric drill could not be directly attached to the end, and anyway, I am not sure this would deliver sufficient torque. I have seen hand-powered apple crushers with the handle mounted on the outside edge of a heavy flywheel and geared, which is why they are expensive and very heavy. Although grapes are nothing like as hard as apples, my 75 kilos of foot power still takes some crushing time. Apart from raw power, the revs have to be right. I certainly don't want to puree the pips and stems!
Ideas, anyone?
