Recommendations for small fruit press?

[oldbloke]

When I'm doing wine from berries, currants, etc., mashing consists mainly of freezing to burst a few cell walls, and a potato masher when they go into the FV.
This tends to leave a fair bit of fruit (especially small stuff like elderberries) not very well mashed.
So I thought, even when fermenting on the pulp, it'd be a nice idea to put it all through a fruit press first.
I only need a small one, it'd be used almost exclusively for just enough fruit for a single gallon of wine, occasionally two and rarely 3 but in those cases I'm happy to do multiple pressings.
What's good?

 

[Steam brew]

Vigo do a 6 lt press for about £60 and it's good :

 

[Half Full]

I bought a 6 litre press on ebay two weeks ago, £59.99, including a straining bag, delivered, from Germany, in 3 days. It is not the Vigo mentioned above. Am happy with it, though I am using for apples that I whizz up first in a food processor.

I suspect that if you press blackberries and elderberries, the seeds will come through the straining bag - the mesh is about 2mm, so you will want a muslin to strain through too.

I will send you the link if you cant find it with a casual search.

 

[oldbloke]

I bought a 6 litre press on ebay two weeks ago, £59.99, including a straining bag, delivered, from Germany, in 3 days. It is not the Vigo mentioned above. Am happy with it, though I am using for apples that I whizz up first in a food processor.

I suspect that if you press blackberries and elderberries, the seeds will come through the straining bag - the mesh is about 2mm, so you will want a muslin to strain through too.

I will send you the link if you cant find it with a casual search.

A few seeds are no prob, it'd go through a sieve on its way to the FV, and this kind of stuff always needs a good racking anyway at some point.
I suspect I've seen the one you mean on ebay

 

[tonyhibbett]

A fruit press is always an expensive option and does not deliver much more than wringing fermented pulp through a straining bag. It is only required when large quantities of fruit need to be processed.

 

[oldbloke]

Suggested the wife might get me one for christmas, then saw how big a gift I'd have to get her in return, and then remembered the old smoothie maker at the back of the cupboard...

 

[godfrey]

for berries ant currants you should look at a steam juice extractor

there are quite a few on amazon :thumb:

I have read that by steam extracting elderberry
you can leave the tannins behind
but you also keep all the vitamins and minerals
the wine will be ready in months instead of years

 

[goodolpete]

for berries and currants you should look at a steam juice extractor

I've just started 5 gallons of blackberry and elderberry, using 7kg and 2.5 kg
of each. I deeply froze the blackberries in 1kg bags and the elderberries in 500g bags
for a week, then thawed them out for a day. Each bag I held over the fv and snipped
the lower corners, getting a lot of juice out, then cut off the top and poured what was
left into a sterilized bowl. With a spoon I repeatedly filled up a potato ricer and
squeezed the berries over the fv, then spooned out the residue into my steam extractor.
After adding the steam extract I had 7.5 litres of juice at a sg of 1034. I'll add 4kg
invert sugar today and ferment with K1V yeast, adding a bottle of Lowecz blackcurrant
when fermenting well.