I has a fruit press…
Let me show you it.
(those of you who are about to scratch off a hasty email correcting my grammar, get thee to I can has cheezburger? immediately. Actually, go over there even if you weren’t worried by my grammar. Everyone needs more LOLcats.)
Anyway, I want to make and bottle my own cider this Fall. So yesterday, instead of taking a nap, I built a fruit press!
It turned out to be startlingly easy. I had that colander already, so all I did was buy some 5/16″ threaded rod, a piece of solid pine, some nuts, huge washers, and a wing nut. Then I traced the bottom of the colander onto the pine, cut out two disks with a jigsaw, drilled a 5/16″ hole through the exact center of each disk and the colander itself, threaded the rod through, screwed a washer and nut onto one end and the wing nut onto the other. I then drilled a 1″ hole in a plastic oil-draining pan (Auto Zone, $2) and set the press into it. The idea is that the juice all flows out of the colander into the pan, and then neatly through the hole into your receptacle below.
It was modeled on something like this:
But hey, those puppies are $250, and where would I keep it? Yeah, mine is ghetto, but it comes apart for easy storage. And besides, it cost about $8 and 15 minutes. I can handle a little ghetto-rigging for a price like that.
I couldn’t figure out how to build a nice big handle like the one in the picture, so I’m just going to attach a wrench or pliers or something to the wing nut and use that for added leverage.
I still have to saw down the rod to a more manageable size – there’s no way I want to have to deal with screwing down the wing nut a foot or more with every load of apple pomace! -laugh- But once that’s done, I’m going to set about doing a test run. Wish me luck!
May 15th, 2011 at 12:59 am
So, how did this press work out?
I’ve been reading your older blog postings, and realize that we may know someone in common. Do you know Gina Denn from the world of Greenbelt ceramics? Reading your blog posts makes me smile, and miss places like G Street Fabrics and Sugarloaf Mountain.
May 15th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
I do know Gina! I actually managed the ceramics studio she worked at for a while! Everyone used to ask if we we were sisters, it was hilarious.
Actually, this fruit press worked out very well. After pressing the fruit’s still damp in the middle so it’s not a perfect solution (or maybe I need to eat more Twinkies), but it works better than the actual huge press we borrowed the next year which just ended up busting all the pillowcases we put our apple slush into. This one is tedious but I still use it for small batches.