We have a few acres of fruit trees at home so making cider was a good way to use the fruit available. Cider equipment can be quite expensive so I looked at making my own. Cider press by nature are not overly complex machines. Several good ideas can be found searching the Internet and YouTube.Today inexpensive hydraulic bottle jacks replace the inefficient Acme screw type presses.
This machine has pressed countless gallons of apple cider. But the apple press is only a part of the required equipment. The apples need to be chipped or pulverized before pressing. Some amazing home chippers can be found on the net. I decided to use a new 3/4 HP garbage disposal. Folks have been using these for a few years now. However they are not designed for continuous duty. Most of the time just a few minutes of grinding in the kitchen is all the work they see. Chopping apples continuously will over heat the stock motor quickly. I have seen where people use fans blowing air on the motor or tapping a air fitting in the motor and using a slow stream of compressed air to keep the motor cool. I did it a bit different. Water cool the motor. Water is efficient in carrying away heat. In practice it works remarkably well. After hours of use I can feel almost no extra heat.
Cutting and pressing apples can be messy so we prefer to work outside or in the garage. I made a movable 2*8 foot table to prep and grind the apples. I ended up using a set of wheels on one end so I can move the table alone ;-) A garden hose with a Y adaptor provides water for the sink and the copper cooling coil on the disposal. All that is needed for the cooling coil is a tiny trickle of water. The drains are just flexible sump pump hose run out in the yard.
Press in action.
Fresh pressed minutes old apple cider is undeniably delicious! For me a 5 gallon pail of apples works out to about 2-3 gallons of cider.
Apples store best around 32 degrees. I store apples inside a chest freezer with a special thermostat to keep the apples around 35 degrees. I can open the freezer in Late February and retrieve decent apples for cooking. We only use this freezer to store apples, and it works very good for keeping apples long term. Midwestsupplies.com carries such thermostats.