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Cider Digest #1585
Subject: Cider Digest #1585, 5 October 2010
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1585 5 October 2010
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
On judging and being judged (Jay Hersh)
RE: Cider Digest #1584, 2 October 2010 ()
small cider pressing equipment ("Mark Parranto")
intermediate-size cider presses? (John Mott)
intermediate sized cider press (Richard Schoeler)
blooming apple trees ("Katie Algeo")
Intermediate-Size Cider Press ("cruise2")
Re: intermediate-size cider presses? (Claude Jolicoeur)
Re: Cider Digest #1584, 2 October 2010 (John Ray)
Re: "intermediate size" presses (Bill)
Re: Cider Digest #1584, 2 October 2010 (John Simmons)
Re: On judging and being judged... (Dick Dunn)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: On judging and being judged
From: Jay Hersh <jsh@doctorbeer.com>
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2010 12:22:29 -0400
>Subject: On judging and being judged...
>From: Donald Davenport <djdavenport@earthlink.net>
>Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:34:00 -0600
>
>More to the point: Several years ago, I posted on this very digest an
>annoyed little tirade about the state of judging at the New Mexico State
>
> How could the judging be so inept? They were a bunch of beer guys, so
> how could they
>possibly know and appreciate the nuances of skillfully made craft cider?
> Oh, the injustice. Oh, the humanity. And on and on it went.
>
>Fast forward to this year: I entered three styles.
>I was awarded a gold, a silver, a bronze and a best of show (cider.)
>
>Now, since I couldn't *possibly* have learned anything or gotten more skilled
>at cider-making in the intervening couple of years, I can only be astonished
>at how much better the level of judging has gotten in so short a time. <g>
Donald,
Congratulations on your victories!
If I recall correctly, at the time of your former ignominius finish and
subsequent comments aimed at improving the skills of judges I posted some
info in an attempt to explain the philosophy behind judge certification and
(from the perspective of a past compettion organizer) the challenges and
vagaries of organizing a homebrew competition. I also vaguely recall your
being somewhat gracious and appreciative of my perspective though I'm not
sure you were particularly moved by it at the time :-).
So it's nice to hear from you that those miscreant judges have finally
wised up and gotten with the program :-)
sincerely,
Jay Hersh
BJCP Grand Master Judge
Former BJCP Exam Administrator
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Cider Digest #1584, 2 October 2010
From: <dan@iabc-ins.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2010 09:48:01 -0700
Hello Folks,
I am a receipt of your Cider Digest and would like to know if you know other
cider makers in the San Francisco Bay Area I could collaborate and work with
to increase my cider making knowledge.
Respectfully,
DanThomas
dan@iabc-ins.com
650-292-5744
------------------------------
Subject: small cider pressing equipment
From: "Mark Parranto" <mparranto@frontiernet.net>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2010 11:54:49 -0500
I just received an advertisement in the mail for Midwest Homebrewing and
Winmaking Supplies. They offer a stainless steel apple grinder and a
bladder cider press geared for those who want to step up from the hand crank
presses, but don't want to get a commercial setup. The web site is
www.midwestsupplies.com
Mark Parranto
Applewood orchard, Inc.
------------------------------
Subject: intermediate-size cider presses?
From: John Mott <john@johnmott.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2010 14:31:02 -0400
Having investigated this question considerably myself, I think certainly one
viable alternative is an hydraulic shop press. There are models designed for
the home workshop that are very reasonably priced (e.g. www.northerntool.com).
It seems that some of these could be put to work pressing apples with little
or no modification. There are issues to consider: the rack size would have
to be matched to the capacity of the jack; and the longer the stroke length
the better.
A sometime contributor to this discussion group had a video on youtube of
his efforts in this direction, but I cannot seem to find it there now.
Recent discussions on the other cider group have suggested that a plain
sheet of plywood may be just as efficient as a traditional rack and that
press cloths can be made from inexpensive materials available at most fabric
shops.
John Mott
Kimberley, ON
------------------------------
Subject: intermediate sized cider press
From: Richard Schoeler <rcschoeler@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2010 12:03:17 -0700 (PDT)
Having ventured into cider making recently I looked around and could not find
anything commercially available in this category. I actually wanted something
traditional anyway and am handy with wood tools so ended up constructing a
wooden press out of 4" x 4" rough sawn green oak using the Agriculture Canada
Booklet # 1406 plan (http://www.cider.org.uk/press.htm) as a guide. My main
top beam is actually of 6" x 8". The opening of the press frame is 18" x 32"
and is made for 14" square racks. (A 20" or 22" wide opening would have been
fine but I was worried about the beam loads being too much) I make 2" thick
cheeses and can stack 10 of them, each yielding 1 gallon of juice. I'm getting
63% yield by weight with a 15 ton bottle jack (150 psi). Cost including the
jack was under $200 US, plus a weekend worth of work. Something equivalent
commercially is pushing $1000 and is a general purpose shop press that needs to
be adapted to cider making.
I have seen people using flat round pieces of plywood and shear curtain
material to make layers in basket presses to try to increase yield and make
pressed cake handling more manageable.
Richard S.
------------------------------
Subject: blooming apple trees
From: "Katie Algeo" <katie.algeo@wku.edu>
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2010 18:00:57 -0500
Here in south central Kentucky, we had a week of coolish weather
(nothing extreme), followed by a bit of Indian summer. Now three of my
varietals are blooming - Golden Russet, Liberty & King David. How
strange is that? These are 6-year old trees. Is there something I can
do to prevent this fall bloom? These guys are going to get clobbered in
a month or so.
Thanks,
Katie
------------------------------
Subject: Intermediate-Size Cider Press
From: "cruise2" <cruise2@comcast.net>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2010 16:28:54 -0700
Like Dick Dunn, I too had a Correll basket press and wanted to step up
in volume, efficiency, and ease of use. After searching the marketplace,
I decided that I would need to build a press myself.
I designed and built a 17" x 17", electric powered, hydraulic rack and
cloth press, which can handle up to 10 "cheeses" at a time. Depending on
apple variety and grinder efficiency, the yield varies from 7 to 10 gallons
per pressing.
As Dick mentioned, some engineering and shop skills were required, and
materials cost alone was several thousand dollars. However, it works great,
and is a large step up.
Gene Davis
Auburn, WA., USA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: intermediate-size cider presses?
From: Claude Jolicoeur <cjoli@gmc.ulaval.ca>
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 13:19:10 -0400
In Cider Digest #1584, 2 October 2010:
>Subject: intermediate-size cider presses?
>From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
>Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:36:39 -0600
>
>But if one wants to move up to a pack press or similar for improved
>efficiency, and also move up a little in capacity, there doesn't seem
>to be any commercial product until the many-thousands-of-dollars bracket.
Dick,
Have you looked at the water presses? The smaller Lancman press, with a 4.5
bu capacity sells for 1635$ at OESCO.
https://www.oescoinc.com/lancman-water-operated-press-p-4292.html
I have seen it at work last year at CiderDays and it seems pretty good. And
I know one guy who bought it last year and is very pleased with it. You
need to have good water pressure however, and it uses the same amount of
water as there is juice produced...
Claude
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1584, 2 October 2010
From: John Ray <John.Ray@colostate.edu>
Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2010 19:47:17 -0600
On 10/2/2010 9:43 AM, cider-request@talisman.com wrote:
> intermediate-size cider presses?
This season I decided to ramp up production since it was such a good
year for apples in the Fort Collins area. I purchased a McCulloch
MCS2001 14 amp chipper/shredder and cut out a rubber gasket to minimize
leaks. I found an "H"-frame 20 ton hydraulic shop press on CraigsList
for $100. Harbor freight sells one for $200. This along with the inside
shelf from an old AV cart as a drip tray, a couple of diamond plate
steel pieces for bottom and top press plates, some thick synthetic duck
cloth fabric and some perforated stainless steel racks (I have about a
hundred more) that I had stuffed away in the garage for just this
purpose years ago, which by the way totally impressed my wife with my
forward thinking (packrat) mentality, was all I needed to grind and
press until is was sick of it. I'm grinding about 25 gallons of loose
apples into 15 gal Rubbermaid totes which makes 5 nice layers in the
"cheese" which gives me about 8ish gallons of juice. Not the greatest
efficiency, but at least a couple of orders of magnitude improvement
over the kitchen food processor and hand squeezed cheesecloth method.
Every carboy is full along with a 55 gallon drum I picked up for
$10....Now if only I could figure out what to do with it all. Somebody
ask me about the still.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: "intermediate size" presses
From: Bill <squeeze@mars.ark.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2010 06:51:17 -0700
Dick, home made or expensive are the alternatives, particularly as rack
and cloth pressing is very labor intensive and most folks looking for
larger scale production want something operable by minions, there just
isn't the market to entice anyone into producing such a specialty
machine. For the range of modern alternatives
<http://www.goodnature.com/Juice_Equipment/Juice_Presses/> seems to be
it. There's also the possibility of finding used:
<http://www.cidermillsupplies.com/used/> or you might find someone to
contract building something to your design.
Bill <http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze>
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1584, 2 October 2010
From: John Simmons <32bituser@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2010 11:12:55 -0400
Addressing the specific question below, I was looking for better efficiency
with the press I had, and simply went to making cheeses in my existing
basket. You can see it in the video link below. I went with four layers,
and, I find that each layer is MUCH drier after the pressing. This, even
with the tiny little acme screw on my very old press. I would say that it
works as I had hoped, and, a full 5 gallon pail is the perfect size to
divide into the four cheeses.
Sorry for the unspectacular video quality, this is a very early video in my
YouTube 'career'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuaT3ZhAPNM
If I do not go with a new press frame (which I VERY much want to do, except
for the cost), probably the next modification I will make is to pull out the
1" acme screw and go with a 1.5 inch. That would cost about $200, verses 6
or 7 hundred for a new press.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuaT3ZhAPNM>John Simmons
On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 11:43 AM, <cider-request@talisman.com> wrote:
> Subject: intermediate-size cider presses?
> From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
> Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:36:39 -0600
>
> But for folks without a workshop and/or shop experience...or even folks who
> need a better press but don't have the time to build it...what are they
> doing instead?
------------------------------
Subject: Re: On judging and being judged...
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2010 09:58:13 -0600
Donald Davenport wrote about his wins at New Mexico State Fair this year
compared to no wins two years back and how he grumbled at the judging...
with a wink:
> Now, since I couldn't *possibly* have learned anything or gotten more
> skilled at cider-making in the intervening couple of years, I can only
> be astonished at how much better the level of judging has gotten in so
> short a time. <g>
Don't be too hard on yourself, Donald. Sure, you've gotten a lot better
with two more years of experience...but likely so has the judging! The
state of cider judging in the US was in pretty sad shape for a long time.
As recently as three years ago, the winner of a national competition
boasted in writing of having a Brettanomyces contamination to give his
cider its character. However, the BJCP got serious about cider and they
have really made a lot of progress in the judging.
So figure you're making progress but so is the judging. And congrats on
your medals.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1585
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