Fruit Press 5 Gallon + Wood Basket

Have used this cider press 4 days, have a lot more to do. I love it. The barrel isn't attached so it kinda fits in my sink for washing it after using it. The stainless steel pan isn't attached, so again I can wash it in my kitchen sink. I bought a cider press mesh sack that fits inside the barrel, this works very good. After our daily 3 hour apple cider pressing I wash it in the kitchen sink and let it dry over night. It squeezes the chopped up apples as hard as I can turn it. 2 pressed barrels of apples is a gallon of cider. It is made very sturdy to handle the pressure of the press. The middle screw goes up and down freely. So over all like this press.

What a great option over the presses that have the fixed screw in the center. This press is easy to load, clean, and move since it comes apart so easily. My only concern is that it is a little low to the ground, so you will need to use a shorter catch basin. The stainless steel base is also a great idea, no worries with paint chips or rust in your juice. When you get it mount it to a better and larger piece of plywood, and go to town with it. We pressed apples in it, from the westin grinder, and it did a great job. Highly recommend.

I just successfully made apple cider with it, and will be making wine in a couple of weeks. The equipment worked very well. My only reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is that the bolts on the sides tend to get loose quickly. It's not the end of the world because you can re-tighten. Nonetheless, it's a drawback. The other drawback is that when you swing the top to the side to drop in your new load (which is actually a great feature), you risk overturning the unit; so be careful. If you have the press bolted to something (even if it's some boards), the problem goes away. For the price and the use, I'm very happy with it.

I bought this screw press after reading favorable reviews. I want to put forth a straight forward assessment of the unit. I process around 75 gallons of apple juice a year. I have been using a sanitized mop bucket and cheese cloth and wanted to move up to the next level for faster processing. This was not the upgrade I was hoping for. The first issue is that you need a cheese cloth for this unit. It does not come with any and you will need to make a trip to a supply store or order some. So it is not ready for use out of the box. Once I began pressing it was obvious this press has an issue with blow by of the pomace and cheese cloth as shown in picture. The red oval press leaves about 1/8 of a gap to the press wall and the material blows out the top. I had to fabricate a secondary oval out of plywood with tighter tolerances. That only moved the bow by to the bottom of the press. So I had to insert wood blocks on the top to hold down the wood retaining basket. The next issue is the drain spout. At low flow levels the spout has surface tension issues and the juice flows backwards under the unit. A better design would be a catch pan with a spout. I tried tilting the unit but it did not help. The after all this experimenting I finally used the press all day to do 15 gallons. However, the pomace was still wet after pressing and was still able to collect about 10% more juice from my mop press. I would not buy this style of press again.

A great piece of equipment. Rugged and heavy, very well constructed, with that "old-fashioned" toughness that assures years of use. Pressed 6 quarts of cider out of 5 gallons of apple mash, for total of 22 gallons of cider. Used 5 gallon paint strainer bags to filter out pulp as we pressed. 7 year old granddaughter worked the press with ease.

Pressed out a couple of bushels of apples. Works fine, Took a bit but I got a system down that made the process easy. Everything cleans up easy as well.

Worked go for me made 5 gallons of hard cider

Great product. Can't wait to put it to hard use next year. Prompt delivery.