Fruit Forum has received the following requests for supplies of crab apple juice and an apple crusher and will be happy to pass on information.
I am interested in purchasing crab apple juice for jelly making.
Yvonne Abercrombie
A neighbour and I have just started making cider from our various apple trees. We have used a Pulpmaster which works well, but not for volume, and I was wondering if anyone may know of a secondhand fruit crusher for sale?
Mark Taylor
A new insinkerator can be had for approx £ 75 on ebay . It will sit in a simple 50mm x 50mm wooden box frame. A simple funnel can be made out of a 30 cm polythene bowl with suitable sized hole cut in bottom. The bowl is suspended in a circular hole cut in plywood at top of frame. Such a device will turn a bucket full of quartered apples into apple sauce texture in under 5 minutes but will then need to cool off while cutting up another bucket load. A thermal cutout is provided. The insinkerator can be easily dismantled for cleaning but a quick jet of water into the funnel clears most bits between runs. Greenhouse shading or nylon curtain is used in a rack and cloth press made from a standard garage shop hydraulic press 20 ton pressure for £125 again off ebay. The press plate is made from two 14inch squares of 3/4 inch ply epoxied together. The press and tray are best waterproofed by using a mix of 50:50 heavily catalized fibreglass layup resin in acetone to give good penetration.
We turn most of our apples into juice, but we couldn’t find a decent crusher. Now, when the apples are harvested they are washed and quartered (to check for bruises and mould) and then frozen.
Days or weeks later they are thawed in cold water and squeezed for juice immediately. I suspect (but can’t prove) that we get more juice this way.
The residue pulp is firm and almost dry. The chickens convert it into eggs and manure.