Apples/Cider

[doc623]

Am considering taking some apples to a local press to have cider made.
I know that there are probably a lot of variables, i.e, type and size of apple; the growing year; the variety of apple; and etc.
However, does anyone have any idea of how much cider I can expect per bushel of apples?

[garyinmississip]

According to this site:

http://www.mass.gov/agr/massgrown/ci...difference.htm

it takes about 1/3 bushel to make one gallon of cider.

[doc623]

Thanks for the reply.

[dogrunner]

We get about 5 gallons per bushel at the orchard we do pressings at.

[KIT.S]

I'm sorry, I don't know how much a bushel is. I measure by 4-gallon buckets, as that is what I have. The second pressing of this year, I had about 24 4-gallon buckets of apples and got 71 quarts of canned juice, 5 gallons for wine and 3 gallons for vinegar. So that's about 26 gallons of juice from 100 gallons of apples. The press my son set up using a Harbor Freight 12-ton hydraulic press did such a good job that we had only 5 4-gallon buckets of pressed leftovers that the sheep and pigs ate.
Does the local press seal the containers for you? How much do they charge? New, the HF hydraulic press cost $109, and I use a clean back yard chipper-shredder to shred the apples into pommace. I've used this setup for 3 years now and am very happy with it. We picked up some pommace for the pigs, from a local farmer who had an apple-juice party, and used one of those beautiful oak juice pressers with the turn-handle, etc, and their leftovers were still juicy! Mine does a much better job.
Kit

[ryanthomas]

I get about 3-4 gallons per bushel.

[Old Vet]

You will get less than you expect and more than if you pressed it your self.

[dogrunner]

Our orchard calls two 5 gallon buckets a bushel. We end up paying $1.60/gallon. Fair price we think.

[sugarspinner]

We use an antique cider press that presses the apples fairly dry - too dry to use for anything afterward. We figure 3 gallons per bushel but sometimes more. We always make sure to use a good mixture of varieties to balance the sweet, tart, bland, etc. We always figure cider with winesaps and golden delicious plus another variety or so, can't go wrong.