7 ms·

A partially-automated medium-throughput homemade cider press with lasers

121 points by biotinker 5y ago

schoen 5y ago
I was hoping from the title that the lasers would somehow directly contribute to the extraction of the cider, but it turns out that they're just used as optical sensors. :-) That doesn't take anything away from this awesome project, though.
- biotinker 5y ago
  Hopefully by next year I'll have implemented the pulsed electrical field generator I mention at the end, and then I'll very much have solid-state electronics directly contributing to cider extraction.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  From the intro, I thought they used lasers to replace the 'slicing' step. I'm fairly sure that strength laser falls into military grade though.
unwind 5y ago
Cool project, made me very thirsty and in the mood for eating an apple. Or three. Stupid question from a non-native speaker: what is the difference between apple juice and apple cider? In my mind, you ferment juice to make cider, but the article calls the initial raw liquid coming straight out of the press "cider".
- elemeno 5y ago
  It's an americanism as far as I can tell - 'cider' is what would be called apple juice in the UK (or maybe just fresh pressed apple juice) and 'hard cider' is what would be called 'cider' in the UK (i.e. the alcoholic beverage).
- timlyo 5y ago
  That's correct in the most of the English speaking world, apple juice is what it sounds like, cider is fermented apple juice (as far as I'm aware, it is in the UK). In American English cider is apple juice, and hard cider is fermented, alcoholic apple juice.
  - mcdonje 5y ago
    Correct that we call it hard cider if it's fermented. For non-fermented, we draw a distinction between apple juice and cider. Best explained by Flanders: https://youtu.be/L1BfF77Pvio?t=15 https://youtu.be/L1BfF77Pvio?t=15
- definitelyhuman 5y ago
  Good question! Cider is unfiltered and cloudy, and gets a rich brown colour from the pulp sediment. Apple juice is totally clear, and has been strained of all sediment. As others mention hard cider is alcoholic, but most people just overload and use cider, and distinguish by context - which isn’t helpful. You can make hard cider from juice or cider, the flavour will differ, but it the name. However, most commercial cider is just flavoured malt liquor - which also gets the same name, so ingredient checking is important!
  - messe 5y ago
    It also depends where in the world you are. Cider, in the UK and Ireland, is never anything but a fermented alcoholic drink.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    This is a USA perspective. Cloudy apple juice is referred to in the UK, and most places apart from the USA, as "cloudy apple juice". Cloudy fermented apple juice is referred to in the UK as "scrumpy" or "scrumpy cider". It's mainly made in Herefordshire and the West Country, and it can be surprisingly strong; in many West Country pubs, they won't let you order a pint of scrumpy, they'll limit it to half-a-pint, unless you are known (or have a local accent). I have heard, but I don't know, that it was customary to chuck an iron ploughshare into the cider fermenting vat; it would completely disappear by the end of fermentation. I have heard a similar tale about throwing in a horse's head - nothing left, dissolves completely. I'm sure they don't use these adulterants in the production of commercial "hobo cider", such as White Lightning. But vegan "ciderpunks" should maybe ask questions about the scrumpy they are ordering.
    - biotinker 5y ago
      > customary to chuck an iron ploughshare into the cider fermenting vat; it would completely disappear by the end of fermentation. I have trouble believing that this was customary. It's absolutely the case that iron will dissolve in a large vat of fermenting apple cider, but the result will be a cider with some very odd and unpleasant colors and flavors. Not something that someone would want to induce intentionally. Most cidermaking books will instruct one to keep the cider from any contact with any iron, copper, or lead as all three will readily dissolve.
wrycoder 5y ago
Apparently, subjecting pomace to a high voltage pulsed electrical field (30kV, 40us and 1kHz duration and frequency) will crack open intact cell walls and improve yields (archive) for both the tannin compounds in the juice, and also juice quantity in general. If anyone has ideas on how to home-build such a system, please reach out. I think I'll stick to the old-fashioned way....
- Arrath 5y ago
  I must say I do enjoy the mental image of a mad scientist throwing a big old blade switch and browning out the neighborhood to....make cider.
  - socceroos 5y ago
    Reminds me of that scene from Young Einstein.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sp332 5y ago
I bet if you call up Information Unlimited, they'd sell you what you need for a DIY pulsed electrical field generator. https://www.amazing1.com/pages/megawatt-pulsers/high-energy-power-of-the-pulse-5kv-and-10kv-multi-megawatt-pulser-series.html https://www.amazing1.com/pages/megawatt-pulsers/high-energy-...
- Wistar 5y ago
  Wow! Very cool site and products.
- biotinker 5y ago
  This looks very promising, thanks! I sent them an email. I've never worked with anything higher voltage than 240V before, so having people with experience to whom I can ask questions will be very helpful. If it was 5v pulses, I could just PWM a mosfet, but up that voltage 5000x and all I would have is a lot of smoke.
mespe 5y ago
Fun project. You might be interested in belt presses - they can be hooked directly to the grinder reducing the time (and labor) of moving the pulp to the press. They also allow the whole process to run continuously. Examples: https://www.vigoltd.com/AdditionalDepartments/Processes/Apple-Juice/Apple-presses/Belt-presses https://www.vigoltd.com/AdditionalDepartments/Processes/Appl... https://www.cellartek.com/products/belt-press-ebp-500/ https://www.cellartek.com/products/belt-press-ebp-500/
- biotinker 5y ago
  Just finished looking into these more. While they seem really neat, even if I home-built one it would be way out of my price range. Just the filter belts alone would cost more than this entire project did.
- biotinker 5y ago
  These are neat! I've been vaguely aware of them, but never looked into them too much. It's hard to find DIY plans online for that sort of thing, and I'm not sure I'd be able design my own from scratch well enough to be worthwhile.
  - burning_hamster 5y ago
    In a similar vein, swap out the grinder for a shredder/wood chipper-type model. You will no longer have to cut the apples open, and you can fill it by the bucket rather than one-by-one. Much higher throughput.
    - biotinker 5y ago
      To clarify, with the grinder I built described in the post, I did not have to cut open apples by hand any longer. It could shred apples as quickly as apples could be put on the ramp.
Timothy968 5y ago
I highly appreciate your hard-working skills as the post you published has some great information which is quite beneficial for me. https://www.tellhappystar.net/ https://www.tellhappystar.net/
gorgoiler 5y ago
Brilliant. I could never avoid the metallic taste when I’ve pressed apples (on a much smaller and way more amateurish scale.) I’ve always felt a bit cursed — like it’s impossible for me to press apples without introducing some kind of fault / taint. I vicariously celebrate this project instead :)
- biotinker 5y ago
  The acid in cider will aggressively dissolve any iron or copper it comes into contact with, giving it a blue/green color and corresponding taste. One thing I ran into with my old press was some paint finish flaking off, exposing the iron beneath- is it possible that you had something similar, allowing inadvertent iron exposure? For this project, every single screw or sheet of metal that touched the cider is made from food-grade stainless steel to prevent this issue.
PaulHoule 5y ago
There was that fall that I made a lot of alcoholic cider and then that December I drank enough of it to get a little bit dependent on it.
denton-scratch 5y ago
For UK readers: USAians use the term "cider" to refer to what UKians call "apple juice". What we refer to as "cider", they refer to as "hard cider". I have no idea what term USAians would use for spirits distilled from apple liquor, e.g. Calvados; or fortified cider, such as apfelkorn. I would be interested to learn. I've never seen apfelkorn for sale in the UK, and Calvados is only available from specialist merchants. I don't know why UK apple producers don't make these strong apple drinks; it's not as if we don't grow enough apples here. @schoen: Um yes, it's the "lasers" bit that dragged me to the article; that was clickbait. It's just about making fermented apple-juice at home. Which is not that hard; it will ferment all on it's own, you don't need to add yeast or anything. Cider is the natural end-state for apples. There was a young lady from Clyde Who ate a bad apple, and died. The apple fermented Inside the lamented And made cider inside her inside.
- JimiofEden 5y ago
  In my experience, cider is a bit contextual. I've heard and used it to mean both alcoholic and non alcoholic cider. But usually people default to mean a non filtered apple juice like you said. (Since we also have apple juice, but it's hard to think of it as anything other than super processed sugary drink) Apple liquor/cordials are usually called just that, or more specific depending on the type of liquor (i.e., my family keeps a bottle of Apple flavored whiskey) Things like apfelkorn probably just get wrapped up in the catch-all term schnapps, if not one of the above terms
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Yes, schnapps. "Apfelkorn" isn't actually schnapps, by my lexicon. I thought schnapps was basically synonymous with "obstler" - a clear, white spirit distilled from fermented fruit. I think of Himbeergeist, or Poire Willem. In Germany, it is legal to set-up a garden still, and make your own fruit spirits, without a licence; and that stuff can be very strong - much stronger than say a whisky at the bar. I've had this stuff served to me from a plastic watering can. I believe apfelkorn is basically apple juice fortified with grain spirit (vodka, essentially). I think in some parts of Germany, it's customary to drop a shot-glass of apfelkorn into a litre-glass of pilsner (people do this with Jagermeister, for reasons I don't understand at all - why mix nice pilsner with nasty cough-mixture?) There are sweet alcoholic products that are labelled "schnapps" that are more like fortified wine than spirits.
foxhop 5y ago
Not the OP but, If you want to try out just the fermentation process, check out my series I did here: https://youtu.be/0hnfhlurS90 https://youtu.be/0hnfhlurS90
jaydepun 5y ago
You might be interested in different fermentation processes. A friend of mine has wild fermented, at pressure and low temperature (55F I think), a mix of Mac and Ida Red that ended up tasting delicious. He chucked in about half the campden tablets you'd need at his volume to leave some natural yeasts. The cider started off tasting sweet and being a good competitor for a Magners, and eventually became this very clear/tart flavor. He uses a fancy and expensive SS Brewtech vessel and glycol chiller. I'm interested in duplicating some of this process using cornelius (corny) kegs with a spunding valve and possibly a used mini-fridge or basement for temperature control.

121 points by biotinker 5y ago

I was hoping from the title that the lasers would somehow directly contribute to the extraction of the cider, but it turns out that they're just used as optical sensors. :-) That doesn't take anything away from this awesome project, though.

biotinker 5y ago
Hopefully by next year I'll have implemented the pulsed electrical field generator I mention at the end, and then I'll very much have solid-state electronics directly contributing to cider extraction.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
From the intro, I thought they used lasers to replace the 'slicing' step. I'm fairly sure that strength laser falls into military grade though.

unwind 5y ago

Cool project, made me very thirsty and in the mood for eating an apple. Or three. Stupid question from a non-native speaker: what is the difference between apple juice and apple cider? In my mind, you ferment juice to make cider, but the article calls the initial raw liquid coming straight out of the press "cider".

elemeno 5y ago
It's an americanism as far as I can tell - 'cider' is what would be called apple juice in the UK (or maybe just fresh pressed apple juice) and 'hard cider' is what would be called 'cider' in the UK (i.e. the alcoholic beverage).
timlyo 5y ago
That's correct in the most of the English speaking world, apple juice is what it sounds like, cider is fermented apple juice (as far as I'm aware, it is in the UK). In American English cider is apple juice, and hard cider is fermented, alcoholic apple juice.
- mcdonje 5y ago
  Correct that we call it hard cider if it's fermented. For non-fermented, we draw a distinction between apple juice and cider. Best explained by Flanders: https://youtu.be/L1BfF77Pvio?t=15 https://youtu.be/L1BfF77Pvio?t=15
definitelyhuman 5y ago
Good question! Cider is unfiltered and cloudy, and gets a rich brown colour from the pulp sediment. Apple juice is totally clear, and has been strained of all sediment. As others mention hard cider is alcoholic, but most people just overload and use cider, and distinguish by context - which isn’t helpful. You can make hard cider from juice or cider, the flavour will differ, but it the name. However, most commercial cider is just flavoured malt liquor - which also gets the same name, so ingredient checking is important!
- messe 5y ago
  It also depends where in the world you are. Cider, in the UK and Ireland, is never anything but a fermented alcoholic drink.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  This is a USA perspective. Cloudy apple juice is referred to in the UK, and most places apart from the USA, as "cloudy apple juice". Cloudy fermented apple juice is referred to in the UK as "scrumpy" or "scrumpy cider". It's mainly made in Herefordshire and the West Country, and it can be surprisingly strong; in many West Country pubs, they won't let you order a pint of scrumpy, they'll limit it to half-a-pint, unless you are known (or have a local accent). I have heard, but I don't know, that it was customary to chuck an iron ploughshare into the cider fermenting vat; it would completely disappear by the end of fermentation. I have heard a similar tale about throwing in a horse's head - nothing left, dissolves completely. I'm sure they don't use these adulterants in the production of commercial "hobo cider", such as White Lightning. But vegan "ciderpunks" should maybe ask questions about the scrumpy they are ordering.
  - biotinker 5y ago
    > customary to chuck an iron ploughshare into the cider fermenting vat; it would completely disappear by the end of fermentation. I have trouble believing that this was customary. It's absolutely the case that iron will dissolve in a large vat of fermenting apple cider, but the result will be a cider with some very odd and unpleasant colors and flavors. Not something that someone would want to induce intentionally. Most cidermaking books will instruct one to keep the cider from any contact with any iron, copper, or lead as all three will readily dissolve.

wrycoder 5y ago

Apparently, subjecting pomace to a high voltage pulsed electrical field (30kV, 40us and 1kHz duration and frequency) will crack open intact cell walls and improve yields (archive) for both the tannin compounds in the juice, and also juice quantity in general. If anyone has ideas on how to home-build such a system, please reach out. I think I'll stick to the old-fashioned way....

Arrath 5y ago
I must say I do enjoy the mental image of a mad scientist throwing a big old blade switch and browning out the neighborhood to....make cider.
- socceroos 5y ago
  Reminds me of that scene from Young Einstein.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sp332 5y ago

I bet if you call up Information Unlimited, they'd sell you what you need for a DIY pulsed electrical field generator. https://www.amazing1.com/pages/megawatt-pulsers/high-energy-power-of-the-pulse-5kv-and-10kv-multi-megawatt-pulser-series.html https://www.amazing1.com/pages/megawatt-pulsers/high-energy-...

Wistar 5y ago
Wow! Very cool site and products.
biotinker 5y ago
This looks very promising, thanks! I sent them an email. I've never worked with anything higher voltage than 240V before, so having people with experience to whom I can ask questions will be very helpful. If it was 5v pulses, I could just PWM a mosfet, but up that voltage 5000x and all I would have is a lot of smoke.

mespe 5y ago

Fun project. You might be interested in belt presses - they can be hooked directly to the grinder reducing the time (and labor) of moving the pulp to the press. They also allow the whole process to run continuously. Examples: https://www.vigoltd.com/AdditionalDepartments/Processes/Apple-Juice/Apple-presses/Belt-presses https://www.vigoltd.com/AdditionalDepartments/Processes/Appl... https://www.cellartek.com/products/belt-press-ebp-500/ https://www.cellartek.com/products/belt-press-ebp-500/

biotinker 5y ago
Just finished looking into these more. While they seem really neat, even if I home-built one it would be way out of my price range. Just the filter belts alone would cost more than this entire project did.
biotinker 5y ago
These are neat! I've been vaguely aware of them, but never looked into them too much. It's hard to find DIY plans online for that sort of thing, and I'm not sure I'd be able design my own from scratch well enough to be worthwhile.
- burning_hamster 5y ago
  In a similar vein, swap out the grinder for a shredder/wood chipper-type model. You will no longer have to cut the apples open, and you can fill it by the bucket rather than one-by-one. Much higher throughput.
  - biotinker 5y ago
    To clarify, with the grinder I built described in the post, I did not have to cut open apples by hand any longer. It could shred apples as quickly as apples could be put on the ramp.

Timothy968 5y ago

I highly appreciate your hard-working skills as the post you published has some great information which is quite beneficial for me. https://www.tellhappystar.net/ https://www.tellhappystar.net/

gorgoiler 5y ago

Brilliant. I could never avoid the metallic taste when I’ve pressed apples (on a much smaller and way more amateurish scale.) I’ve always felt a bit cursed — like it’s impossible for me to press apples without introducing some kind of fault / taint. I vicariously celebrate this project instead :)

biotinker 5y ago
The acid in cider will aggressively dissolve any iron or copper it comes into contact with, giving it a blue/green color and corresponding taste. One thing I ran into with my old press was some paint finish flaking off, exposing the iron beneath- is it possible that you had something similar, allowing inadvertent iron exposure? For this project, every single screw or sheet of metal that touched the cider is made from food-grade stainless steel to prevent this issue.

PaulHoule 5y ago

There was that fall that I made a lot of alcoholic cider and then that December I drank enough of it to get a little bit dependent on it.

denton-scratch 5y ago

For UK readers: USAians use the term "cider" to refer to what UKians call "apple juice". What we refer to as "cider", they refer to as "hard cider". I have no idea what term USAians would use for spirits distilled from apple liquor, e.g. Calvados; or fortified cider, such as apfelkorn. I would be interested to learn. I've never seen apfelkorn for sale in the UK, and Calvados is only available from specialist merchants. I don't know why UK apple producers don't make these strong apple drinks; it's not as if we don't grow enough apples here. @schoen: Um yes, it's the "lasers" bit that dragged me to the article; that was clickbait. It's just about making fermented apple-juice at home. Which is not that hard; it will ferment all on it's own, you don't need to add yeast or anything. Cider is the natural end-state for apples. There was a young lady from Clyde Who ate a bad apple, and died. The apple fermented Inside the lamented And made cider inside her inside.

JimiofEden 5y ago
In my experience, cider is a bit contextual. I've heard and used it to mean both alcoholic and non alcoholic cider. But usually people default to mean a non filtered apple juice like you said. (Since we also have apple juice, but it's hard to think of it as anything other than super processed sugary drink) Apple liquor/cordials are usually called just that, or more specific depending on the type of liquor (i.e., my family keeps a bottle of Apple flavored whiskey) Things like apfelkorn probably just get wrapped up in the catch-all term schnapps, if not one of the above terms
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Yes, schnapps. "Apfelkorn" isn't actually schnapps, by my lexicon. I thought schnapps was basically synonymous with "obstler" - a clear, white spirit distilled from fermented fruit. I think of Himbeergeist, or Poire Willem. In Germany, it is legal to set-up a garden still, and make your own fruit spirits, without a licence; and that stuff can be very strong - much stronger than say a whisky at the bar. I've had this stuff served to me from a plastic watering can. I believe apfelkorn is basically apple juice fortified with grain spirit (vodka, essentially). I think in some parts of Germany, it's customary to drop a shot-glass of apfelkorn into a litre-glass of pilsner (people do this with Jagermeister, for reasons I don't understand at all - why mix nice pilsner with nasty cough-mixture?) There are sweet alcoholic products that are labelled "schnapps" that are more like fortified wine than spirits.

foxhop 5y ago

Not the OP but, If you want to try out just the fermentation process, check out my series I did here: https://youtu.be/0hnfhlurS90 https://youtu.be/0hnfhlurS90

jaydepun 5y ago

You might be interested in different fermentation processes. A friend of mine has wild fermented, at pressure and low temperature (55F I think), a mix of Mac and Ida Red that ended up tasting delicious. He chucked in about half the campden tablets you'd need at his volume to leave some natural yeasts. The cider started off tasting sweet and being a good competitor for a Magners, and eventually became this very clear/tart flavor. He uses a fancy and expensive SS Brewtech vessel and glycol chiller. I'm interested in duplicating some of this process using cornelius (corny) kegs with a spunding valve and possibly a used mini-fridge or basement for temperature control.