I am starting to realize that not having a press is costing me money,
almost a gallon of usable juice is left in the pomace for each box of
grapes after extraction by my current method- squeezing the grapes by
hand in a nylon laundry sack. Unfortunately, a decent press at the local
wine shop runs about $350 or so for a screw type model that can handle a
box of grapes at a time, so I am looking for less costly alternatives,
even if it means doing some welding and other fabrication work.

A couple of ideas:

Build my own press roughly modeled after the classic screw press,
possibly using an automotive hydraulic jack to provide the necessary
force. Pros: Should be able to generate adequate force. Cons: Lot of
fabrication work, possible leakage of hydraulic fluid which could spoil
the wine.

Another:

Buy a used washing machine for $50 somewhere, clean out the inner and
outer tubs and pump assembly, or even bypass a nonfunctional pump with a
hose going to a collection vessel on the floor. Just put the must or
pomace in a mesh bag and set the spin cycle. Pros: Cheap and fairly
easy. Cons: Bulky and its unknown how well they really work.

I could always keep an eye out on Ebay or Craigslist for a bargain as
well, but this is high season for that kind of stuff.

ewww.

Why not just get a plastic milk crate and an appropriate sized piece of
plywood. Put the grapes in your bag, but it in the crate and then pile
about 100 lbs of bricks on the piece of wood.

I think that idea is from Lum Eisenman's book.

Droopy wrote:
> ewww.
>
> Why not just get a plastic milk crate and an appropriate sized piece of
> plywood. Put the grapes in your bag, but it in the crate and then pile
> about 100 lbs of bricks on the piece of wood.
>
> I think that idea is from Lum Eisenman's book.
>
Not sure the bricks would be enough ... unless they were lead. I figure
a decent screw type wine press can generate a couple of tons of force -
about 40 PSI on a pressed area about 10 by 10 inches. Now, perhaps take
that same milk crate and get one of those hydraulic arbor presses from
Harbor Freight and you might have something. In the off-season it can
serve its intended use in my garage. The worm is turning!

If you wanted to use a hydraulic jack, it'd be rather easy to set it up so
that it can't leak(not that I think tha'ts a rela concern, any decent, new
bottle jack probably shouldn't be leaking) into the juice. I'd use a metal
plate(nothing special, 1/16" al/zinc/steel, just to give a base to seal too)
between jack and what it's pressing on(Be that steel, plywood, whatever),
then use some rtv silicone, or better yet, some bondo/glass(bear in mind,
this comes nowhere near the actual fruit), make a slightly bowl shaped
sealed surface around/encasing the jack.

Just an idea off top of my head, lots of solutions, but if you did want to
use a bottle jack, no reason no to do it. Know guys who've made pin
"peening" presses for knifemaking with bottle jacks, and some of them are
working with things like presentation grade ironwood, etc, that would put
you out a lot more money than most small-medium size batches of grapes if
the wood was contaminated, and they have no worries about it.

Sadly, not a setup I ever got around to making myself, and taking a break
from knifemaking.

Joel

"Bruce_Nolte_N3LSY&" > wrote in message
...
> Droopy wrote:
>> ewww.
>>
>> Why not just get a plastic milk crate and an appropriate sized piece of
>> plywood. Put the grapes in your bag, but it in the crate and then pile
>> about 100 lbs of bricks on the piece of wood.
>> I think that idea is from Lum Eisenman's book.
>>
> Not sure the bricks would be enough ... unless they were lead. I figure a
> decent screw type wine press can generate a couple of tons of force -
> about 40 PSI on a pressed area about 10 by 10 inches. Now, perhaps take
> that same milk crate and get one of those hydraulic arbor presses from
> Harbor Freight and you might have something. In the off-season it can
> serve its intended use in my garage. The worm is turning!

Hi....I built a simple press for about 40 bucks this summer.I've used
it 3 times so far and it seems to work just fine.I used it today for a
3 lug batch. I'll send pics if you want.......andy j.

Yeah, but you do not need that much force. In fact, pressing more
times under lower force will extract fewer harsh tannins, but give you
fairly good extraction. 80% or so.

Commercial wineries have gone to horizontal presses that do not use a
lot of force, but they go through many pressing cycles to extract about
the same amount of juice, but far fewer harsh tannins.

Andy,

I'd like to see those pictures. Does it take up much room? Forty dollars is well within my budget!

Thanks,

DV

Diamond Vintner wrote:

> Wrote:
>
>>Hi....I built a simple press for about 40 bucks this summer.I've used
>>it 3 times so far and it seems to work just fine.I used it today for
>>a
>>3 lug batch. I'll send pics if you want.......andy j.
>
>
> Andy,
>
> I'd like to see those pictures. Does it take up much room? Forty
> dollars is well within my budget!
>
> Thanks,
>
> DV

I tried emailing you but your address is munged or something. Yeah we
gotta do what we gotta do to keep the spam bots away :=(. I saved his
URL, if you email me directly I can send you the URL if jomaum does not
respond. My email address is my radio callsign less the extraneous last
character at abs dot net to reach me. I'm building one based loosely on
his design out of of some scrap iron I have laying around. I don't want
to post the URL for his pics to the entire newsgroup without his
permission, but it should be okay to pass it along to you.

Quote....
>
> I'd like to see those pictures. Does it take up much room? Forty
> dollars is well within my budget!
>
Here is the url to my photo
page....http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jom.../ph//my_photos

.....be advised that I am a bit of a carpenter(though it doesn't show
here) so what I say is simple may be difficult for others.I'll look in
on this thread daily if I can to see if you have any questions...andy j

Also...I built it so it can be broken down for storage.....the uprights
can be tilted back to load berries as well.....andy j.

Also...it's built to be broken down for storage....the uprights can be
tilted back for loading the must......actually the features are
endless....andy j.

wrote:
> Also...it's built to be broken down for storage....the uprights can be
> tilted back for loading the must......actually the features are
> endless....andy j.
>
Andy, Welded my press together, with a temporary basket support and
using a brand new wire mesh trash can I got at Home Depot as the basket
for $3.98. Looking at the construction of traditional press baskets,
particularly the heavy iron staves used to surround the wood slats, I
was fairly skeptical that the mesh would hold together. I put one lug's
full of Cabernet Sauvignon pomace from my primary fermentation into a
nylon mesh bag in the basket, and worked down on the screw after
letting the free run juice drain into a bucket. The screw worked with
very little effort, even when the pomace bulged around the ram. The
mesh only bulged a little, and I rearranged the pomace and squeezed a
couple more times. When it was worked down, I took some heavy wire (8
gauge) and wrapped it around the basket and went down again, squeezing
maybe another half cup of juice out of the now hard brick of pomace. Any
more and I would be squeezing juice out of the seeds, and ended up with
about 11 liters of juice, not a bad yield.

Amazingly the basket is intact and usable as a wastebasket despite the
abuse. I needed to get something working to do the Cab, so I still need
to work out a few details. One is the basket: I made the frame big
enough to easily accept a 5 gallon bucket sized basket. If I can find or
figure out how to make appropriately sized staves, I might just do the
oak slat thing. The ram plate is currently a bit undersized- a 6 by 6
inch half inch thick piece of steel which the screw sockets into. A
circle of 3/16 inch thick steel or 3/4 inch plywood slightly smaller
than the basket should work fine.

Based on the amount of effort needed to turn the ram, building the thing
out of heavy gauge steel, welding everything together, and using a piece
of 3/4 inch Allthread as the ram screw was massive overkill, but it will
be durable at least. A press built carefully out of a good hardwood,
such as oak or maple should do fine.

Welding skills would be handy to have........I have to barter to get
little jobs done.Please post pix somewhere if you can....andy j.