Kitchen Garden Forum

Not sure if this belongs in Harvesting or Cooking.
Having picked 50 Kgs of Lane's Prince Albert yesterday and with a similar crop of Bramley's to harvest in the next week or two I am wondering what we are going to do with them all!
My thoughts turned to juicing, I know nothing about it but do drink fruit juice everyday and use it to moisten muesli rather than using milk.
As both sorts of apple keep quite well I don't need to know how to preserve it long term - just make and use over a day or two would be fine.
Which machines work? Are they economical - after all juice is less than £1 a litre but goodness knows what it has got in it besides a lot of water. Are they a pain to clean so little and often is actually impractical? What volume do you get from a kilo of apples?
I think I have read an article somewhere, possibly KG, but I can't find it.
Any guidance would be welcome.

I'm only a beginner at this, but juiced several bucket-fulls of my neighbours apples the year before last. This made enough for 3 gallons of apple juice.

I can't say it's better than any other models, but we've got a juicer branded with Anthony Worral Thompson's name on it. It seems to extract virtually all moisture, leaving a dryish residue which you throw out (or compost!). Doing the 3 gallons was the work of an evening. I started by quartering each apple, but got so frustrated that the last lot went straight in whole! It isn't too difficult to clean, but has some vicious blades in some of the internals you need to watch out for.

The way I read it, you just want to make a litre or so at a time. This should be perfectly feasible, but others will have to advise you on recommended models.

And the juice? Well the apples can't have been that good: Of the 2 gallons I used to make cider, "bulldog chewing a wasp" would describe the effect as it was so "dry". However the last gallon I took a stage further by adding 2 jars of honey. I have tonight bottled some very fine apple mead from that 2004 vintage!

Good luck, Colin

If you want to use a machine that liquifies the whole apple - skin and pips included - the Vita Mix will do that. I've mentioned it before, so I won't bore everyone about it again. PM me if you want more info.

Or - you can use steam to extract juice out of any fruit/veg and it also sterilises the juice. There's a number of triple layered pans that do this, complete with a tap/tube. The Mehu Maja is probably the best known.