Cider Press Plans

Since I made my cider press last year, I have had numerous people ask me for the plans I used to build it.  I couldn’t find any plans either so I sort of just starting cutting and drilling and painting.  I figured that when it finally looked like a cider press, it would be done.

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I suppose I did sort of congolomerate the ideas of plenty of folks and I added a few of my own so I can’t take all of the credit.  My press is made soley of pine lumber.  Hardwood is probably better but it costs more of course.  I do sort of wish I would have had some plans when I was starting though so I will provide a few measurements that might help you build your own…

CiderPressInAction

Click the image above to see the cider flowing.  (Click here for a quicktime version)

By the way…you can see some of our first cider of 2009 over at Not Dabbling in Normal today.

Anyhow, here is my homemade cider press:

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The length between the red and blue squares is 3 feet.
Between the red and green is 3 1/2 feet.
Between the green and brown is 1 foot.
I just added the yellow square because I thought it looked nice

The uprights are 2×4 pine and everything horizontal is 2×6 pine.

Hopefully these additional shots will help it all make more sense as well…

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16 thoughts on “Cider Press Plans

  1. Yeah. I was totally confused until I saw the yellow square, but now it makes perfect sense.
    I want to see it in action, but I have to wait for my personal AV specialist to come home.

  2. nice work, obviously you didn’t need a plan.

    When my husband builds anything, its got to be like he’s building a piano. Thats all well and fine till I get involved in the project, I’m slightly less precise.

    Couldn’t open the vid and now I’m curious as to how this works, and whats so funny about the yellow square?

  3. Sorry to anyone having trouble with the video. It works here but I tried on another machine and found it didn’t work there until I closed another web page I had open…it’s weird…

  4. Thanks everyone! We love using this thing and it makes fall almost bearable. I love the flavor of cider and even better is that every batch is different depending on the apples I get.

    I have seen the whiz bang press but I built my press a little before he released his info. I like to think that my “holes in the pot” approach inspired him to test his “holes in the plastic bucket” approach that he tested slightly after I showed my initial build.

    Anyhow, cider is so easy to make this way. But on a smaller scale. anyone can do it by pureeing a handful of apples and smashing them between cookie sheets (you’ll need to work out the logistics to prevent a mess) or something similar that will allow you to exert manual pressure (you don’t have to use a bottle jack for a small batch) without breakage…

  5. WOW! I am impressed once again with your handyman skills. Was this press version 1.0? Anyhow, I don’t think I have ever made fresh cider. My grandma has some apple trees and we usually cut and dried the apples for fried apple pies. The apple trees always scared me because it seems like the biggest hornets I have seen in my life were hovering around those trees. I hope you don’t have that problem when making your cider.

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