Today, I bought a grape/cider press, at auction from a winery that went out of business. It holds 85 gallons of fruit. It weighs over 1200 pounds. I paid $432.90 for it. It originally cost close to $10,000.00. I like auctions for buying.




I can probably press all of my 2022 apple crop in two presses.

Keith

Does it have a grinder / crusher?
At that price do you feel guilty?
Hope not, just joking.
You got a tremendous bargain!
We bought our press at an auction for $35.
It was made around 1910 and is in beautiful condition.

Turned the pic. I was getting dizzy trying to study that press. That’s a nice one.

Who made the press?

Good deal Keith. You will get a lot of use from it and I am sure you will have friends with apples coming out of the woodwork hoping you will press their harvest for them.

Chris

Thanks, I could not figure out how to turn the picture.

Keith

There's no grinder/crusher. The previous owner had a wine shop in Columbus. We met him. He loaded the press for us and explained how to use it. I do feel sorry for him. He told me he took a risk using only the natural yeast, that was on the grapes he bought, instead of a commercial strain. His entire year's production came out bad flavored and unsaleable. The auction sold well over a hundred thousand dollars of equipment for around ten thousand.

Keith

Thanks. I'll look for the button.

Yes, there will be wine and hard cider coming up.

I put in 156 grape vines last year, but the deer have knocked the numbers down a lot. I picked 11 gallons of catawba and concord grapes this year, off of established vines, but that will go for juice and jam.




I'll start picking apples in earnest in a few days. I have a few apple trees that are loaded, a few with some apples and some devoid of apples. I have around 20 apple trees.

I almost finished my early pairs.



My late pears have a few weeks still to go.





Keith

I told a bunch of friends to start looking for free apples. I am looking into the laws about pressing other people's fruit, who I don't know, for profit too. I don't think anyone in my area does it anymore.

Keith

A pressing party is in your future

invite your friends over have them bring their wash basins , jars , food grade bucket, apples and beer this year or a bit of brandy maybe apple jack next year

the set up and clean up was always so much of the work

with a press like that you can turn out hundreds of gallons in a day if you have the labor

we used to press at a friends place , before we had baiting laws in WI we would run the atv trailer loads of spent mash out to about 25 yards in front of his stand. always did the pressing party last weekend in October
I don't think he ever was in his deer stand past 8am on opening morning he would shoot his deer climb down and go get the tractor . no point in working to hard at it he worked hard on the apples most of the year.

Are there no coons and possums in Ohio? This summer, over a three week period - coons and possums cleaned every apple off two big trees, every peach off two trees, and every nectarine and every pear but four off those trees.

You should hire a trapper! LOL! Just joking

My dogs will kill opossums and coon. My dogs won't mess with deer and deer are becoming a big problem.






Keith

Very nice I'm jealous!

I think it's a Zambelli Tio Electric Hydraulic Vertical Press. The auction wrongly listed it by the manufacturer of one of the motors on it. It should be a Tio 85, but I could not find any listed for sale. The next largest I could find, the Tio 70's are $7200.00. The former owner told me he paid about $10,000.00 for it, which makes sense because it's bigger than the Tio 70.

Keith

All you need now is a big grinder shreder .
May have to make a visit down your way.
Have a niece that lives in Urbana.

Wow what a deal.
Those Catawba grapes look purple/blue in the picture. All Catawba grapes here are pink/coral/red.
Have two presses myself but nothing that big and I turn them by hand! Lol Pear cider is one of my favorites.
Congratulations on the auction buy

Lived on a daily short glass of cherry cider, good stuff.
Have not tried pear but want to.
Get that thing crankin we'll be coming over.
Good scoop.
I'm sure the cider be a big hit at rondies.

That's a dandy!

Reminds me of years ago when my Dad would have us kids pick our apples and haul them to an Amish guy who pressed them. we'd come home with a couple wooden kegs of cider. Good times!