Garden shredders for apple crushing
From Ukcider
Contents |
garden shredder as an apple mill?
Can an ordinary garden shredder be used for crushing, mincing or grinding apples before pressing for juice?
This subject has been explored and dissected repeatedly over the years on ukcider.
Although some claim to have had success with shredders, the consensus of opinion has mostly been against their adoption due to steel and iron parts coming into contact with the pulp, but more importantly because of electrical safety concerns with the great amount of juice produced during milling.
See Cidermaking_Equipment#Apple_Mills.2FScratters for alternatives.
disadvantages of garden shredders
iron or steel blades
diameter
The trouble with garden shredders is the diameter, if you look closely at the cheaper ones they are only geared to take maybe 1/2" - 1" diameter branches therefore an apple wouldn't fit through unless you chopped it (too time consuming).
A standard garden shredder is really only good for breaking up material that's fairly dry -- wetter stuff tends to clog up in the outlet and then it doesn't matter what you put in, it doesn't go anywhere. I'd not be surprised if a few apples went through it, clogged up the outlet pipe and then the rest just bounced about or jammed up above the shredding blade.
Having a larger/shorter outlet (or tilting the shredder at an angle so gravity assists the pulp to fall out) and a different design of blade might help.
River Cottage apparantly showed the Cider gang pressing their apples. They showed the guys using a tree shredder, which may be better suited to the purpose than a garden shredder, but one ukcider member bought a tree shredder from eBay:
- The shredder was a disc shredder. It has a spinning disc with 2
- blades that look like razor blades.
- It is.. in a word.. useless..
- Anything bigger than a crab apple has to be cut up else it just bobbles
- around the blades and doesn't bite. It got jammed, and the pulp doesn't exit
- the bottom unless you give it a good shake.
if you must use a garden shredder
There are some reported sucess stories, for amateur use only. Do not sell the cider.
- I have, for some years, used a garden shredder to mill my apples and not had any major problems. I clean the
shredder carefully after use with water and grease the blade to prevent it rusting. I put the apples in whole but have to be careful not to put too many in at a time or it gets jammed up. I have thought about modifying the blade to prevent this but it hardly seems worth it.
What to look for when buying a garden shredder for juicing apples
Here are a few tips from Mark E. in Oz zymurgia.com:
Most brands will be suitable if;
1) You look for the type that have a fairly long feed chute and is preferably angled somewhat, as it assists with feeding the fruit a bit like a wedge and bites in harder.
2) That they are easy to open fully with either a screw or clip closure. Most importantly, that once open you have access to ALL of the interior for cleaning purposes.
3) Look for all metal interiors to be powder coated or enamelled (sp?), or else rust will appear in between uses. Although the juice isn't in contact for long it is still around for long enough to cause a reaction on mild steel.
The spindle for the 2 part blades needs to be coated as well. The only part not coated will be the blades themselves, and are generally quite resistant (after 3 seasons they are still A1)
4) Get hold of some magnetised fridge seals to line the case opening edge to stop the ooze from all gaps when your hard at it as there can be a whole lot of fluid squeeze out. Remember these are designed for garden refuse, not wet stuff!
You want the magnetized seals so you can lift it off and wash after a session.
garden shredder for composting pomace
There is another, better use of a garden shredder however - for composting spent pomace
Gary Awdry writes:
I tried something different with the spent pomace from this year's first pressing. Rather than try to mix it into the compost pile as sheets and chunks as usual (which tend to go anaerobic and get slimy when weather becomes wet) I ran it through a garden shredder 24 hours after pressing while it was still fairly dry. This turned it into a loose mass of fine pieces. The small pieces were far easier to mix into the pile, taking only a few minutes with a pitchfork. It made a big difference. The compost pile got extremely hot and breakdown of the pomace is notable after only several days rather than the usual time requirement of a few months. After hot composting I don't expect to see many of the apple seeds sprouting but the advantage of better control over the smell more than offsets this.
