Scratter Vs wood chipper

[graduate_owner]

It certainly is possible to make your own scratter, I made one when I was a teenager, and the only power tool I had was my dad's electric drill.
The design came from a book published by Amateur Winemaker, called Woodwork fot Winemakers by Dart and Smith. Basically it is a square wooden box, no top or bottom, with a series of plywood discs mounted on a square shaft. The discs are slotted at 120 degree intervals and a nail is glued into each slot - the slots are staggered which helps to feed the apple in. A ram is fixed at the top, the juice etc comes out of the bottom. It worked very well.

Since then I have made a bigger version, using the lathe for the drum and stainless steel screws instead of nails, but same principle. I suppose you could improve by having 2 counter rotating drums, motor power etc, but my hand driven version suits me.

If you can send me your email address I will scan the relevant book pages if you want

K

K

 

[sunnybob]

you realise there are loads of utubes on making your own, but if you want to be a bit posh
https://pleasanthillgrain.com/appliances/apple-grinders

 

[Trainee neophyte]

you realise there are loads of utubes on making your own, but if you want to be a bit posh
https://pleasanthillgrain.com/appliances/apple-grinders

Thank you for the posh grinder - very smart. I have seen lots of YouTube designs, mostly with a wooden drum with screws standing proud of the wood to rip the apples. I really want to make one, but my experience suggests they are not efficient enough. Novacain's grinder looks good though, but I wouldn't want to be putting my fingers as close as the chap in his video does.

If I spend days creating a mad Heath-Robinson contraption, which is fabulous and wonderful, but only gives me half the cider because it doesn't break the apple down sufficiently, I'm going to be a bit glum. Current thinking is to rework my chipper, because it makes good mash, but needs a better feed in and feed out system. Can't be dangerous at all, can it?

I also have a much bigger chipper, but that way lies madness. The mashed apple would come out fast enough to pebbledash the house. I could stand the wife next to it with a bucket, with her wearing full oilskins, and get her to catch the stream. It wouldn't be efficient, but the YouTube video would be with a few hits, don't you think?

 

[Trainee neophyte]

a time before rose tinted specs. because none of you lot would have lived long enough to use em.

I was thinking about this last night (sort of), I wondered if hardwood would be man enough to make shredder. this sort of thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohLYdtIULEU

then I thought
chomp chomp chomp and went to bed.

I like this. A lot. Don't know if it will work, and not sure if I care. I may need to make one just because.

 

[sunnybob]

I've had a long and varied working life. :roll:
Back in the late 60's I worked in a waste paper factory, They had a machine similar to that, but with weights on the end of short lengths of chain. It was fed from a 4 ft wide conveyor belt.
We used to unload lorry trailers of unsold paperback books, 2 people throwing books onto that conveyor hour after hour, it ripped them apart easily ready for pulping.

 

[SamTheJarvis]

Have a look at this apple grinder design from Wandel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlkQly2T-Wc - haven't build it myself but definitely want to...!

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Have a look at this apple grinder design from Wandel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlkQly2T-Wc - haven't build it myself but definitely want to...!

Thank you - I have seen it, and it is probably my go-to design. I'm just about to get crazy busy, but it is on the list. We all have a "list", don't we?

 

[sunnybob]

Have you got any olives? My tree hasnt produced a 100 olives in total this year, and they have all fallen off in the wind.
Even the trees behind my place are almost bare.
I think next year is the big one :shock:

 

[pulleyt]

A very late reply so sorry for that.

A couple of friends like their cider and asked me to build a macerator for them based on the idea from WhizBang Cider (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVvbjnf08xw. They supplied the waste disposal unit and the industrial motor and coupling (ordinary waste disposal motors won't run continuously without overheating apparently). The photo of the completed macerator below doesn't show the motor and disposal unit but it is much the same arrangement as the video above.

The other day I got an update and they pressed over 600 litres of juice and have been very impressed with how much juice they can press out of the mash from the macerator. They have a fairly standard screw press that won't exert tremendous pressure but they are convinced 'baby food mash' releases considerably more juice than the chunkier mash they tried the year before.

The brief asked that it be easily wheeled around as they did plan to go 'community pressing' in some of the local villages. In the end I don't think they had time. maybe next year.

I was happy to build the stand for it but declined the kind offer to help with the production side of things!

Cheers, trevor

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Have you got any olives? My tree hasnt produced a 100 olives in total this year, and they have all fallen off in the wind.
Even the trees behind my place are almost bare.
I think next year is the big one :shock:

Gazillions. Just started picking, and knackered already. Might be a record breaking years, but most years the weather does something unpleasant to make sure they all fall off. We will only know in a month when we have finished.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

A very late reply so sorry for that.

A couple of friends like their cider and asked me to build a macerator for them based on the idea from WhizBang Cider (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVvbjnf08xw. They supplied the waste disposal unit and the industrial motor and coupling (ordinary waste disposal motors won't run continuously without overheating apparently). The photo of the completed macerator below doesn't show the motor and disposal unit but it is much the same arrangement as the video above.

The other day I got an update and they pressed over 600 litres of juice and have been very impressed with how much juice they can press out of the mash from the macerator. They have a fairly standard screw press that won't exert tremendous pressure but they are convinced 'baby food mash' releases considerably more juice than the chunkier mash they tried the year before.

The brief asked that it be easily wheeled around as they did plan to go 'community pressing' in some of the local villages. In the end I don't think they had time. maybe next year.

I was happy to build the stand for it but declined the kind offer to help with the production side of things!

Cheers, trevor

I'm not sure I can get a waste disposal unit in Europe - always assumed that they are an American only item. Will have a look. Good to hear that more mashing makes for a better juice extraction - this is what I have found personally, but not what the internet claims is the case.

I did make (well, a friend made, with a small amount of help from me) the Wizzbang chicken plucker. For the non-vegetarians amoung us, here's one in action: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DMydVdwmuws

For some reason, people find it amusing. I don't know why.

 

[mikej460]

In 2019 I built my own scratter using a length of turned oak impregnated with stainless steel screws and oak floorboard offcuts, powered by my old B&D hand drill. It works well but it takes a lot of time to mill enough apples to extract 25 litres of juice. I would prefer something that I could simply tip the apples into and that mills them without having to poke them about as bits do get jammed.

but it does work

And I also built a press that works extremely well

and it turned out really well, albeit a bit strong - 7%

Despite clearly having more time on my hands in 2020 the apple harvest was virtually zilch but plenty this year so I'm looking at how to improve the milling.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

and it turned out really well, albeit a bit strong - 7%

Ideally you want at least 8% so it doesn't spoil if kept a long time. And for falling over purposes, obviously. Anything up to 16% is acceptable - above that it gets a bit hazy.

 

[mikej460]

16% ? blimey, two half litre bottles at 7% was enough. I gave my friend a couple of bottles as she likes cider but she had to water it down.

 

[Wildman]

I have just advertised a press and scratter. in the for sale adverts don't all rush at once

 

[dickm]

This thread seems to get reignited each autumn! We have a glut of apples just for once, so my Herefordshire roots are stirring and thinking cider. Decided my big Alko chipper is probably even more unhygienic than the proper cider makers' setups, so last time I tried chopping apples prior to pressing, used a pretty deadly stainless steel blade on the end of a shaft. But this year, too late as usual, really think I ought to make something a bit safer and more effective. This:-
https://woodgears.ca/cider/apple_grinder.htmllooks pretty good, if a bit overkill. Thought I might give it a try, maybe in time for next year(!), and was wondering which of the woods of which I have big enough pieces would be best to turn for the rotor. Got a choice of ash, silver birch and japanese elm (Ulmus sp, not the other one). The woodgears guy uses laminated white oak, and I probably have enough bits of English oak, or some beech, to do something similar.
What are folks' thoughts?

 

[Yojevol]

Here is my scratter as referred to in my earlier post:-

Not mentioned before but the screws are positioned in a spiral pattern. The one improvement I could make is to have a set of stator screws to stop the odd lump of apple passing through between the hopper and the drum. However that is about no.1893 on my priority list, ie, it'll never get done.
I'll repeat the last line of my previous post:-
I won't be using it this year as our crop is poor and it's not worth the effort.
Brian

 

[Suffolkboy]