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Choice of Press

I started winemaking several years ago with native pears from a few trees on some family property. Those pears are break-your-teeth hard, so I compensate for lack of a press by chopping them pretty fine. Results have been good (IMO, as good as or better than any commercial pear wine I've tried), and quite popular with family and friends..

Earlier this year, a friend/neighbor approached me with a request to produce some wine with muscadine grapes from a dozen vines in his backyard. I'd never worked with any fresh grapes, so it looked like a fun project. We were able to fend off birds, raccoons and deer enough to gather about 25 lbs of grapes, and I used Jack Keller's recipe for Muscadine Wine. The batch is progressing quite well so far (impressive foam in primary, nice color and taste in secondary), and we're already planning on how to do better next year.

One problem so far was the lack of a press, and the resulting inefficiency in extracting the must from the pulp -- I scooped the pulp from the must with a colander, then tried squeezing it in mesh bags; obviously not very effective.

There doesn't seem to be any availability of rental presses around here (SE Louisiana) so I'm thinking about getting a press for next season. However, the only practical way to justify that would be to find a press that works for both pears and grapes. As for volume requirements, I harvest about 100 lbs of pears each year, and expect that we might have as much as 50 lbs of grapes.

Any suggestions for press style, manufacturer, vendor, etc.?

Thanks,

Bart

Reply to
bwesley7
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I built a press for apples this year. There's a design you can get from Cornell University. If you click on this link:

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you can order SpR 8. I called them to order it--it's 50 cents--and they just gave it to me free. It's some work, mostly in finding the materials, as you can't use pressure treated wood to make a press (the chemicals in it could cause sickness or worse). However, the work was better than buying a press--they can be pretty steep. I use it in conjunction with an unused garbage disposal when working with apples, but you wouldn't need to do that with grapes.

Reply to
Vic Whirlwind

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