The wine press is the winemaker’s main assistant! Homemade press for apples and grapes Press for grapes by hand.

The end of summer, the beginning of autumn is the time to collect fruits, vegetables, apples, and grapes. And if the harvest is large, then the usual electric juicer won't cope. In this case, the garden needs a press for squeezing juice from fruits. Now there are a lot of offers on the Internet for various presses and crushers, hydraulic, screw, pneumatic, wooden, but the biggest disadvantage of these products is the high price. Making a juice press with your own hands is not difficult; you need a little skill as a mechanic or welder. And the cost of a homemade press for grapes or apples is several times lower than a purchased one.

For a winemaker, such a device will make his work easier and save a lot of time. The simplest version of a home juicer is based on squeezing juice from the pulp of fruits or vegetables. The apples are first crushed with special crushers, a grape crusher is used, and then the juice is squeezed out of this mass. With this technology, pure juice without pulp comes out, ready for fermentation, or for pasteurization and further storage.

Simple DIY grape press

A screw press for grapes consists of: a base - a frame, a basket, a pressing device (shaft or jack), and a pressing piston. Other options for manufacturing the device are also possible. When choosing a material, it is not necessary to follow the description exactly and you can make your own drawings of the Persian.

Tools and materials for the press:

• Welding machine;
• Drill;
• Bulgarian;
• Tank – 50 liters;
• Metal channel 10-12 mm – 150 mm;
• Metal corner 40-50 mm – 3200 mm;
• Oak slats 40x25x400 mm – 50 pcs;
• Fabric – 1 sq.m;
• Jack – 1 piece;
• Faucet – 1 piece;
• Line 2 mm – 3 m.

How to make a juice press

1.Frame. The foundation is one of the most important elements press, the frame must be a very strong structure; the entire load during operation falls on it. The side parts of the press are made of metal corners 85 mm high. The upper and lower parts of the frame must be made from a channel 70 cm long; the structure can be further strengthened by welding gussets between the corners and the channel. All parts are welded at all points of contact.
If a screw press design is used, then a nut for the screw must be welded to the upper channel. In addition to the metal frame, you can use wooden boards, thickness from 5 centimeters. The boards are fastened with 10-12 mm studs and tightened with nuts. A wooden press is easier to make, but the design does not withstand heavy loads; for a small harvest it is quite a suitable option. The finished frame must be sanded and painted with a special metal paint.

2.Abs tank. This design uses a digester tank made of of stainless steel volume 50 liters. A hole is drilled in the lower part of the boiler tank and a stainless steel tap is installed. Instead of a tank you can use regular saucepan suitable size.
A grate made of oak slats is inserted into the container. The blanks are cut from oak boards (you can use parquet board), their height is equal to the height of the pan. Along the edges at the ends of the slats, holes of 2-3 mm are drilled through them and a fishing line or stainless wire is passed through them. By connecting all the planks, you get a kind of basket.
There should be a gap of 2-3 mm between the slats, through which fruit juice will ooze. You can do without a pan at all by connecting the boards with galvanized steel hoops and placing the basket on a tray into which the squeezed liquid will drain.
Can be used as a pallet plastic pallet from large flower pot or stainless steel kitchen sink. There are designs where the grape press is framed, there is no basket, the pulp is placed in fabric between drainage grates in several layers and pressed.

3.Piston. The piston for the press needs to be made from the remaining oak boards, folding them crosswise, use a compass to draw a circle the right size and cut electric jigsaw. Twist the slats with stainless steel screws or tie them with copper and stainless steel wire. If you have a log on your farm, you can saw off a circle of the required diameter and height.

4.Power mechanism. The apple press uses a jack or screw as a pressing mechanism. In the device for squeezing juice, hydraulic car jack with a lifting capacity of 3 tons. For more confident work, you can use jacks that create a force of more than 3 tons. A screw for a press is more difficult to find, but every car enthusiast has a jack. You need to cut some boards under the jack to place it during the spin cycle.

5.Filtration cloth. To filter the juice from apple fruits, you need durable fabric, capable of transmitting moisture. The easiest option is to take a nylon sugar bag. Also suitable for filtration are nylon, lavsan, propylene, polyester, or use durable cotton material, dense flax, so as not to tear under pressure.

So, the manual fruit press is ready, how to squeeze out the juice? Insert the basket into the tank and place the filter material inside. Soft fruits, berries, citrus fruits are crushed without pre-treatment. Apples, carrots or other hard fruits must be crushed in a crusher or using pulp from a juicer, loaded into a basket, and covered with a lid.

Install the jack, substitute the receiving container, open the tap and slowly apply pressure. There is no need to try to squeeze out all the juice right away; you may damage the frame or the fabric will tear. Make three or four pumps, wait a while, then another three or four pumps, and so on. One bucket of apple pulp from a juicer yields 3-4 liters of pure juice; the crushed mass yields a little more.

The question of how to quickly and efficiently process the grown crop is quite relevant for those who own personal plots large area and processes them. Many of the devices that help to effectively solve this problem can be made independently: for example, it will not make a lot of work Make your own grape press. Using this useful device, can be quickly recycled even big harvest grapes, prepare juice for the winter, make wine or grape vinegar. To make one, you do not need special knowledge and skills, the use of complex equipment or expensive consumables.

What is a grape press?

A juicer, operating on the principle of a press, is a device with which you can squeeze juice not only from grapes, but also from other berries and fruits. The grape crusher consists of the following elements:

• supporting frame;
• a tray in which the squeezed juice is collected;
• a barrel in which the juice is pressed;
• an element used to press berries or fruits;
• a power screw that launches the pressing element;
• fine mesh that acts as a filter element.

To press grapes, it is best to use a press. screw type. In this case, the berries of white varieties are pre-crushed, and the red ones are processed after they have been in a warm place for several days and begin to ferment.

The principle by which the press for squeezing grapes works is quite simple and is as follows: the raw materials loaded into the barrel basket are acted upon by a pressing element driven by a screw mechanism.

The most common materials from which grape presses are made are stainless steel and wood. Such materials, being environmentally friendly, do not emit harmful substances and, accordingly, do not provide negative influence on the quality of the finished product.

Homemade stainless steel crusher

In order to make a stainless steel grape press, in addition to a set of plumbing tools, you will need welding machine, and some parts of such a device will need to be ordered from a turner. To make a press, it is not necessary to purchase new sheets of stainless steel; you can completely get by with the metal from which the failed tanks are made washing machines.

A do-it-yourself steel press for grapes is made in the following sequence.

1. Tanks from unnecessary washing machines are cut and from the resulting metal, using a welding machine, two cylindrical containers without a bottom are made. The height of both containers should be 24 cm, and the diameters should be 23 and 29 cm.
2. Capacity smaller diameter will serve as a basket into which the berries will be loaded before pressing. In the walls of such a container along its entire perimeter it is necessary to drill holes with a diameter of 8 mm, placing them in a checkerboard pattern. An external container is necessary to ensure the collection of juice, which will come out through the holes in the walls of the basket when pressure is applied to the berries loaded into it. To ensure that the finished juice is drained from the outer container, a cutout must be made in its lower part.
3. To install an outer cylinder with a basket, it is necessary to make a tray with sides, one of the sides of which should be beveled to ensure more convenient drainage of the squeezed juice. There should be no edge on the narrowed side of the pan, where the juice will drain.
4. A flange with a diameter of 21 cm can be used as a punch that will exert pressure on the raw materials loaded into the basket. Such a flange is connected by welding to a screw rod, which can be used as a screw from a water valve. A head with a hole for a handle is welded to the top of the screw, with the help of which it will be driven into rotation.
5. Paired with a screw, at the lower end of which a punch is fixed, there is a nut welded into the upper horizontal jumper of the U-shaped frame. To provide high stability frame of a homemade grape press, it is concreted into the floor or securely fixed to the surface of the work table with screws.

We recommend perforating the working surface of the flange-punch of the design described above with a drill with a diameter of 4 mm, which will reduce the pressure on the side walls of the press basket. Making such grape press, it is also advisable to weld the bandage rings in the top and lower parts basket, which will ensure its location exactly in the center of the outer container.

Homemade press made of steel elements can be used for squeezing not only grapes, but also currants, chokeberry, apples and herbal raw materials. To extract maximum amount juice from individual species vegetable raw materials, the latter must first be crushed using a regular meat grinder or a special crusher for this purpose. A do-it-yourself grape crusher, as well as similar devices for other types of plant raw materials, can be made with minimal financial costs.

Wooden juicer

A more budget-friendly option for a device for squeezing grapes, which you can make yourself, is a wooden press. To use such a device without an external metal container, it must be equipped with a tray with high sides that will prevent the squeezed juice from splashing on the sides. In this case, the metal elements of a homemade press will only be a screw with a nut and drainage grids, which are used to lay layers of fabric bags with plant raw materials.

To make a basket of a wooden press for squeezing juice from grapes with a volume of 20 liters, it is necessary to prepare 20 boards measuring 320x50x15 mm and, laying them in a row, fasten them together using self-tapping screws and two strips of stainless steel 0.5–1 mm thick. When connecting the planks from which the walls of the press basket will be formed, it is necessary to maintain a distance of 10–12 mm between them. After all the planks are connected to the metal strips, the resulting structure is rolled into a cylinder, and the ends of the stainless steel strips are fastened together using a bolted connection. The result should be a lattice wooden basket with a diameter of 29 cm, the height of which is 32 cm.

A wine and grape juice press made of wood does not need to be equipped with a metal thrust flange. In this case, the role of the punch can be played by a wooden circle with a diameter of 27 mm, pressure on which is also applied using a screw with a handle or a car jack installed in the upper part of the frame of the grape press.

Due to frequently asked questions, I want to tell you on the pages of my blog about how I made my first screw press for grapes, with a 20-liter basket.

This was back in 2007, when I was just starting to engage in winemaking “for myself” and was not going to think about any expansion of this aspect of my work.
At that time, a lot of December ripened on my gazebo, there was Muscat Hamburg, Livadia black and many remnants of bunches of table varieties, mostly overripe, spoiled by wasps and ants. Now I remember this raw material with a smile, but then I, like many lovers, considered it quite suitable for wine. Which, in principle, is true, if you don’t delve into what kind of wine it is. 🙂

But this is the lyrics, let's move on to the constructive. Literally.

So, a screw press for grapes. What does it consist of, in my understanding?

1. Frame. The option with a screw through the basket (as I have now) seemed unacceptable to me then.

2. Screw. A screw is a screw, with a powerful, preferably rectangular, thread. With a smile, I now remember my ordeal with turners in the workshops I knew... What a people! Lazy grabbers! 🙁 There is still a picture from the workshop of our city water canal, when three turners, without letting go of the domino bones from their hands, told me how busy they were and how they had no time to turn a screw from a finished rod. They talked for 10 minutes...

3. Basket. Well, I saw the basket, in my understanding, it should be made of oak slats. Where can a resident of Dnepropetrovsk get oak? That's right, the first association is parquet! 🙂 That’s what I used on this product, the main part of the press. The basket must be tightened with hoops. Which ones? Well, stainless steel, of course! For some reason, the dealers in the local construction market did not have a stainless strip of acceptable width and thickness at that time, but they did have corners. Well, I took them. Then, oh, how I regretted it, because the basket turned into a life-threatening object... Well, more on that later.

What is the design? Not only did I make a frame, but I also wanted the press to be a self-contained piece of equipment that did not require any stands. Those. on legs. A kind of frame on legs, a nut is fixed at the top into which the screw rod is screwed, and in the frame there is a basket made of oak slats into which grapes or must with pulp are loaded.

I started with the basket.

At a parquet store I bought two dozen parquet boards, 320 mm long, 50 mm wide and 15 mm thick. At the market there are two meter-long stainless steel corners. As I already wrote, no one had a strip 0.5...1 mm thick, I had to take the corners... :)
Using a home machine, I removed the grooves from the boards with a milling cutter to reduce clogging. As I later saw, the operation was useless: with the help of a dishwasher brush, all the cracks can be washed out very easily.

Using self-tapping screws (with a stainless steel coating!) I attached them to the corners with a gap of 10...12 mm. Then, using a grinder, I cut a corner between the planks, bent the edges of the strips, and made holes in them for the bolts:

And voila! - cart is ready:

The diameter of the basket requires an insert, a piston, which will directly rest on the grape pulp. Here is the basket with it, “assembled”, so to speak: :)

Basket height 32 cm, inner diameter— 29 cm. Volume (calculated) turned out to be 21 liters.

The photographs show sharp edges on the corners. Oh, how many scratches they made on my hands when moving and washing, how many rags they tore... Until I took the grinder again and cut off all the excess right down to the boards!

The next day I went and bought a 25 mm angle, M6 bolts with nuts, and several Ø 6.2 mm drills. I assembled the frame of the press and immediately got to work:

It is necessary to place planks under the screw on the circle:

I ordered the screw in advance from a “handy” turner who was finally found, with great difficulty. Screw Ø 30 mm and 3 mm pitch, with a nut, with a welded disk with holes for fastening, cost me a considerable sum at that time: 100 UAH!

The remaining details are a piece of plywood on the stand and a plastic bowl in which I made a hole and inserted a tube - the final touches. It cost me a penny. And the total cost of this screw wine press (or wine press, which is correct? :)) was about 300 UAH. I was glad that a factory Italian similar press cost about $300. This is such a savings for the family budget! 🙂

As I understand now, that head screw would be enough for a 100-liter press! 🙂 I didn’t have a welding machine then, and at that time I had never held one in my hands, so I did everything with bolts. Well, the apartment, after all. Although it would be possible to cook on the balcony with an inverter, as I now understand.
Due to the bolted connection, the frame “wobbled” a little, which created additional problems towards the end of the spin cycle, when the forces increased. But what an indescribable pleasure it was! 🙂

Well, finally finished! 🙂

The result was a wine that was not at all embarrassing to treat to friends!

As you can see, friends, higher education You don’t need to have one to make your own screw grape press. There are 3...4 months left before the winemaking season, so whoever wants to use my experience - there is still plenty of time! Have a good harvest and happy homemade wine! 🙂

The end of summer and the beginning of autumn is the period of mass harvesting of vegetables, fruits and berries. Abundant Harvest- this is great, but it all needs to be reworked. For example, preparing juice from grapes or apples is a labor-intensive process. You can get by with a regular juicer, but if there is a lot of raw materials, it will take a lot of time. It is better to use a special press. Let's figure out how to make a grape press with your own hands.

Grape press: simple design

Those presses that are sold in stores are diverse; one significant disadvantage of such mechanisms is the high price. If you have some skills, you can make the device yourself, saving a lot of money. In particular, the grape press will indispensable assistants for winemakers.

The simplest homemade grape press is a screw structure consisting of the following elements:

• base (frame and basket);
• pressing device (jack or shaft);
• pressing piston.

To make a grape press, you will need the following items and equipment: a welding machine, a drill and a grinder, a 50-liter tank, a metal channel (10-12 mm; 150 mm), a corner (40-50 mm; 3200 mm), wooden slats (40x25x400 mm) - 50 pieces, jack, fabric ( square meter), 2 mm fishing line - 3 meters, crane.

Manufacturing process

Work should begin by preparing the base of the entire structure.

Frame. This element must respond high demands in terms of strength, since it will bear the main load. The side parts are made from corners, the height of which is 85 cm. The lower and upper parts are a channel 70 cm long. Welding is used to connect the frame elements.

Advice! To enhance the strength of the structure, you can additionally weld a gusset between the channel and the corners.

The finished frame is sanded and coated with metal paint.

The tank must be made of stainless steel. At the bottom of the tank you need to drill a hole in which the tap will be attached.

Advice! Instead of a tank, you can use a stainless steel pan of suitable size.

A grid of wooden slats. The height of the slats should be equal to the height of the tank. Holes (2-3 mm) are drilled at the ends of the slats, through which a fishing line or stainless steel wire is pulled. The result should be a kind of basket through which the juice will ooze. The gap between the slats should be no more than 2-3 mm.

You don't have to use the tank at all. The slats are tightened with a galvanized hoop, the basket is installed in a tray where the juice will drain. As a pallet you can use a stand from under a large flower pot or kitchen sink made of stainless steel.

The grape crusher can be framed; installation of a basket in this design is not provided. The grapes are placed in a multilayer fabric bag between the grates and crushed in this form.

The piston for the press is made of wood (preferably oak), you can take the remains of the slats. The main thing is to get a round part that will fit into the basket in diameter. The slats are folded together, a circle is cut out, and the parts are connected with screws or wire.

The power mechanism is a jack or a screw. You need to place several boards under the jack during the spin cycle.

Filtration bag. Here you should pay attention to the structure of the fabric. Nylon, lavsan, polyester, propylene, durable cotton or linen fabric are suitable. The main thing is that the bag does not tear while squeezing out the juice.

Principle of operation

A basket is inserted into the tank and a filter bag is placed. Berries are placed here, a piston and a jack are installed. The tap needs to be opened and a receiving container placed. Giving should be done carefully; sudden movements may damage the frame or fabric bag. You need to squeeze out the juice by doing several pumping motions intermittently.

Grape presses are an integral part of the winemaking process, both in industrial scale, and for home use. good and modern equipment can significantly facilitate the work of a winemaker.

Purpose and principle of operation of the press

A modern and convenient press is necessary to obtain good wort. It is the adherence to fermentation technology and the use of properly prepared wort that will directly determine the quality of the wine produced.

Using a press helps to quickly and effectively separate the grape pulp from the resulting must and squeeze out all the juice from the pulp. At the same time, crushing of grape seeds and ridges, as well as skins, does not occur during the pressing process. Thus, The press allows you to extract juice from the berries without damaging the seeds or ridges of the grapes.

A standard press consists of the following elements and components:

• gears;
• a pair of wooden or stainless steel rollers with a grooved surface;
• a pair of containers designed for crushed grapes and grape juice.

A pair of rollers is mounted on gears. When the handle moves, the rollers come into action and begin a counter translational movement. A special device can be used to adjust the gap between the gears depending on the size of the processed berries.

The minimum clearance is 3 mm, and the maximum distance between gears can be set to 8 mm. The result of the press is the extraction of juice from the berries and redirecting it into a separate container.

The standard process of pressing grapes consists of several stages:

• separation of wort by gravity;
• obtaining first pressure wort;
• obtaining the wort of the second and third pressures.

Any press is a pressing device, complemented by a fixed plate and a basket in which the pulp is separated from the grape juice. In the interdisk space a peculiar drainage system, which promotes the removal of pure juice. Directly under the press there is a screw designed to remove the presses.

Types of press

Currently there is a large number of varieties of such units that help obtain juice from grapes.

• Mechanical press for grapes. The unit includes a wooden basket and a cast iron frame. This unit is compact and its price is quite affordable for most consumers. A good and high-quality mechanical press is the best option for home winemaking. The principle of operation is based on the use of physical effort. The productivity of such a unit is not too great.
• Electric grape press. Made from high quality stainless steel. This material is not prone to oxidation, is durable and does not affect negative impact on the taste characteristics of the final product. The principle of operation is based on the pressure obtained by using water (hydraulic) or air (pneumatic) through a special pump. Productivity is very high.

In addition, according to the purpose of the press, they can be made into universal ones, which can be used for squeezing not only grapes, but also other berries or fruits, as well as special ones, the use of which is adapted specifically for grapes.

By material

The most popular wooden and metal presses are:

• wooden presses need more careful care, which includes washing, disinfecting and systematic inspections for the appearance of mold or pathogens. A high-quality main basket of the press is made of beech or oak;
• metal presses can be either cast iron or stainless steel. Such materials are more hygienic and easier to maintain. In addition, such materials are very durable and do not impart foreign odors to the wine. Metal presses can be both household and industrial.

By volume and power

Of course, home winemaking involves the use of more budget options press, which have a low, but quite sufficient for household use productivity. For home use, presses are used without metal elements or homemade designs.

Hydropress for grapes (video)

Benefits of use

• grape juice obtained in this way contains all the beneficial and nutrients, which is due to minimal contact with oxygen;
• the press allows you to obtain a larger volume of grape juice;
• with this method of squeezing, foaming is practically not observed;
• A high-quality press is not only durable, but also reduces the cost of effort and time.

When choosing a unit for home or household use, you should choose simple design, which is easy to assemble and clean after work.

DIY making

Very often, at home, winemakers replace the press with conventional ones. food processors or juicers. However, the use of such devices very often causes poor clarification of wine and the formation of sediment.

You can make a press yourself using available materials. Such a device will facilitate the process of obtaining juice and will not require the purchase of expensive equipment.

Step-by-step instruction for making a press:

• preparing a container for loading berries, which can be used as a drum from a regular washing machine, in the walls of which holes should be drilled in a checkerboard pattern;
• Prepare a container that is larger than the size of the washing machine drum. The container, like the drum of a washing machine, should look like a cylinder without a bottom and have a number of additional holes along the bottom;
• having inserted one cylinder into another, you should fix them together by inserting blocks between the walls;
• prepare a U-shaped frame, onto the crossbar of which drilled hole the working part is fixed in the form of a thick cast-iron pancake with a lever;
• both containers are placed in a wide bowl made of food-grade plastic, in which a hole is drilled for a hose to drain the juice.

The principle of operation of such a mechanism is very simple. A U-shaped frame concreted in the form of a horizontal bar with a working mechanism is the basis under which a structure made of a basin with two perforated cylinders is installed. The hose from the basin should be placed in a container to collect the finished juice. Grapes are loaded into the drum and covered wooden shield, onto which the cast-iron press plate is lowered using a lever. The squeezed juice flows through the hose into a clean container.

The best and highest quality juice is the one that is collected from grapes without using a press, that is, by gravity. As a rule, winemakers combine it with first and second pressing juice, which allows them to obtain the highest quality wine. The juice from the third and subsequent pressings can be used in winemaking to prepare simpler alcoholic drinks. The pressed pulp can be mixed and re-pressed, but not more than three once.

How to make a grape press (video)

Of course, you can squeeze grape juice by hand or through a juicer. But such options have a large number of disadvantages, including loss of juice and reduction in the quality of the wine. Therefore, for winemaking at home, it is recommended to purchase or make at least a simple press yourself. It is very important to thoroughly rinse the device immediately after use, and then the press will serve faithfully for many years.