Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi, I'm new to the forum so I don't know if I'm posting in the right spot, but you folks sound like you might have the answer I seek.
My brother and I recently discovered an old family fruit press and are planning to make cider with it. We've done our best to clean it but all the metal is cast iron not stainless steel so it’s hard to keep from flash rusting. In addition to that, although the wood is not rotted it is permeated with mildew and rusted bolt heads etc. Our thoughts were to bleach out the mildew then coat the wood and iron with wax to prevent rusting and seal the drainage trough at the bottom. I have no idea if this is a good solution or if the wax will change the flavor of the cider.

I guess all I'm trying to say is... Do you think wax is a workable solution or is there a trick to this that I don't know about yet?

Hi and welcome to the vine. This is mostly a garden-related forum but I also belong to a brewing forum which may be more help to you. I did hire a fruit-press last weekend to make some cider and it was plain wood and heavy iron too.

Try www.winesathome.co.uk and you may have more practical help with brewing matters there.

I think hammerite may work on the metal bits (pretty certain that was what was on the one I hired) but would not like to say for certain. The wood should be okay with a good scrub - use salt to get it really clean and let it air dry. I would not recommend waxing it.

Good luck with finding the answer to the metal bits.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Or make your own - some plans here
I made one last month using a bottle-jack from halfords and some 4x2 timber and have happily squashed crab apples, cooking apples and grapes in the last four weeks - got 2 gallons of homemade cider now (or homemade alcoholic-vinegar as other-half would more accurately describe it ).

Little tip - if you freeze the apples before pressing you get more juice out.

Cheers,
Ian.

Hello DA and welcome to the Vine. Can't help you with your question, but just wanted to welcome you.

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~
Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

On the contrary this is a brewing section of a gardening site. Started as a way of using all the produce that could not be eaten or stored, so we discuss brewing methods,
Best idea would be to clean it and dry it somewhere warm so it does not flash rust. Then varnish it with a gloss polyurathane varnish to seal it,this should last for several years and would be far better than waxing which could taint the finished product.
Please let us know how it goes as this is how we learn.
If you read through some of the posts you will be amazed what people are brewing with and the results, with cleanliness can be excellent.