Breeders have bred many varieties of grapes that have time to ripen in any strip of Russia. Grapes are harvested for the winter in the form of juice, which is very fond of children. And for adults there is nothing better than natural grape wine. To squeeze the juice, growers have to put in a lot of effort. A special press helps to facilitate work. And having made a grape press with your own hands, you will be able to get a useful device, saving money.
General definition and types of presses
The grape press is a keg with drain grates equipped with a drip tray to collect the juice. A power screw is located on top of the barrel, with the help of which pressure is exerted on the pressing element. The barrel is made of stainless steel, as well as wooden planks made of beech or oak. It is important that all materials are environmentally friendly.
Presses can be used not only for processing grapes. They are equally effective in the processing of apples, as well as other fruits and berries. All devices are divided into several types.
Mechanical. Such devices are popular with gardeners. Their distinguishing feature is not very high productivity associated with the need for manual labor.
Grapes are poured into a perforated basket. And the principle of operation of mechanical equipment is that the creation of the required pressure on the press is carried out by a screw mechanism, which is rotated with a handle.
Electrical. This category includes two types of equipment:
- Hydraulic Press;
- pneumatic press.
The operation of the hydraulic press is provided by a hydraulic pump. That is, it exerts pressure on the pressing element with the help of water. Pneumatic equipment provides for the provision of air pressure. Electrical devices differ from mechanical presses in the absence of the need for manual labor. Due to this, the productivity of work and the volume of juice obtained are significantly increased.
What materials are required to make a press
A grape press can be purchased ready-made. Manufacturers offer consumers various types of equipment, including hydraulic juicers. But it is not difficult to make it yourself.
The grapes are loaded into a barrel or basket, in contact with its walls. Therefore, it is very important that it is made of high quality material. Most often, two options are used.
Wood. For these purposes, only hardwoods, such as beech or oak, are suitable. Having made a basket from wooden planks, it will be possible to obtain a durable and environmentally friendly design. But when using wood, there are difficulties with caring for the equipment. After each squeeze of juice, the basket will have to be thoroughly washed and dried.
Metal. Cast iron or stainless steel would be ideal. These materials do not oxidize when in contact with fruit. Metal kegs are easy to maintain, easy to clean and highly hygienic.
The press itself is a circle, which is often made of wood. In addition, you will need to prepare bolts and nuts for fastening structural parts, a metal bar and bearings, as well as tools for working with wood and metal.
Procedure for making a press
To facilitate the work of making a grape press with your own hands, you can take a drum from an old washing machine. Holes are drilled in the drum, which serve to fasten wooden planks. Drainage strips can be sawn from bars or parquet boards can be used.
A “pancake” is made from the same planks, which will act as the bottom of the basket. A bar is screwed onto the “pancake” across the slats, which will provide a gap between the basket and the metal barrel.
Next, a U-shaped frame is made from a metal profile. It is important that the profile thickness is at least 3 mm. The frame is concreted into the ground, providing it with a stable position. If you need to make a mobile device, legs made of metal pipes are welded to the frame.
A "pancake" made of stainless steel or cast iron is installed on the crossbar of the frame, which acts as a press. To fix the "pancake" a hole is drilled in the frame. A lever or handle is installed on the press. In the future, turning the handle, the press will lower into the basket.
The barrel is installed at the base of the frame on a pallet, for example, in a basin. A hole is made in the basin into which a hose is inserted. Through the hose, the juice will drain into the receiving container.
It is also necessary to make a wooden shield that will cover the grapes loaded into the basket. This completes the process of making a homemade press.
How to use the press
To use a homemade press, the basket is covered with a filter cloth. As a filter, you can use gauze folded in several layers, a special fabric, chintz or synthetic fiber. It is important that it does not contain dangerous dyes.
The grapes are taken from the bunches. If it is supposed to make juice from it, the berries are washed under running water. For wine, washing the berries is not required, since it is on the grape skin that wine yeast is found, which causes natural fermentation.
Next, the grapes are loaded into the basket. From above it is covered with a wooden shield. Using a lever or handle, a metal “pancake” is lowered onto a wooden shield. Under the pressure of the metal, the juice formed from the grapes gradually enters the sump and, falling into the hose, drains into a receiving container.
After use, the grape press is disassembled, thoroughly washed and dried. These manipulations must be carried out after each use of the equipment. Otherwise, the wooden structural elements will rot.
The question of how to quickly and efficiently process the grown crop is quite relevant for those who own large plots of land and are engaged in their processing. Many of the devices that help to effectively solve this problem can be made independently: for example, it will not be difficult to make a do-it-yourself grape press. Using such a useful device, you can quickly process even a large crop of 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 sophisticated equipment and expensive consumables.
What is a grape press
A juicer, working 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:
- carrier frame;
- a pallet in which the squeezed juice is collected;
- a barrel in which the juice is squeezed;
- an element with which the pressing of berries or fruits is carried out;
- a power screw that starts the pressing element;
- fine mesh acting as a filter element.
For pressing grapes, it is best to use a screw-type press. At the same time, the berries of white varieties are pre-crushed, and the red ones are processed after they lie down 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 material loaded into the basket-barrel is affected 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 adversely affect 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 locksmith tools, you will need a 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 tanks of failed washing machines are made.
A do-it-yourself steel press for grapes is made in the following sequence.
- 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.
- A container of smaller diameter will serve as a basket into which 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. The outer container is necessary in order to ensure the collection of juice, which will exit 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.
- To install an outer cylinder with a basket, it is necessary to make a pallet with sides, one of the sides of which should be beveled to provide more convenient draining of the squeezed juice. From the narrowed side of the pallet, from where the juice will drain, there should not be a side.
- As a punch that will put pressure on the raw materials loaded into the basket, you can use a flange with a diameter of 21 cm. 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 the handle is welded to the top of the screw, with the help of which it will be rotated.
- Paired with a screw, at the lower end of which a punch is fixed, a nut welded into the upper horizontal jumper of the U-shaped frame works. To ensure high stability of the frame of a homemade grape press, it is concreted into the floor or securely fixed to the desktop surface with screws.
The working surface of the flange-punch of the above design is recommended to be perforated with a drill with a diameter of 4 mm, which will reduce the pressure on the side walls of the press basket. When making such a grape press, it is also desirable to weld bandage rings in the upper and lower parts of the basket, which will ensure that it is located exactly in the center of the outer container.
A home-made press made of steel elements can be used to press not only grapes, but also currants, chokeberries, apples and herbaceous raw materials. In order to extract the maximum amount of juice from certain types of vegetable raw materials, the latter must first be crushed using a conventional meat grinder or a special crusher for this purpose. Do-it-yourself grape crusher, as well as devices for similar purposes for other types of plant materials, can be made with minimal financial costs.
Wooden juicer
A more budgetary option for a do-it-yourself grape squeezer is a wooden press. To use such a device without an outer 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 home-made press will be only a screw with a nut and drainage gratings, with which the layers of fabric bags with vegetable raw materials are shifted.
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 320x50x15 mm in size and, laying them in a row, fasten them together using self-tapping screws and two stainless steel strips 0.5–1 mm thick. When connecting the boards 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 boards are connected to the metal strips, the resulting structure is folded 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.
The press for wine and grape juice, made of wood, can not be equipped with a metal thrust flange. The role of the punch in this case can be played by a wooden circle with a diameter of 27 mm, which is also pressed with a screw with a handle or a car jack installed at the top of the frame of the grape press.
The main tool for creating wine and juice at home with your own hands is a grape press. This device is used by both amateurs and industrial enterprises. However, a self-made grape press is very different from an industrial device.
Design features
Consider the main characteristics inherent in the home press.
- This device is needed so that you can get high quality grape juice. How good the juice or wine will be depends on how the fermentation goes.
- The main function of the press is the separation of juice from the pulp, seeds and skin of grapes.
- Subsequently, this juice is squeezed out. A significant feature is that the juice is separated from the pulp with virtually no damage to the bones or brushes.
- This design for separating the must from the pulp consists of several gears, rollers with a wavy surface, and two empty containers. The grapes are crushed in the first container, and the resulting juice enters the second container.
- Rollers are fixed on the gears. The design has a special handle with which the press is rotated, as a result of which these two elements begin to rotate towards each other.
- A special system is built into the press device, thanks to which it is possible to control the gap between the gear and the roller. Thanks to this mechanism, you can easily squeeze juice from any other fruits and vegetables using this device.
- The smallest gap distance is 0.3cm and the largest is 0.8cm.
- This design is considered a pressure device, regardless of its subspecies: hydraulic, manual or screw press. In addition to such a device, a stove and a basket are attached. This is where the grape juice separates from the skin.
- A drainage system is installed between the two discs, through which the resulting juice is drained.
- Under the press there is a special rod with a continuous helical surface. With the help of it, unnecessary products are eliminated after draining the juice.
- The end result of the process of passing the grapes through the press is pure juice drained into an empty container.
Any device designed for pressing grapes, apples or other fruits includes 4 stages of pressing:
- first, the grape juice is separated from the pulp under a slope using its own gravity;
- obtaining juice of the first pressure;
- obtaining juice of the second pressure;
- obtaining juice of the third pressure.
Varieties of devices
Before you buy a press for squeezing grape juice or other fruits and vegetables, you need to carefully study all the varieties of these devices.
All industrial presses for wringing can be divided into the following categories.
mechanical press
Such a device is a fixed cast-iron base on which a special basket made of wood is installed. This solution is characterized by good performance, reasonable price and small dimensions. A mechanical fruit and vegetable squeezer is considered by many winemakers to be the ideal solution for making juice at home.
However, such a device is only suitable for processing a small amount of fruit, since physical force will have to be used to operate it.
Electric press
This subgroup includes two more types of press: hydraulic and pneumatic. Such devices are made of excellent quality stainless steel, so that the press will not rust. This solution will not add any side flavors to your juice. The hydraulic press works with the help of water, the pneumatic one - with the help of high air pressure, which is created by a special pump. Both the hydraulic and pneumatic versions of the pump operate on electric current only.
The main advantage of this solution is high device performance.
Universal press
Many people want their device to be able to squeeze juice not only from grapes, but also from any other fruit and vegetable. Universal presses have long established themselves in the market and are in great demand because they can be used to squeeze juice from apples, cherries, oranges and other crops. This greatly expands the possibilities of making juices and wines.
Each winemaker can buy a five-liter device for pressing grapes and use it at home. All press options are similar in function, however, the material from which the structure is made often differs. The most popular are 2 types of devices: a press made of wood and metal.
- wooden version is environmentally friendly, and does not cause any harm to human health. However, it is very difficult to take care of such a device, since after each use you will have to rinse the device very thoroughly and disinfect it.
- Metal variant The device is an alloy of cast iron and stainless steel. If the design is based on metal, then this device will be durable. The press, made of metal, is very easy to use and is hygienic, as it does not add any extra tastes and smells to the resulting grape juice.
How to make a press with your own hands?
In the modern world, in home use, juicers and food processors easily outshine a full-fledged mechanical press. With their help, you can easily squeeze juice from grapes or other fruits and vegetables, however, not every owner will be satisfied with the result. The main disadvantage of food processors is that too much pulp remains in the resulting juice, and not everyone likes this.
You can also buy a special screw press, produced at the factory, which is able to perfectly perform all the functions of juicers much better than themselves. However, not all people are ready to buy something that you can assemble yourself with little effort.
Below we will consider one of the easiest types of grape press, which does not require any drawings. With this design, you can easily squeeze out your entire crop.
- First you need to pick up large dishes. This is where we put the berries. Experts recommend using a drum from a washing machine. Using a drill on the walls of the vessel, you need to make small holes in a chaotic manner.
- Next, you will need dishes with a diameter larger than the drum of the machine. It should be a round dish without a bottom.
- In a container that is larger in diameter, you need to install the drum of the washing machine, and place a small wooden plank in the distance between the containers.
- A U-shaped frame should be built from wood. On the resulting "horizontal bar" you need to fix the chassis. It is a fairly dense pancake made of cast iron or stainless steel. It is fixed on the frame with a special lever, for this the frame should be drilled.
- Both containers must be installed in a large basin. It also drills a small hole the size of a hose. A hose must be connected to this basin in order to separate the resulting juice.
- The crossbar in the shape of the letter "P" should be firmly fixed in the ground, it is the main part of this design. Subsequently, an assembly is installed on it, consisting of a basin made of food-grade polymers, and a pair of vessels fixed in each other.
- You will need another large empty container. A hose that comes out of your structure will be sent to it. Ready grape juice will begin to merge here.
- Place the berries in the drum of the washing machine, and cover with a metal sheet or cover with boards. On top you need to put a cast-iron pancake. The force of pressure should be controlled with a lever.
- As a result of the manipulations, you get grape juice, which is drained through a hose into an empty container.
Experienced winemakers do not recommend pressing grape softness more than 2-3 times.
Grape juice obtained after the first pressing is excellent for quality wines or expensive fruit drinks.
How to make a grape press, see the following video.
At first I planned to buy a 76 liter Italian basket press, but then I wanted to make a press myself. I started searching the web for photos of vintage basket presses for grapes in order to take a closer look at the design. Also, I carefully read wine blogs. As a result, in the blog of Denis Rudenko, an article Wine press - from cave to hi-tech winery and on Facebook at Vladimir Tsepelik I found what I was looking for. Further easier. We make a drawing, then we draw in isometry and make a layout by elements. Now you need to find where to buy dry oak and a workshop in which to process it. I was lucky - in the very first woodworking shop where I applied and where they sell dry oak, I met the owners. They turned out to be "garage winemakers", and even specializing in the production of brandy, i.e. they make dry wine, then distill it into grape spirit and age it in oak barrels. This is where we agreed. I express to them a huge! THANK YOU! for help.
1. it all starts with a drawing
2. fuganim - that is, we align two of the four sides 
3. sawing 
4. I do the press :-) 
5. drawing 
6. resmus allows us to make the necessary parts of a given thickness the same 
7. cut the dies for the basket 
8. have lunch (at a party) 
9. we trim the parts to the size we need 
10. end up 
11. first result! now all these details should take shape, they just need to be assembled according to the diagram 
12. measure right angles 
13. drill and screw 
14. assemble the frame
A grape press is often used in the preparation of grape juice and wine. It is popular not only in small private farms, but also in industry. Such devices are of different types, manual, electric, and if you wish, you can make a grape press with your own hands.
What is a grape press
A grape press is a machine that extracts juice from grapes. Such juice can be used simply for making wine, but it is very concentrated, so it is often diluted while drinking. But most often a grape press is used in the preparation of high-quality must.
During the extraction of grape juice by a press, the bones are almost never crushed, which means that the taste of the must does not deteriorate.
The device is a pressure device. When grapes are poured into the basket, the squeezing process begins. The piston under pressure crushes the grapes and the juice begins to ooze out of it, falling into a large canister. When the tap on the tank is opened, the juice flows out. Thus, it is convenient to bottle, jar. The juice from the grapes is squeezed 2-3 times, of course, the highest quality product is obtained during the first pressing.
Types of presses
Check also these articles
When choosing a grape press, you need to consider what type of device will work best and bring many benefits.
What materials are used for presses
In order for the press mechanism to work correctly, many different parts are used, which are made of various materials. But depending on what material dominates in the press, they are of several types, the most popular of which are only two.
- The wooden press is environmentally friendly and safe. In such a press, you can make high-quality juice. However, a wooden press requires careful and proper care, disinfection, otherwise it will not last long.
Experienced winemakers do not advise squeezing juice from one batch of grapes more than 3 times. After the 3rd spin, the raw materials need to be changed!
- The metal press is made of cast iron or stainless steel. Such material is hygienic, easy to clean, durable. If the metal is of good quality, then it will not spoil the smell or taste of the juice.
How to make a do-it-yourself grape press
The price categories of a grape press depend on the material from which it is made, size, functionality, characteristics and some other qualities. And yet it is not a cheap mechanism. Therefore, many growers make a press for squeezing grapes with their own hands.
The dimensions of the various parts depend on the size of the press needed, so in different cases they may differ. You can take a large or small basket for grapes, and the rest of the details, their dimensions depend on this, the main element. This is important to consider! So, how to make a grape press with your own hands?
- The first thing to do is a basket for fresh grapes. To do this, you can take an old tank, a drum from a washing machine, a large pan, or something like that. Holes are made in the walls of this container in a checkerboard pattern with a distance between holes of 2-3 cm and a distance between rows of 2-4 cm. The diameter of the holes should be small, only so that the juice can ooze.
- If you need a grape press for a long time, then it is better to find a stainless steel cylinder, or find a fine stainless steel mesh and make a cylinder from it. This design is not subject to rust, does not oxidize and will not give the juice a metallic taste.
You can make a grape press with your own hands not only from metal, but also from wood, but it will take more time and effort, otherwise the design will be unreliable.
Now the design is assembled and tested. A basket filled with grapes is placed in a basin with a faucet. Next, install in a frame with a press. The basket with grapes is closed with a pancake and placed exactly under the jack. When the jack begins to unwind, under its action the pancake crushes the grapes and juice oozes out of it. Grape juice enters the basin through the holes of the cylinder and drains through the faucet. To get a purer juice, it is filtered through cheesecloth or a sieve.
As you can see, the design is quite simple, but it also needs to be properly looked after, otherwise it will not last long. After each use, all components are washed and dried. And while working, the grapes are choked intermittently so that too much pressure is not created inside, then it will be of high quality.
