My new Apple Chopper

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still_stirrin
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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cranky wrote:Today...I was hoping to get to the store that had 3# bags of red delicious apples for $1.27 but didn't manage..
Cranky's buying apples??? Oh my... :esurprised:
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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still_stirrin wrote:
cranky wrote:Today...I was hoping to get to the store that had 3# bags of red delicious apples for $1.27 but didn't manage..
Cranky's buying apples??? Oh my... :esurprised:
I know, I was mortified :oops: but these were only intended as test apples, sort of a cleaning run, since all but a half bucket full of what's already been picked has been converted to fruity goodness already. Last Saturday I actually spent $10 to buy 24 pounds of apples so I could do test runs and shoot the video. I want this newest version to be all dialed in and ready when apple season comes around so I won't have to rush and hopefully Mrs. Cranky will be willing to use it.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Today I turned down the output shaft on the motor to 1/2" and even though I didn't get to the store yesterday, I managed to get 16-20 of my favorite kind of apples, free apples someone else picked and got a basic test done with the 3/4 horse motor. It still spits a bit and is a little slower than I would like but it did a very good job, chopping the apples finely without breaking the seeds with just the perfect texture for pressing. I am thinking about changing the spacing on the top 2 blades but I like the texture of the final product so much I can live with whatever speed it can handle. In truth I didn't push it to it's limit so I don't know how many apples it can handle of exactly how fast it can chop them but it handled 8 fairly large apples at once without a problem. I will try to get a speed run in and try to get a video and probably wind up editing my youtube video to include it and maybe some music during the silent parts.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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:thumbup:
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Today I did the final testing on the apple chopper before breaking it down to put away til apple season. I had to do a little adjusting and balancing work but now it seems to be smooth and nicely balanced. I also did another test run. Unfortunately I had to actually buy apples for this test and the store jacked up the price of the red delicious apples I bought last week to $1.99 for 3 pounds. That kind of pissed me off because last week they were $1.27 a bag so I bought all they had. I guess they thought they had a high demand and could jack up the price accordingly. I figured if I was going to pay that much I may as well get something else. Right next to them were bags of what I thought was granny smiths which were a bit smaller than the red delicious and would be better for simulating the apples I actually pick, so I bought 5 bags of those for testing purposes. When I was setting up getting ready to test I noticed the bags had "USDA Organic" on them. Looking closer it turned out they were actually organic Golden Delicious so I didn't feel so bad about spending 66 cents a pound. They are also high brix apples so I didn't want to waste the juice, so I had to spend the time to clean all my equipment before processing. I also took this time to adjust and rebalance the blades so the chopper runs as smoothly as possible.

The test went amazingly well. I haven't calculated the speed but it is fast enough for me, it runs smooth and quietly, chops very finely and doesn't break the seeds. This left me with a problem, I now had a short video of the newest and probably final incarnation of the chopper that really needed added to the video I posted last week. I also wanted to add some music to the silent portions so I had to redo the whole video. To prevent redundancy on the youtube channel I had to delete the original video. So the one I posted the other day no longer works. Here is the new improved video which includes the newest and hopefully final version of the apple chopper. If you have already seen the other one just skip to 9:20 on the video to get to the latest update and test.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Today I took the pulp I chopped yesterday stuck it in a press bag and squeezed it by hand just to see what I could get out if it without even breaking out the press. I had saved a little over 3 lbs of apples so I only chopped around 12 lbs. I got a little over a gallon of juice, which is actually very good considering it usually takes about 16 lbs to make a gallon. I don't know if it was just extra juicy apples or the fine chop but it was probably a combination of both to give me a higher than normal yield. I could have gotten even more if I had actually pressed the bag.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Nice :thumbup: :thumbup:

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Re: My new Apple Chopper

Post by Appalachian spirits »

Shiners sure are a creative bunch! I love the chopper!
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Appalachian spirits wrote:Shiners sure are a creative bunch! I love the chopper!
Thank you, although I think it is really cheap bastards that are a creative bunch :crazy: I'm too cheap to buy it, too honest to steal it, too lazy to do it the hard way and too busy to spend too much time doing it so I have to find another way to accomplish the goal :D
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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cranky wrote:
Appalachian spirits wrote:Shiners sure are a creative bunch! I love the chopper!
Thank you, although I think it is really cheap bastards that are a creative bunch :crazy: I'm too cheap to buy it, too honest to steal it, too lazy to do it the hard way and too busy to spend too much time doing it so I have to find another way to accomplish the goal :D
As the saying goes "Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Bushman wrote:As the saying goes "Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
Necessity may be the mother of invention but laziness is the father :lol: My old way was so time consuming and labor intense that I just had to come up with something easier and faster. Now I've been considering buying some land out in the country so I can have a proper orchard so I don't have to scrounge apples. Then I want to put nets under the trees that act as funnels to funnel the apples to conveyor belts that then feed the chopper, then on to an automated press... maybe a rotating system of carboys for collecting in... :think:
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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On two other posts today on the forum I read about a bottle collection rotating system and a net collecting fruit once the tree is shaken in Italy by a distiller. Gave me a few ideas rather than using an apple picker. Our problem is cleaning g the sheep poop before the apples have a chance to fall to the ground.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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I haven't seen those posts but I've had an Idea about a net collection system for a long time now, I was thinking something like the frame of an old trampoline with a net instead of whatever it is a trampoline is made of so it lets water and things through but keeps the apples off the ground. Slant it and sag it a bit so the apples roll to a single collection point where there is a bin or something and your golden. I actually got the idea from an incident that happened to us in Kansas back in '96 (ish). We had just moved into a 130+ year old house we bought for $8,000 as a fixer upper, that really should have been a tearer downer, but we had real ambition back then. Two or three days after we moved in a big storm came up and carried half the roof off to Oz in the middle of the night. My wife woke me up screaming for me to do something about the wall of water falling in the kitchen around the light fixture that couldn't be turned off :wtf: My solution was to get a big sheet of plastic, staple it around the perimeter of the ceiling and sag it in the middle funneling the water to the sink. This worked incredibly well until morning when I could more easily deal with the aftermath of the storm without being electrocuted.

Ever since I started messing with apples I've thought about that and thought it could be a good solution to collect apples, it would be awesome to have a setup like that with a tree shaker.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Yesterday I realized my videos are no longer showing up so here is a link to the latest apple chopper video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awiBsXrJt_Q&t=1s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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So what was the final result of the number of blades and spacing?
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Soft batch wrote:So what was the final result of the number of blades and spacing?
That's a good question. I don't think I have answered that yet. It seems I didn't take a picture before final assembly but the final arrangement of blades from top to bottom is all sets of crossed (X) blades, I removed the single top blade after we tried something with it that was not only a dismal failure but scarred the crap out of me. So the arrangement and spacing from top to bottom is a single set of crossed blades, a single nut used as a spacer, then another set of crossed blades 45 degrees to the first blade. The reason I did this is the apples can drop onto the second blade which holds it up so the first blade can take a better bite out of the apples, in truth it would have been better to use 2 nuts for spacing but I didn't want to take it apart again. Then I have a space of about 3 inches to the next group of blades. On this group of blades the top 2 Xs are clamped together at 45 degrees apart with no spacing. then a nut as a spacer and another set of 2 Xs also clamped together. Then there is another space of 3 inches or so then 2 X blades clamped together at 45 degrees, spacer nut, 2 X blades, nut and 2 more X blades. (X-X----XX-XX----XX-XX-XX-).
So depending on how you want to count, that would be 12 sets of blades in an X which would be 24 pairs or 48 cutting edges.

I abandoned arranging the bottom blades in a fan in favor of aligning all blades. There are several reasons behind this, first the blades being in a fan resulted in the chop being far too fine. Second was balancing was far too difficult with it like that and third was because of the lower powered motor it is possible to feed it too fast and jam it up requiring you to shut it down and reach in or use a stick to clear the jam which would be nearly impossible with the fan arrangement.

Here is a picture I just took looking down the barrel to try to show how it looks now.
APPLE CHOPPER 04 APR 18 - C.JPG
I actually don't think this many blades are necessary but I didn't feel like removing any more for testing. If you look close you can see how much material I had to remove from the blades at 6 O'clock to get them balanced, it made a big difference.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Cranky... you're the coolest man. Again.. another awesome thread to follow. Watching the evolutions and development of this device is fascinating. I gotta say though, i think you have as much fun designing and building this as you do actually picking/grinding/pressing apples, and then making delicious cider and killer brandy. I can tell you're a tinkerer and have, as you've mentioned, a bit of an outside the box mentality. It has served you well, and i think you've found your niche.
Kinda how i'm feeling at the moment. I have a career i love, and have done the same field of work since i started working. But.. sometimes i yearn to be able to spend all my time on all things distilling. I think i've found my calling.. but, hey, who knows.. maybe doing it for a living takes some of the fun out of it, especially when you're labor of love turns into labor of paying rent. I'm a bit lucky like you, in that i get to do some work on my hobby at my place of work, although in a drastically different fashion. I"m a chef by trade, so at work i'm able to deal more in raw materials, like cutting and juicing 7 cs of pineapple for my brandy. I'm doing the spirit run now. I'm not sure what you do for a living, but it sounds like you're a repair guy of some sort. Or a fireman haha. You've mentioned that you hang out at the shop until you get a call to go out and fix something or whatever it is you do. Pretty neat that you get some down time to be able to tinker and play around with stuff. And shit.. it sounds like you have alll sorts of cool toys and top of the line equipment at your disposal. AND a scrap bin where high quality metal pieces seem to appear that you're welcome to take! Pretty awesome job benefit. But, i digress..

I can't wait to see this bad boy put to work and see what she can do.I mean, more than just the test runs. I want to see the apple chopper in all its glory. Cranky bringing home hundreds of pounds of apples and obliterating them with ease, and spending quality time with the wife! This apple chopper is an epic build man.. another of the incredibly creative and innovative pieces of machinery to be spawned on HD and described in intimate detail for all of us to learn from. Soft Batch has been the first to replicate your design, and i don't doubt there will be many more.

It's april 13th... so, we are getting semi-close to fruit season. If i'm excited to see the chopper in action.. i'm sure you are 10 times as pumped.

So, this is probably best placed in the Fruity Goodness thread, but, what are your goals for this season? Have you kind of backed off on setting lofty goals for production? I do recall you mentioning that you've enough apple brandy for life. But, i'm sure that won't stop you from making it.

Do you think you are at a good place, equipment wise? As in.. obviously the chopper is at the right iteration to be able to keep up, but how about the press? Is it ready to keep up with the buckets and buckets of apple pomace the chopper will produce? What about carboys? Are you all set, ready with dozens of empty carboys to fit all this juice? I've heard you mention your stilling gear.. you have a (homemade?) flute, {{{{EDIT: I just saw the Goofy Things thread. I thought MashRookie was the only one to build a still out of Beer Mugs. I was wrong. So wrong. Apologies}}}} You also have a large pot still, not sure of the size or material, and have mentioned a smaller one, but that you don't really use? I'm just wondering a little about your procedures and protocols as far as stilling. I know i have my setup pretty dialed in, as far as what batch sizes i do that fit my still, for strips, for spirit runs, containers to hold everything etc. Sorry to grill you, just curious about if you have a plan of some kind, and some of your strategies for this season. I can tell you're a fly by the seat of the pants type, but i think you're also a bit of a planner, as one needs to be in order to accomplish the massive quantities of quality cider and liquor that you do.
I'll just share a couple small goals of my own, so as to not carry your thread off topic or face the wrath of tater.
- Pick apples. Find fruit trees on my own, perhaps go to an established orchard
- Pick other fruit. We've got plenty of u-pick strawberry places here, but i'm not sure i want to take on strawberry brandy. Maybe just some infusions
- Attempt to make Perry, and then Pear Eau de Vie and or Pear brandy. Pear cider is something i've never tasted, same Brandy/Eau, but it sounds really outstanding, and i'm dead set on creating apple and pear brandy. I went to a liquor store the other day, and asked if they had calvados, which was met with a blank stare. I said "French apple brandy" and he said Oh.. all the french brandy is over there. It was all Cognac etc. No apple brandy, except something by Laird's which i think was from New Jersey, and didn't sound real promising.

Back on topic... So, with all your experience with apples and fruit, and the tools of the trade that go into processing them, where would you suggest a "fruit" beginner start? If you were me, and were interested in just getting started with picking fresh fruit (mainly apples and pears) and processing it yourself into cider and then distilling it, where would you begin? I'm not terribly handy, but i could attempt to build an apple chopping device and an apple pressing device. I'm getting consumed with fruit threads on HD at the moment.. i feel like you are one of the Gurus who's brain i'd love to pick about this stuff. What would you suggest for a beginner? If i had to, i could spring the cash and BUY an apple chopper and fruit press... but i think you'd guide me a different direction... to build my own. But there's a multitude of different options, here on HD and all over the web. With the gift of hindsight... what's the best bang for my buck, least fuss least mess, most compact, easy to clean, most efficient route to Picking, crushing, and juicing fruit?

Sorry to get off topic, and be obnoxiously vague sir... i hope i got my message accross. It's been a long day and my noodle isn't exactly high functioning at the moment.

Again.. love this thread... can't wait to hear your results with the MK7 apple annihilator and the latest version of the press. If my post is to rambly and incoherent, please feel free to ignore and i wont take any offense.

Thanks,

CC
Last edited by CatCrap on Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Just saw the video (finally). Thank's for linking it to You tube, i wasn't able to see the embedded videos. It's wayyyy more badass than i imagined. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video must be worth a million words. So so cool... and you're only feeding a couple handfuls of apples into it. Can't wait for this bad boy to see dozens and dozens and hundreds of apples fed into it. Truly awesome (by actual definition. This thing inspires Awe. I am awed. Awed hard. So full of awe.)

I do see exactly what you mean about the last iteration, how it shakes and rattles pretty hard. For a while there, my thought was 'Cmon MRs. Cranky, it can't be that scary. Cranky put HOW much work into this dang thing and you won't even use it?" But.. eh... to be honest, Crank... i beleive in you and all.. but that thing was a little terrifying. The reinforcment and balancing was much needed. NOt that i have any knowledge on this subject whatsoever. But, my intuition or Fight or Flight reflex, tells me.. a kevlar vest may have been wise to run that thing the way it was set up. That or run like hell. Glad you got it dialed in. I hope Mrs. Cranky agrees with me that the upgrades you made have made it far safer and more stable. It's a work of art, man. You ought to patent this thing....... and sell it online... Not joking. Sounds crazy perhaps. But, crazy is right up your alley!!! :D :ebiggrin: :ebiggrin: :ebiggrin: :ebiggrin: :ebiggrin:
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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CatCrap I like your enthusiasm. Most of this is probably best addressed in thee fruity goodness thread but I'll go ahead and answer it here.
CatCrap wrote: I'm not sure what you do for a living, but it sounds like you're a repair guy of some sort. Or a fireman haha. You've mentioned that you hang out at the shop until you get a call to go out and fix something or whatever it is you do. Pretty neat that you get some down time to be able to tinker and play around with stuff. And shit.. it sounds like you have alll sorts of cool toys and top of the line equipment at your disposal. AND a scrap bin where high quality metal pieces seem to appear that you're welcome to take! Pretty awesome job benefit.
I do fix things that break and get a lot of down time waiting for things to break. I don't think I would call our equipment high tech but it gets the job done, and my bosses don't have any problem with my goofy activities. It is a nice little benefit.
CatCrap wrote:I can't wait to see this bad boy put to work and see what she can do.I mean, more than just the test runs. I want to see the apple chopper in all its glory. Cranky bringing home hundreds of pounds of apples and obliterating them with ease, and spending quality time with the wife! This apple chopper is an epic build man.. another of the incredibly creative and innovative pieces of machinery to be spawned on HD and described in intimate detail for all of us to learn from. Soft Batch has been the first to replicate your design, and i don't doubt there will be many more.
I know others have talked about trying it, can't really remember who though, they may be waiting to see just haw disastrous mine turns out or waiting to see how the final designs of mine turned out, or maybe just too busy to finish them just yet. I'm not really sure but I imagine others will follow sooner or later.
CatCrap wrote:So, this is probably best placed in the Fruity Goodness thread, but, what are your goals for this season? Have you kind of backed off on setting lofty goals for production? I do recall you mentioning that you've enough apple brandy for life. But, i'm sure that won't stop you from making it.
That won't stop me but other things might, life is getting kind of hectic right now.
CatCrap wrote: Do you think you are at a good place, equipment wise? As in.. obviously the chopper is at the right iteration to be able to keep up, but how about the press? Is it ready to keep up with the buckets and buckets of apple pomace the chopper will produce? What about carboys? Are you all set, ready with dozens of empty carboys to fit all this juice? I've heard you mention your stilling gear
I'm in a good place as far as equipment, I have lots of fermenters, my press is still too small and I'd like to get an air hydraulic jack or two and make the press bigger but what I have will work for another year or two.
CatCrap wrote:you have a (homemade?) flute, {{{{EDIT: I just saw the Goofy Things thread. I thought MashRookie was the only one to build a still out of Beer Mugs. I was wrong. So wrong. Apologies}}}}
Yes I was inspired by Mash Rookie and built the flute out of dollar store beer mugs. It's not exactly an approved material so I don't talk about it much. MR's original one was, and may still be, up for sale but I never had enough money to feel I could make an offer for it that would do justice but I really would like to own it.
CatCrap wrote:You also have a large pot still, not sure of the size or material, and have mentioned a smaller one, but that you don't really use? I'm just wondering a little about your procedures and protocols as far as stilling.
I have a 15.5 gallon keg converted to an electric boiler and a little 4 gallon pot, also electric. As far as the columns, the pot head is a length of 1.5" pipe that feeds a 36" liebig, pretty basic really. The Muggles too is currently a 3 plate flute(capable if u to 5) with a small shotgun product condenser (PC) and for vodka I have a big borosilicate tube packed with lava rock which uses the same PC as the flute. By many peoples standards everything I have is pretty primitive but they work fine for what I do.
CatCrap wrote: just curious about if you have a plan of some kind, and some of your strategies for this season. I can tell you're a fly by the seat of the pants type, but i think you're also a bit of a planner, as one needs to be in order to accomplish the massive quantities of quality cider and liquor that you do.
Since I have reached my goal of filling that 5 gallon barrel I really don't feel as driven about it as the past couple years. Plus with Mrs Cranky's close call last year I'm just taking things as they come. If I get enough to do something with that will be fine, if not there is always next year. I've never been much at planning, with fruit the second you make plans Mother Nature will change them for you.
CatCrap wrote:I'll just share a couple small goals of my own, so as to not carry your thread off topic or face the wrath of tater.
- Pick apples. Find fruit trees on my own, perhaps go to an established orchard
- Pick other fruit. We've got plenty of u-pick strawberry places here, but i'm not sure i want to take on strawberry brandy. Maybe just some infusions
- Attempt to make Perry, and then Pear Eau de Vie and or Pear brandy. Pear cider is something i've never tasted, same Brandy/Eau, but it sounds really outstanding, and i'm dead set on creating apple and pear brandy. I went to a liquor store the other day, and asked if they had calvados, which was met with a blank stare. I said "French apple brandy" and he said Oh.. all the french brandy is over there. It was all Cognac etc. No apple brandy, except something by Laird's which i think was from New Jersey, and didn't sound real promising.
Finding free fruit is the hardest part, people do have good results with store bought apple juice but buying fruit can get pretty pricey. I've done strawberry and found that I lost about a third of the volume to sediment, they are a lot like plum that way, turned out good though. My preference would be to make pear brandy, which would also be thought of as aeu de vie because I prefer to leave pear white. If you are looking for apple brandy to try, If you can find a Total Wine, they have almost everything, a lot of American distilleries making it are calling it Apple Jack. There is a lot of debate in regard to what apple jack really is but the feds recognize apple jack as distilled apple brandy.
CatCrap wrote:Back on topic... So, with all your experience with apples and fruit, and the tools of the trade that go into processing them, where would you suggest a "fruit" beginner start? If you were me, and were interested in just getting started with picking fresh fruit (mainly apples and pears) and processing it yourself into cider and then distilling it, where would you begin? I'm not terribly handy, but i could attempt to build an apple chopping device and an apple pressing device. I'm getting consumed with fruit threads on HD at the moment.. i feel like you are one of the Gurus who's brain i'd love to pick about this stuff. What would you suggest for a beginner? If i had to, i could spring the cash and BUY an apple chopper and fruit press... but i think you'd guide me a different direction... to build my own. But there's a multitude of different options, here on HD and all over the web. With the gift of hindsight... what's the best bang for my buck, least fuss least mess, most compact, easy to clean, most efficient route to Picking, crushing, and juicing fruit?
There is a lot to consider when starting out, One good way is to start with store bought juice, I think BigBob has a thread somewhere about that, maybe it was someone else :problem: but lots of people start that way. I prefer American produced juice, Tree top is my favorite, it often goes on sale here for $2.00 or less per half gallon which is far from free but cheaper than buying apples for the most part. I don't really know if I'd recommend building a chopper for a beginner, first you have to find all the free apples to justify it. My old original method worked pretty well in spite of being incredibly time consuming but a lot depends on peoples budgets and motivation, even a simple juicer could work pretty well for smaller volume. I guess I really don't have an answer for that, I am a cheap bastard so I build everything myself and make due. I have had my eye on a really nice 10 gallon apple press on our local Craigslist for some time now and kind of wish I could just buy it rather than take all that time to make another press. It's really just a hard thing for me to give advice on.
CatCrap wrote:Just saw the video (finally). Thank's for linking it to You tube, i wasn't able to see the embedded videos. It's wayyyy more badass than i imagined. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video must be worth a million words. So so cool... and you're only feeding a couple handfuls of apples into it. Can't wait for this bad boy to see dozens and dozens and hundreds of apples fed into it. Truly awesome (by actual definition. This thing inspires Awe. I am awed. Awed hard. So full of awe.)
Thank you it was a very long process to work it all out.
CatCrap wrote: I do see exactly what you mean about the last iteration, how it shakes and rattles pretty hard. For a while there, my thought was 'Cmon MRs. Cranky, it can't be that scary. Cranky put HOW much work into this dang thing and you won't even use it?" But.. eh... to be honest, Crank... i beleive in you and all.. but that thing was a little terrifying. The reinforcment and balancing was much needed. NOt that i have any knowledge on this subject whatsoever. But, my intuition or Fight or Flight reflex, tells me.. a kevlar vest may have been wise to run that thing the way it was set up. That or run like hell. Glad you got it dialed in.
The shaky one last year wasn't really that bad. This year when I put that motor on the better balanced assembly it was down right terrifying. It was going so fast the apples never even made it past the first blade. You should have seen it when the guy helping me suggested it might be helpful to bend the top pair of blades up to about a 50 degree angle thinking that might let the apples drop to the second blade and get the first and second one working together. When I flipped the switch and watched those top bladed straighten themselves back flat again, I almost ran away from it. That was when I knew I couldn't use that motor.
CatCrap wrote:It's a work of art, man. You ought to patent this thing....... and sell it online... Not joking. Sounds crazy perhaps. But, crazy is right up your alley!!! :D :ebiggrin: :ebiggrin: :ebiggrin: :ebiggrin: :ebiggrin:
I'd be afraid to sell it, I don't think you could get liability insurance on it much less the lawsuit when someone stuck their hand in it while it was running only to pull back a stump, of the possibility of what could happen when the stupidity factor of some people gets into it. When I had it at work with the big motor I had a key set up to lock it out so nobody could mess with it while I wasn't there. Well someone on another shift decided to get inside and bypass the switch, even though I had warnings on it and hadn't yet balanced it, and they had no idea what condition it was in, they still turned it on. Then actually went to management and complained about the dangerous thing I was building :esurprised: . Fortunately I had already shown my manager what I was up to and he told them to shut the hell up and leave it alone :D but I can only imagine what kind of trouble a regular person could get themselves into if they bought one of these things.
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likker liker
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

Post by likker liker »

I did to reread all of this, this an amazing amount of work/discovery
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cranky
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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likker liker wrote:I did to reread all of this, this an amazing amount of work/discovery
Sorry, I've been meaning to respond to this for a while and just lost track. :oops:

It really has been quite a journey. I suppose a lot of it has been because I am cheap and didn't have the budget to buy a proper apple grinder. I personally think it has worked out pretty well. I'm looking forward to giving it a good workout soon :D
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Bushman
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Cranky as you know the weakest part of our operation is the converted wood chipper we use to prepare the apples for pressing. We have 2 small orchards and more apples than we can process. Would love to have you bring your grinder out for a weekend and share the bounty. My problem is I will be in Norway and Ireland until the end of September but hoping we can still process the apples.

Interested?
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cranky
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Bushman wrote:Cranky as you know the weakest part of our operation is the converted wood chipper we use to prepare the apples for pressing. We have 2 small orchards and more apples than we can process. Would love to have you bring your grinder out for a weekend and share the bounty. My problem is I will be in Norway and Ireland until the end of September but hoping we can still process the apples.

Interested?
In truth even when I started working on the final rebuilding of the chopper I was not really intending to use it very much this year. Life is very busy for me right now and I wouldn't anticipate having time to do that. If after 5 or 6 hundred pounds of apples, I feel my goofy contraption is actually safe I would probably be willing to loan it out but I think I would kind of worry someone might get hurt.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

Post by Copperhead road »

Cranky you have got all the right weapons in your toolbox for fruit, I can only dream :relaxed:
Love your work! You sure are one of the Brandy Gods :clap:
”how do you like them Apples” :ebiggrin:
Never mistake kindness for weakness....
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likker liker
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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It really has been quite a journey. I suppose a lot of it has been because I am cheap and didn't have the budget to buy a proper apple grinder. I personally think it has worked out pretty well. I'm looking forward to giving it a good workout soon :D
Thanks so much for sharing your journey, I truly appreciate everything
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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I hope you've got this baby oiled and ready to chop, I know you said the earlies are almost ready!!!

Mine is just the little electric wood chipper from harbor freight and it works great on small apples but I have to hand cut some of the largest ones.

I only have 4 trees to pick from so it will suit me fine.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Shine0n wrote:I hope you've got this baby oiled and ready to chop, I know you said the earlies are almost ready!!!

Mine is just the little electric wood chipper from harbor freight and it works great on small apples but I have to hand cut some of the largest ones.

I only have 4 trees to pick from so it will suit me fine.
I have the same and we have two orchards. It works but is the largest bottle neck in our weekend operation.
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cranky
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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I drove past the transparent yesterday and it is ready. The transparents can last about 2 weeks if necessary and that's about the amount of time the tree in the back yard needs, the Vista Bella is about 2 weeks out too. Last year the transparent was good for around 300 lbs the year before was 600#s with the back yard tree doing similar. Even though it's a good mature tree the Vista Bella is only good for about 30-50#s but they are such beautiful apples I just have to pick them. There is another early apple near the plum thicket that is also loaded this year if I can find the time.

I'm trying to figure out some time to go picking. The transparent looks really loaded this year. I am planning on stopping and picking tomorrow and if necessary Sunday. I'm hoping to set the chopper up on my weekend (Tue-Wed) but things aren't looking good for that so it might be the next week. At least I have it to where it's easy to set up. I haven't gotten the press upsized yet so that will be my bottle neck but I really don't plan on doing all that many apples this year.
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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Sounds awesome cranky!
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cranky
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Re: My new Apple Chopper

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For those of you interested in news about the chopper, today is apple processing day :D My wife has been running the chopper while I load apples into the hopper. It's actually too fast for 2 people to keep up with given the rest of my equipment. I did a timed run and burned through 20+ LBS of apples in just under 1min 20 seconds feeding it pretty easily and never bogging the chopper down. If my math is correct that comes to a capability of 900 LBS per hour. I think it could easily do the 1,000#s that has always been my big goal so I will say mission accomplished :ebiggrin:

The only possible issue is it really sauces the apples, the chop is much finer than I really wanted but it doesn't break the seeds so I can live with it.
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