it's useful. 4.75 Gallon Solid Wood Basket Fruit, Cider and wine Press Old Fashioned Cast Iron Large Size

This is an update to my initial impressions before and with limited use, as stated below. Two pressing seasons later, I must conclude that the people who considered the quality poor must have received a different press than I got. We have pressed 75 gallons and the press is like new. Anything we have done in pressing has not come close to causing any parts to fail. We use a standard bag without a center hole and arrange it around the center screw and it gives an even press. A piece of 3/4 in wood raises the back and two short screws hold the front at the edge of the table.As a side comment, we continue to match it with a garbage sink disposal on a custom-made stand and have minimal problems with overheating if the apples are sliced down to 2-inch size.I have not used this press yet. Am presently surprised at the quality of the components. Before buying this, I had just about decided to construct my own. The reason was that so many of the other reviews indicated a disappointment with the quality. This one seemed to have fewer negative reviews for that, so took a chance. Also, the size is greater than many. There are 2 extra slats and all are very thick.The holes are nicely drilled and a screwdriver is included although a power tool makes the job easierSince writing the above, I have used this press 3 times and it works quite well with no component appearing to be on the path to failing. The stationary center post is different from the type with side supports and a center screw dependent on their strength,The mash bag has to be packed around the screw which is not hard to do.Overall, this press combined with a sink grinder mounted on a table is an excellent way to make small to moderate amounts of cider in a reasonable length of time. Is easy to clean.

Just received this today and used it to press the juice from about 200 pounds of apples. It worked very well! It came unassembled and it took about 15 minutes to put it together and was very simple. Screwing it to a worktop or a piece of plywood is a must. Really enjoyed the price as it was about $150 cheaper than anywhere I could find it locally! I would recommend this to anyone wanting to press a large amount of fruit. The nylon mesh bag that came with it held up very well and was really strong...no rips or tears and the hole in the bottom that the steel thread passes through didn't get damaged when removing the bag to be emptied.Be sure to use a grinder in coordination with this press if you want to get a lot of juice from your fruit. Pressing the pulp from the grinder was so much easier than any whole fruit.

I pressed about 10 gallons of apple cider and 2 gallons of grape juice this year with this press. It was easy to assemble and seems quite durable. To clean, I just sprayed everything down with a hose to remove bits of fruit. For long-term storage, I washed everything with mild soap and water and let it air dry. The mesh bag that was included is also very durable and lasted through all of the pressing I did this year. I simply placed the bag in the top rack of the dishwasher to clean it.Recommendations:- You will most likely have to cut extra wood pieces in order to completely crush the fruit. I cut 6, 6 inch long pieces from a 2x4 and these worked perfectly.- You will have to attach your press to something stationary in order to really crank down on the fruit. I originally attached it to a pallet that I could stand on while tightening the press. This worked okay but because I'm tall, I had to hunch over and this started hurting my back. After a few batches, I decided to stack four pallets (with the press attached to the top pallet) to save my back and get better leverage while crushing the fruit. I chose to use a pallet because I wanted to be able to remove my press and put it away into storage without taking up a lot of space.- You'll need to crush your apples before putting them in the press in order to get the most juice. Simply leaving the apples whole or in large chunks won't yield as much juice as crushing will. I got about .75 gallons of juice from each full basket of crushed apples.- A ratcheting device on the screw would be quite helpful instead of having to turn the crank around and around. I'm not sure if something like that is available but I will definitely be looking into it before I press more apples next year.Overall, this is a really great fruit press. I am very pleased with it and can't wait to make more cider next year. My only complaint is that it did not include more wood pieces, but it was easy enough to cut my own.

Plan on spending some time putting it together. Also pay attention to beveled ends vs squared ends on the basket slats. You could put it together without power tools but a drill/driver will make life much easier. Its half the price of a similar model in a local shop, so I'll gladly deal with assembly. Thus far we've used it to process 25 pounds of peaches into juice for wine. Apples will be next. If you buy one, also get a 2 foot by 2 foot (or larger) piece of plywood & some hardware to mount it. The feet are pre-drilled.

Really excited to use this press only to find out that, out of the box, it only comes with 2 pressing blocks. We're in the middle of pressing our first batch of cider, have a major production ready to roll, only to find out that we have to go out and get the wood to make more blocks to even be able to get our first cup of cider. Disappointing. The company should either, a) include enough blocks to get the job done, or b) let you know that you'll have to either buy or make more.

I've been making wine as a hobby for 9 years using a large wine press from the guy who sold me grapes. This year I decided to get my own wine press just...because. This little press easily handled 107 pounds of grapes (enough for one carboy of juice). High-quality parts and easy to assemble. Unexpected bonus: It doesn't take two people to put it away and doesn't take up space in my garage because it disassembles easily (except for the basket, of course) and stores on a shelf until the next batch. If you're only doing a few carboys, this is perfect.