The basic idea is simple enough. Take apples, get juice, add sugar and yeast, leave it alone, drink. Ghettoing something for a press was an option, but in the end a quick trip to Milton Keynes for a proper press and scratter was probably the best decision ever (Thanks John and Vikki).
The scratter is basically a funnel with blades underneath that turn. The blades mesh together and tear the apples apart when the handle turns the gears, turning the blades.
A large bucket is essential :). We had just over 80 lbs to break up, once the apples were in the bucket they were compressed, but it didnt juice them as well as hoped. In the end they were mostly pulped in a food processor and then pressed.
This took most of the day to do and we eventually stopped when it got dark around 8pm. Even with all of this we didnt quite get through all of the apples or get the 5 gallons for the fermenting bucket.
We got 3.5 Gallons of juice form the apples which was pretty impressive and then topped up the rest with apple juice from Costco. You can just use all juice from cartons and it still makes nice cider.
I didnt take a picture of the hydrometer but is measures the specific gravity so you can calculate how much sugar is needed for a given target percentage. You could just add a lot of it and see what happens, but its best to have some kind of idea :). This should, in theory at least be around 10% give or take and take until the first week of December to finish fermenting.
More updates once its done and can be sampled
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