Homemade Scratter for a cider press October 12, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Community, cider, Wiki , trackback
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A ukcider member who calls himself “Ni. (Marches Cyder Circle)” has created a great new page on the cider wiki all about his homemade scratter, dubbed the “codling grinder”.
I just love these kind of low-tech, practical and cheap solutions, and so do plenty of potential cidermakers around the world it seems. A similar page by Ray which shows how to make a home made apple press out of bits of plywood and four-by–two has received a phenomenal numberof page views ( > 12,000) and regularly comes up in the most popular searches. The accompanying discussion page also gets comments and questions which the author happily answers.
Recently a new member arrived on the mailing list having built the press from Ray’s instructions and made their own cider the year before. They were so pleased with the results they wanted to learn more about it. I’m sure that Ni’s scratter will be similarly emulated around the world, because you do actually need both machines in order to make apple juice or cider.
There are also some images and description of a home-made rotating “scratcher” for
milling apples included in the book: “Success with Apples and Pears to Eat and Drink” by Alan Rowe ( available from the cider bookshop) but I bet they’re not as much fun as Ni’s page with his codling scratter for a cider press.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
[…] look up “homemade cider presses“, “Plans for making a cider press“, “do it yourself apple crusher” and similar phrases. Many of them have a look at what’s on the cider wiki and some […]