Garbage Disposal Cleaning/Sterilizing?

[noel.wade]

All -

So I'm just jumping into the Cider game, having enjoyed it here in the
Northwest USA for a few years (we have several local producers who are
turning out some good products - but I'd like to try my hand at it).
I've bought & read several Cider-making books and spent an inordinate
amount of time online reading up as well...

Now I've been looking at scratters and building my own, but sadly I
just don't see how I'm going to save much money with a "wooden drum
with SS screws" model, over building a Garbage Disposal (my workshop
is set up for cutting and building items out of Aluminum, so I don't
have much in the way of woodworking tools or access to stainless
steel).

I've found that the "InSinkErator Evolution" line of disposals claims
to be stainless steel and plastic in the grinding chamber, so I think
its compatible from a materials standpoint. But one question has
always dogged me about these units: How on Earth do you clean &
sterilize them from year to year?

Anyone care to reassure me that these things can be cleaned (and/or
sterilized & flushed) well-enough to be used year after year?

Thanks!

--Noel

[greg l.]

The sure fire way to clean any bit of equipment with hard-to reach
bits is hot water or steam. Heat is the only thing guaranteed to
penetrate.

Greg

[Jason]

Am I right in thinking this is just a waste disposal system that sits
in the sink (I’m in the UK so waste disposal units aren’t common as we
have laws against water purity)?

If so I doubt it would be a sealed unit yet the electrics would be
sealed, so you could strip it down and sterilize as normal- failing
that couldn’t you (presuming it was attached to some kind of sink)
just run it through with sterilizer?

I’m actually building my scratter this winter (having used a catering
food processor until now). My DIY skill are that of an infant child
but I am building mine out of high density plastics and a cheap (£10)
electric drill. I got the plastic from skips and the drill for Aldi
(cheap store)- all I needed was food safe glues, bolts and brackets-
saying that I am only planning 50 Ltr (sorry you’ll have to do the
math, it’s about 100 Imperial Pints)- and some belts that are freely
available.

I need to find the proper name for one of the plastics, but one is
uPVC used for replacement windows and cladding and here is a link to
the other, it’s used in catering for chopping boards but builders
merchants sell it in big sheets (for covering holes on the ground such
as gas pipes.


http://www.hygiplas.co.uk/docs/productsNew/kitchenUtensils.htm

If you scroll down the page you’ll see chopping boards, it’s that
plastic- also note the rolling pin in plastic- but you can buy big
sheets of this stuff and it can be chemical welded, glued and screwed,
sealed with food safe mastic and you only need basic tools.

[Tim]

Laws against water purity? Since when?
Waste disposal units are openly available in the UK and have been for Years.

[Claude Jolicoeur]

noel.wade wrote:
> Now I've been looking at scratters and building my own, but sadly I
> just don't see how I'm going to save much money with a "wooden drum
> with SS screws" model, over building a Garbage Disposal

You would not save much money maybe, but with a well made rotating
drum grinder you would surely save a lot of time grinding...
See these pictures of the grinder I built:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cjoliprsf/AppleGrinder2010
This machine grinds a bu of apples (18 kg) in about 90 seconds if
served by 2 people, a little more if alone because one person can't
feed it as efficiently.
With a disposal, people that use one report grinding a bu of apples in
10 to 20 minutes, and this is with 2 people serving it (one cuts
apples while the other feeds them).

If you intend to make less that 100 litres (25 gallons) the disposal
may be an acceptable solution, but if you indent to make more than
that, I suggest you look into a more efficient machine.
Claude

[noel.wade]

Thanks, all.

In regards to quantity: I think I'll probably just be making ~10
gallons my first year; 5 dry and 5 semi-dry/semi-sweet. With that
quantity, I've also thought a lot about simply getting a pulpmaster;
but I can't seem to find a source for them in the USA so the
shipping's going to be nasty.

Claude: What did you use to finish/seal the wood?

--Noel

[Claude Jolicoeur]

noel wrote:
> Claude: What did you use to finish/seal the wood?

High gloss floor varnish. I guess marine varnish would also work. High
gloss is important as it is easier to clean and resists better to
abrasion. It is very important to let it cure before using - we are
talking weeks, not days, before the scent goes. You don't want a cider
with a varnish bouquet...

Other low cost grinding alternatives for small productions:
Food processor with a grater plate
Heavy wood beam and a bucket (used as a pestle and a mortar). You
could also use a baseball bat as pestle, but a good piece of 4x4 wood
would be great...
Claude

[noel.wade]

Thanks, Claude.

Is there any agreement on how long its OK to let the pomace sit
between pulping and pressing? I know it'll brown within moments and
that's OK, but is there a problem with leaving it un-pressed for a
certain amount of time (either loosely covered at room temp or perhaps
covered in the fridge)?

I have a good food processor but it only has a capacity of ~1.5
liters, so for 5-10 gallons of cider I'm looking at 30-40 loads I
think - that might take several hours! I'd previously discounted the
idea because of the length of time it would take; but in truth since
this is my first time around I'd rather spend less money on equipment
until I know I enjoy the end result! :-)

--Noel

[Nat West]

Noel, use your food processor. You can do 25 gallons of juice with one no problem.

My garbage disposal scratter ran through 6500 pounds of apples last year (500 gallons) so I don't know where Claude gets his idea that they're only good for up to 25 gallons. Now mind you that anything over about 1000 pounds of apples can be quite a chore to do with a disposal. I can do about 1200 pounds in a full day of grinding with one person just grinding. Depending on your apple size you may not need to cut them.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Nat West wrote:
> My garbage disposal scratter ran through 6500 pounds of apples last year
> (500 gallons) so I don't know where Claude gets his idea that they're only
> good for up to 25 gallons.

Don't get me wrongly, Nat - what I mean is that when there is a lot of
grinding and pressing to do, the disposal would not be my preferred
choice, and I would rather spend more to have a faster machine. This
doesn't mean the disposal can't do the job, it means it might not be
the most adequate machine to do it. If there is just a little to do,
then the disposal becomes one of the most cost efficient machines to
do the job. The number of 25 gallons came from a discussion I had with
Don Yellman recently and is just an order of magnitude. Don was the
first (as far as I know) to use and write about the disposal for
grinding apples back in late 1990's. He wrote to me:

>I still believe the disposal grinder is a very practical grinding
>solution for the small to medium hobby orchardist, although it certainly
>has its limitations, and it is by no means suited to a commercial
>operation. I think your estimate is high at 5.5 bushels per hour. 2.5
>bushels might be a more realistic number. Home cidermaking is a group
>or family operation, and using the disposal grinder requires the
>cooperation and assistance of at least two people besides the grinder
>operator. These assistants are necessary for washing and preparing the
>apples, and delivering them to the grinder ready to be processed.
>Apples that are quartered, with their cores trimmed away to eliminate
>seeds, will go through the disposal very quickly without hanging up, and
>produce a beautiful grind, although it is not necessary to remove cores
>and seeds. It is, however, nearly always necessary for us to cut the
>apples in halves or quarters since I thin my apples and they tend to be
>large. A full bushed can be ground in about 15-20 minutes; well before
>the motor overheats. Then the unit is shut down and allowed to cool
>while the apple washers and trimmers catch up. Depending on the apples
>and their juice level, a yield of 3 gallons more or less per bushel can
>be expected, which is a good bit higher than yield from a hand grinder.
>About the most cider we ever produced in an afternoon was 20 gallons,
>which represents about 7 bushels of apples, and that was with several
>people working at one time. We were all tired of doing it at the end,
>but it is a good tired when you look at all those beautiful gallons of
>juice.

Also, Nat, I would think your disposal setup is a lot more efficient
than most implementations I am aware of... I am not too sure what you
did to it! In any case, the 1200 lbs you quote represent something
like 30 bushels, more than 4 times more than what Don quotes as his
best day...
Claude

[Nat West]

I've mentioned it a few times in previous emails, but a quick summary won't kill me to type up again.

I have the InSinkErator stainless steel top of the line model, the Excel. I've removed the outer plastic and foam housings, exposed just the bare metal of the motor housing. To this metal I soldered on many coils of 1/4" copper tubing used for icemaker line. Before grinding, I freeze 5 gallons of water in a chest freezer. On grinding day, I add some water to the giant ice cube, and begin pumping the ice water it through the coils and return to the bucket via a cheap aquarium pump. In this manner, it runs continuously, for many many hours at a time with no hint of overheating.

If you get proper cider apples, they'll slip down the throat with no problem, two at a time. Many normal sized apples do likewise such as a Cox Orange Pippin or Newtown Pippin. Only mutant Jonagolds need quartering. So that detail may have greatly influenced the degree of difference that Don Yellman and I experienced. I do simply dread having to quarter apples, mostly because when working fast I get scared of cutting a finger off and tainting the cider!

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned so far is that this model of disposal costs around $300 in the US right now. For a machine that will only let you "bridge the gap", it might be a pointless expense. Between the cost of the unit and the extra (slight) expense of the upgrades and the effort I've put into it, I wish I had bought the Italian trumpet or the bigger OESCO grinder. In fact, an OESCO model is on the budget sheet for next fall. (To go along with my first commercial season.) That fact alone is why I recommended to the original poster that he stick with his fruit juicer. From that "baby step", I think the best next step is a hand-cranked scratter as typically found atop mobile basket presses.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

[joseph margevicius]

Noel:
I have used the In-Sinkerator model for several years now with good results. After each use I run copious amounts of clean water through it from a garden hose into a pail, while running the unit. I do this repeatedly until the water runs clear.   I then plug the outlet opening on the bottom (with a rubber stopper or cork), pour household chlorine bleach into the unit from the top, turn it on for about 15 seconds (to assure the bleach reaches all the moving parts) and let it sit for about 30 minutes to sterilize. Then I drain out the bleach, rinse with clean water, and seal up the unit until next time. It has worked well for me for the last 3 years.
Joe

 

 

 

 

 

 

> Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:54:20 -0700
> Subject: [Cider Workshop] Garbage Disposal Cleaning/Sterilizing?
> From: noel...@gmail.com
> To: cider-w...@googlegroups.com

[Richard S.]

On Oct 16, 10:39 am, Claude Jolicoeur <cj...@gmc.ulaval.ca> wrote:

> If you intend to make less that 100 litres (25 gallons) the disposal
> may be an acceptable solution, but if you indent to make more than
> that, I suggest you look into a more efficient machine.
> Claude

I would suggest that one cannot completely consider the suitability of
any milling device without also considering the capacity of the rest
of the cider making kit with the objective to have each component
balance with the others. I too use a residential garbage disposal
(with a high HP motor and all SS insides) in conjunction with a press
that takes up to ten 14" hairs and I find the two work together fairly
efficiently. Yesterday I processed 400 lbs of fruit with it for 34
gallons if cider in 9 hours by myself without a bottleneck in the
system or worry about the grinder overheating and shutting off. I
grind a bushel of fruit in 5 minutes but it must be said that I
typically quarter the fruit before processing which takes about 25
minutes, so in total, roughly 30 minutes per bushel. The quartering
process provides the additional benefit of the highest level of
quality control in fruit selection, thus allowing for the use of
minimal SO2. With quartered fruit the 'mill' eats as fast as I can
feed it and without straining. The main point though is: the press
doesn't do it's work any faster than the mill, so they are in balance
for this scale of production.

Richard S.

[Nat West]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 7:18 AM, Richard S. <rcsch...@yahoo.com> wrote:

The main point though is: the press

doesn't do it's work any faster than the mill, so they are in balance
for this scale of production.

Yes, most excellent point Rich. I will also add that the consistency of the milled apples should correlate to the type of press (and in particular, the cloths) you're using. Garbage disposals create a very wet product, nearly no "chunks" so press fabric must be tight weave.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon 

[Thomas Hart]

I have been using shade cloth with great success.  I picked it up at a local hardware store.  It is durable, easily cleaned and the weave is tight enough to work well with the apple sauce type grind of my disposal grinder.