press cloth cleaning

[Alexander Peckham]

I am about to fire up a new (well not quite) Goodnature X-6. For
those who don't know this press it is basically a horizontal rack and
cloth press. The manufacturer states that bags need to be cleaned
daily by hosing, soaking in a mild caustic solution for two hours and
then machine washing in bleach. They say that unless this processes
is adhered to the bags will become plugged. I have asked for
clarification but thought I should post here - this cleaning regime is
not very practical for me as it would among other things kill off the
septic tank to which my washing machine is plumbed. If anyone has any
experience with the Goodnature cloths (or any good advice generally)
it would be very helpful.

Thanks, Alex

[Mark Evens]

I don't know what's special about Goodnature cloths, but you could
just soak as suggested (or in washing soda) and wash using "oxy-clean"
bleach, not chlorine-based bleach. Oxy-clean is based on sodium
percarbonate. Caustic soda should not do much harm and may even help
to break down the fats in the septic tank. I have a septic tank and
have used these products for several years with no problems. I just
had the septic tank pumped out for the first time in 5 years and it
really wasn't necessary.
I know many people do even less cleaning of their cloths.
Hope that helps
Mark

[Rich Anderson]

Our X-6 bags are cleaned after each use and basically follow the Goodnature
process. I use an industrial grade chlorinated foaming soap for the soak and
wash and have not experienced any septic tank problems. If you are concerned
about the septic system, check on how quickly chorine degrades and add a
septic biological agent at the end of the pressing season.

[nfcider]

Alex,
We have the larger Goodnature SX200 and have 2 sets of bags which we
rotate daily,pressure washing them on a cold wash and then leaving
them in soak in a lightly sulphited solution during the day not in
use ,we did find their standard bag would only last a morming before
starting to clog up because the tannins etc in cider fruit , however
since having a new set made up of the coaserweave of cloth that Vigo
stock we seam to have overcome the problems .The end of the season I
have followed Rose Grant's advice and taken them to the Blandford
Laundry in a wet state,and they have come back nice and dty to pack
away for next September.
Barry

On Mar 30, 9:22 am, Alexander Peckham <a...@sustainit.com> wrote:

[Cornelius Traas]

Hello Alex,
I had an x-6 a few years ago.
If you are pressing cider apples, plugging will not be a problem. If it is
soft eating or cooking apples, then it is more of a problem. I'd say use a
drum made up with the caustic, and re-use for a few weeks. Perhaps try the
same with the bleach (I had access to an industrial washing machine, so this
was not a problem for me).
Con Traas

The Apple Farm,
Moorstown, Cahir, Co. Tipperary.
Tel: 052 744 1459

[Alexander Peckham]

I appreciate all your help. Today I have got some proprietary mild
caustic cleaner and some oxygen bleach (percarbonate) I intend to
soak in the caustic and then the polycarbonate before washing in a
machine. I hope a bag will go the whole day and have two bags for
alternate days. Goodnature do various cloth "coarseness" grades. I
have the one they recommend for apples. Will keep this thread
informed for the record. Thanks, Alex

[from Heather]

What does Blandford Laundry do to them that is so special?


> Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:52:22 -0700
> Subject: [Cider Workshop] Re: press cloth cleaning
> From: newfore...@msn.com
> To: cider-w...@googlegroups.com

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[from Heather]

Or should I be asking what they do to it in general? I haven't started pressing my own apples yet, so this has got my attention of yet another thing I should know, but I don't understand.

Heather

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From: for_h...@hotmail.com
To: cider-w...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [Cider Workshop] Re: press cloth cleaning
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:38:28 +0000

[Rose Grant]

Heather asked what it is that is special about Blandford laundry.
There is nothing special about their washing process as far as I know.
I think Barry was alluding to the fact that it is special to find a
laundry that is prepared to deal with such big items, that are also
wet and heavy .

My cloths are 4 ft 6 ins square and there are 13 of them. I take them
to the laundry in one of those handy blue IKEA bags, but with the
combined weight of the cloths, it is so heavy that the nice chap at
the laundry has to help remove it from the back of the car. I think I
was probably lucky to have found somewhere that was prepared to deal
with them. On my last visit I got the impression that the laundry
manager was less keen about the job than he had been hitherto, so I
was curious to discover what the process involved. I'd imagined the
cloths being thrown into a huge industrial scale washing machine that
just did everything necessary, including the final drying. This was
true, but only up to a point. I discovered that the laundry had found
that cloths needed to be hung from a large rack in the works for
several days to get them completely dry. It seemed that this was
proving to be a nuisance as well as the extra labour involved in the
handling. I am expecting the price will have to go up next year!

Barry's Good Nature 'envelope' cloths were probably less bother, but
what they lacked in size was more than made up by the large number of
them. We were both pleased with the job done by the laundry. It is so
good to be able to go and get the cloths back all dry and sweet
smelling, in the knowledge that they can then be simply put into the
cupboard, ready for next year.

A small local laundry prepared to undertake this onerous task, is a
laundry to be cherished.

Rose

[Nat West]

I am digging up this very old thread to ask for a clarification.

For those of you doing a caustic soak of the Goodnature bags, do you find that you do not need to do any spraying to unclog the "pores" of the bags, when they're extremely clogged? We're running through some very soft, overripe dessert fruit (Golden Delicious) right now and seem to only get through 6 bins (4800 lbs) of fruit before the pores are too clogged to work and all the pulp squeezes out the top. We are changing our grinder a bit to solve that problem, but I imagine that we'll always encounter this problem to some extent. 

Right now, we remove the bags and spray them by hand, unclogging the pores and spraying out any pulp. This takes an hour no matter what. Then an overnight soak in PBW (non-caustic) and a washing machine run in the morning. This extra hour is probably the worst hour of the day. After everything is cleaned up, and you want to go home and have a drink, you're chained to the sink and sprayer for an hour. Any chemicals we can use to dissolve/dislodge/remove pulp from clogged pores would be most welcome.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

[Wes Cherry]

Nat,

Goldens are some if the worst press subjects.  Coming out of cold storage even more mushy they must be impossible.

I upgraded my hammer mill this year to make larger chips vs bludgeoning off bits and had no problems pressing goldens with my goodnature press.   Before the upgrade,  goldens gave me all kinds of press issues.

Until recently, I soaked my bags in sanitizer solution (peroxyacetic acid) overnight when doing multi day pressings.  This was to keep bacteria from taking up residence.    Over time, the acid ate away at the nickel coating on the grommets.  Now they rust and stain the bags, so I don't recommend this.  Perhaps a non corrosive sanitizer might be better.  

Have you tried rice hulls as a press aid?

-'//es

Sent using the 4S

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[Carl]

Nat Writes:

"We are changing our grinder a bit to solve that problem, but I imagine that we'll always encounter this problem to some extent. "

Nat,
Could you tell us how you have changed the grinder to adapt to this problem?
What brand of grinder do you use?

Regards,

Carl
 

[e owen]

In my day job we run 2 36" goodnature presses, even with rice hulls things slow to a crawl when we go heavy to cortlands. After stripping out the bags, they're turned inside out and any remnant presscake is scraped off and tossed 8 to a load into 2 commercial washers. We use 1/2 gal of 12% bleach per load. When pectin builds up I'll soak in a solution off chlorinated foaming agent and bleach for 24 hrs and then wash.
Evan

[Nat West]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 2:51 AM, Carl <werk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Could you tell us how you have changed the grinder to adapt to this problem? 

What brand of grinder do you use?

We have been using an OESCO drum grinder which pulps the apples pretty well. We are changing to a Goodnature crop chopper, which was designed for the press and bags.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon 

[Nat West]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 3:14 PM, e owen <van...@gmail.com> wrote:

After stripping out the bags, they're turned inside out and any remnant presscake is scraped off and tossed 8 to a load into 2 commercial washers. We use 1/2 gal of 12% bleach per load. When pectin builds up I'll soak in a solution off chlorinated foaming agent and bleach for 24 hrs and then wash.

 Thank you Evan (and Mike Beck) for the bleach idea. I did not think such a thing would do the trick. I shall try it this week, although we slogged through the Goldens are now into the much firmer Pink Lady and Granny.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

[Rich Anderson]

Unless you have a strong desire to keep your pressings separate, you might consider mixing varieties as you press to eliminate the problem of processing mushy apples. Simply alternate between bins as you press.               

 

[Nat West]

Yes Rich, we tend to do that. But in the most recent pressing, we had goldens that were deteriorating so rapidly that we wanted to press them asap, so did them separately. It probably worsened the situation, pressing them by themselves, as opposed to mixing in some crispy and firm grannies.

-Nat West

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 8:51 PM, Rich Anderson <rhand...@centurytel.net> wrote:

Unless you have a strong desire to keep your pressings separate, you might consider mixing varieties as you press to eliminate the problem of processing mushy apples. Simply alternate between bins as you press.               

 

--

[e owen]

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 7:29:19 PM UTC-5, Nat West wrote:

We have been using an OESCO drum grinder which pulps the apples pretty well. We are changing to a Goodnature crop chopper, which was designed for the press and bags.

We evolved from a oesco drum to a hammer to a goodnature chopper. The difference is profound as far as the clogging goes,

[Claude Jolicoeur]

e owen wrote:
> > We evolved from a oesco drum to a hammer to a goodnature chopper. The
> > difference is profound as far as the clogging goes,

What is so different with the Goodnature chopper? They call it a
grinder or grater - it shouldn't be so different than the OESCO drum
grinder. But then there are interchangeable grids that come with it -
how do they work, where do they go? Anyone has a drawing or picture
showing the internals?
Claude
(with my mechanical hat)

[Nat West]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 6:28 AM, Claude Jolicoeur <cjol...@gmail.com> wrote:

Anyone has a drawing or picture showing the internals?

See attached! 

[Nick]

Hello all:

Resisting the urge to start a new thread, I'm reviving this one instead.  I'm wondering if anyone has practical advice for dealing with plugged cloths, particularly when pressing pears. 

I like fruit that is fully ripe, with its high gravity, viscous mouthfeel and lush aroma.  But with pears... wow, the pomace turns to paste.  If I use my coarse-weave cloth, I get a lot of fruit solids squeezing through the threads; if I use my small-weave cloth, the stone cells plug the cloths instantly, juice flow slows to a trickle, and the press cake becomes impossible to dislodge from the inside face of the cloth. I spend as much time spraying the cloths with a hose as I do actually pressing. 

Earlier installments in this discussion describe chemical approaches that can be used overnight, perhaps while one set of cloths are in use and the other set is in the wash.  But what about when cloths are becoming plugged so quickly that they need to be stripped down and cleaned on a much more frequent interval?

As I mentioned in a recent thread, I have previously mixed my Bartlett (Williams) pears with equal parts pomace from a crisp summer apple.  The apple was somewhat effective as a "press-aid."  But if want to do a pure perry, I am going to have to figure out a better way to separate the juice from the pulp. 

I am prepared for the fact that ripe Bartletts will always make a more difficult pomace, compared to a tough-fleshed cider apple, but surely there are tricks that could makes this slightly more manageable? 

Thank you. 

[Jez Howat]

Nick,

I was going to (on the other thread (re sulphite) say that I wouldn't worry too much - if the fruit is good and clean then a standard dose - or even a half a standard dose if you are encouraging wild ferment - is fine. Pears are not so different from apples.

However, in answer to your question here, I can only say don't treat pears like apples! Super soft pears will give you slurry, with a lot of solids simply passing through the cloth. I would press them firmer (as I am currently doing... All apple pressing stops to efficiently deal with the pears!)

In terms of washing I would rinse in between pressing, and put the juice through some kind of sieve to remove any solids. At the end I would soak the clothes in water and then power wash the following day (you could just power wash, but I prefer to soak them first. Of course, you could just press the pears when they are firmer!!

All the best

Jez

[David Llewellyn]

Nick,

With your coarse weave cloths, getting lots of fine fruit pulp through with the juice, are you sure this is a problem? Have you fermented the pulpy juice from this kind of a pressing before? I would have thought the fruit bits might settle nicely with the yeast as the fermentation winds down, no? And, incidentally, have you found that the flavour of the perry made from the bartletts/Williams varies significantly depending on the stage of ripeness at which you press? I am about to press Williams for perry, which I currently have in cold storage. I need to decide how ripe to allow them to get before pressing. I pressed Williams before, when they were still a bit crunchy, but I suspect I may have missed out on a superior flavour by not letting them develop their ripe aroma a bit more before pressing.

 

David Llewellyn

Tel: + 353 87 2843879

www.llewellynsorchard.ie

(previously 'fruitandvine.com')

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[Nick]

Thanks Jez and David.

David, perhaps you are right that allowing some fruit solids into the fermenter would not be the end of the world.  Perhaps I am being too fastidious in my demands for clear juice.  I will have another pressing of pears this year, and I will try fermenting a juice with some incidental pulp.  One minor concern is that my humble diaphragm pump is quite sensitive to the pear stone cells.  I have learned to tear down and clean the guts of the diaphragm, but I'm not sure if I could effectively use this pump to rack the fermented perry out of the first fermenter, unless all of the fruit pulp has settled into a compact cake with the lees.  It's worth a try. 

On the question of whether I should be pressing my pears when they are slightly more crunchy, my answer is: I don't really know.  I don't have any experience with pressing crunchy pears.  I was influenced by a semi-academic study that explored the possibility of turning cull dessert pears into perries - it concluded ripe pears led to better finished perries. 

see: http://californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu/landingpage.cfm?article=ca.v052n06p31&fulltext=yes

"We conclude from the tasting that there is some benefit from crushing ripe, soft fruit compared to green, firm fruit. Originally we thought that the green fruit would have enhanced acidity and thus would make a better beverage. Although this assumption may be true for apples, pears have such little acidity that additions of tartaric acid are always advisable to ensure better taste and shelf life. The cider from the previous year was made with much riper fruit, and the aromas and mouth feel were better."

[this article makes no observations as to how ripeness might influence the practical aspects of handling/pressing pomace.  This article also makes some other observations that haven't been consistent with my experience.  But I digress.]

One of the very first ciders I ever made was predominantly composed of quite ripe Bartlett pears, and the finished perry was an epiphany for me - it was a pivotal moment in me coming to realize that I really liked this cider-making stuff.  "Superior flavor" doesn't even begin to describe my first impression - I had never encountered anything quite so good.  Influenced by that early small batch, I have continued to use ripe pears.  But also, like I said, in previous years I pressed a blend of pear and apple pomace, and that seems to have made the pomace easier to work with. 

I should get back to work.  Thanks all for entertaining my questions.

[David Llewellyn]

The points at which pears turn from crunchy through ‘juicy’ to ‘mushy’ are passed so quickly, it is surely difficult to judge the right moment to press, if one wants fruit that is riper than crunchy, but before it goes mushy/’sleepy’. Maybe a mix of soft ripe fruit and still-crunchy fruit is good? Or a mix of the soft ripe Williams with a firmer variety that is more fibrous, to give a satisfactory pomace?

[Michael Cobb]

Press the apples first and to get a fairly dry result. Then this mix dry
apple pomace with the pear slurry as a press aid. You will still have a
very small amount of apple but a lot less than mixing directly.

Michael Cobb

> Hello all:

> I like fruit that is fully ripe, with its high gravity, viscous mouthfeel
> and lush aroma. But with pears... wow, the pomace turns to paste. If I
> use my coarse-weave cloth, I get a lot of fruit solids squeezing through
> the threads; if I use my small-weave cloth, the stone cells plug the
> cloths
> instantly, juice flow slows to a trickle, and the press cake becomes
> impossible to dislodge from the inside face of the cloth. I spend as much
> time spraying the cloths with a hose as I do actually pressing.