How effective is a wine press at juicing a large quantity (e.g., 50-100 lbs) of citrus?
I'm looking for speed. Auger (masticating juicer) is far too slow, and blending requires straining.
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1You don’t say how large a quantity, and I don’t know anything about wine presses, but if you just want the juice an electric citrus juicer maybe your best bet.– Debbie M.Commented Apr 24, 2019 at 0:01
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1@DebbieM. 50-100 lbs.– GeremiaCommented Apr 24, 2019 at 2:18
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3I don't think a wine press would give you enough pressure. An apple press might. If these are grapefruits, it might not take more than a few hours to go through with a manual press: duckduckgo.com/… One person cuts, the other presses. Trade off when your biceps hurt.– Wayfaring StrangerCommented Apr 25, 2019 at 0:54
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@WayfaringStranger Yes, I am interested in doing grapefruit. I didn't know there was such a thing as a grapefruit press.– GeremiaCommented Apr 25, 2019 at 16:33
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2@Geremia It looks like the essential oil extraction requires steam distillation of the fruit rinds. Links follow. Unfortunately the equipment to do that today is going to cost an arm and a leg, and probably get you put on Federal lists you don't want to be on. At 1gram per hundred gram pulp, I guess you're better off tossing the peels in your mulch pile. Refs: greeenchemistry.blogspot.com/2013/10/… and rsc.org/learn-chemistry/resource/res00000692/… Sorry, I thought there was an nicer way– Wayfaring StrangerCommented Apr 26, 2019 at 1:11
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1 Answer
Theoretically, you could use a wine, apple, or or other heavy-duty fruit press to press 10-20lbs of citrus at a time. But you wouldn't want to.
Both the peels of the citrus and the seeds contain bitter and/or intensely acidic compounds (those essential oils WS talks about in the comments). If you press citrus in any press that uses pressure on the whole fruit, then those compounds end up in your juice, making it taste bad.
This is why even juice factories do split-and-squeeze(video) instead of using straight pressure. If this is something you often do, you may need to invest in an automatic-feed juicing machine.
answered Apr 27, 2019 at 5:49
