Apple poundage = how much juice

Looking at making an apple wine. Going to pick up apples tonight as there is a decent sale going on. I was looking through the recipe section and it appears a fair amount of people have made apple wine without a press, which I do not have. I am going to cut them up into pieces, freeze them, then once thawed squeeze them daily in a paint strainer bag.
I understand apple is light on flavor so I don't want to add any more water than need be. Most of the recipes I have found call for 6-9lbs. apples, along with 1gal. water. I am only going for a 1gal. product for the time being.

My main question is, how much liquid, in general, will 12lbs. of apples yield?

When making a 1gal. batch of say strawberry, I use 1 gal. water, with 6lbs. strawberries, which usually gives me 1.5gal. when racking from primary to secondary. I use an fpac when backsweetening and the finished strawberry wine has good flavor. I have never used fresh apples so not sure what the yield will be or how many to use. I plan on the same sort of plan, ie: fpac when backsweetening for flavor, unless there is a better way to go about it.

Thanks for any insight.

Get 12 to 14 lbs, cut up and freeze, thaw using pectic enzyme, and sprinkle a little kmeta (about 1/2 tsp) over top to help keep from browning. You should have about 1 1/4 gallons using no water or no more than a cup (just to help the pectic enzyme to work). Once it's fermented and after racking off the gross Lee's you should end up with about 1 gallon.

dralarms said:

Get 12 to 14 lbs, cut up and freeze, thaw using pectic enzyme, and sprinkle a little kmeta (about 1/2 tsp) over top to help keep from browning. You should have about 1 1/4 gallons using no water or no more than a cup (just to help the pectic enzyme to work). Once it's fermented and after racking off the gross Lee's you should end up with about 1 gallon.

Click to expand...

So thaw as in how? Just throw them into the strainer bags, then into my primary and let them thaw in a dry bucket? With no water addition? If so, I assume to squeeze while thawing to extract juice?

Also, do you leave the skin on the apples when fermenting?

I know, I know, you'd think I had never made wine before.

I freeze mine, put them in a bucket, add pectic enzyme ( about 1 tbsp per gallon) a little kmeta and cover. While thawing mash them with a potato masher. Like I said, no more than a cup of water. By mashing them up they will juice pretty well.

Skins? I leave mine on.

And I don't take them out for about a week. Then all you should have left is skins and juice.

dralarms said:

I freeze mine, put them in a bucket, add pectic enzyme ( about 1 tbsp per gallon) a little kmeta and cover. While thawing mash them with a potato masher. Like I said, no more than a cup of water. By mashing them up they will juice pretty well.

Skins? I leave mine on.

And I don't take them out for about a week. Then all you should have left is skins and juice.

Click to expand...

Are you using strainer bags so the removal of skins, etc. is easier and less messy?

I thought I read somewhere where pectic shouldn't be added with kmeta? That it won't work very well. Kmeta should come 24hrs+ later.

Are you adding acid, nutrient, tannin, etc. with the pectic or when?

How long before you add yeast in your process?

I didn't realize/think that 12-14lbs. of apples would yield that much juice.

Pectic enzyme is your friend.

Wine for fun, this next fall, please call me, two weeks ago I ground and pressed 50 gallons of apple juice, and 10 gallons of pear juice. 15 gallons of apple wine, and 5 gallons of pear, all from free fruit from local trees. You're not that far from me, so you're more than welcome to come and join in the fun when it's pressing time. Friends of mine just bought a 15 gallon bladder press, so it's really not that much work, plus there's always some imbibing of last years product. Dale.

wineforfun said:

Are you using strainer bags so the removal of skins, etc. is easier and less messy?

I thought I read somewhere where pectic shouldn't be added with kmeta? That it won't work very well. Kmeta should come 24hrs+ later.

Are you adding acid, nutrient, tannin, etc. with the pectic or when?

How long before you add yeast in your process?

I didn't realize/think that 12-14lbs. of apples would yield that much juice.

Click to expand...

Pectic and yeast aren't friends, but pectic and kmeta are.

heatherd said:

Pectic and yeast aren't friends, but pectic and kmeta are.

Click to expand...

That is true.

knifemaker said:

Wine for fun, this next fall, please call me, two weeks ago I ground and pressed 50 gallons of apple juice, and 10 gallons of pear juice. 15 gallons of apple wine, and 5 gallons of pear, all from free fruit from local trees. You're not that far from me, so you're more than welcome to come and join in the fun when it's pressing time. Friends of mine just bought a 15 gallon bladder press, so it's really not that much work, plus there's always some imbibing of last years product. Dale.

Click to expand...

Awesome, will keep that in mind, I appreciate the offer. This is my first foray into apple wine.

dralarms said:

Pectic enzyme is your friend.

Click to expand...

Agree. I get plenty of flavor just cutting up the apples and letting it sit in the primary for 2 weeks with PE added a day or more before pitching the yeast.

@dralarms @montanaWineGuy
And you guys aren't adding any water to the primary?
I know dralarms said to add maybe a cup or so of water. Doesn't seem like there will be much liquid unless the "smashing" of the apples starts creating the liquid.

wineforfun said:

@dralarms @montanaWineGuy
And you guys aren't adding any water to the primary?
I know dralarms said to add maybe a cup or so of water. Doesn't seem like there will be much liquid unless the "smashing" of the apples starts creating the liquid.

Click to expand...

The apples will liquify. At first it might be a bit thicker than normal but I get some fantastic apple wine this way.

Sounds good, off we go.

dralarms said:

The apples will liquify. At first it might be a bit thicker than normal but I get some fantastic apple wine this way.

Click to expand...

The first time I did some apple wine, I sliced the apples very thin with a food slicer. I was making 3+ gallons with only <20lbs of apples and figured I'd get the most juice if I sliced the apples to nearly paper thin. 2nd time, I only roughly cut them into cubes in the process of removing the core. 1st time apples did liquefy, 2nd time no. Finished wine was about the same.

IMO, recipes that call for 8lbs for a gallon is way way to much, and generally not an efficient use of apples.

montanaWineGuy said:

The first time I did some apple wine, I sliced the apples very thin with a food slicer. I was making 3+ gallons with only <20lbs of apples and figured I'd get the most juice if I sliced the apples to nearly paper thin. 2nd time, I only roughly cut them into cubes in the process of removing the core. 1st time apples did liquefy, 2nd time no. Finished wine was about the same.

IMO, recipes that call for 8lbs for a gallon is way way to much, and generally not an efficient use of apples.

Click to expand...

Well, I'm not making wine to be efficient, I make wine for flavor. Of course this coming from a guy who put 95 lbs of strawberries in and only make about 6.5 gallons.

dralarms said:

Well, I'm not making wine to be efficient, I make wine for flavor. Of course this coming from a guy who put 95 lbs of strawberries in and only make about 6.5 gallons.

Click to expand...

I agree. I'm still on an efficiency kick, but I am now starting to move towards quality. Early on fruit/berries was difficult to find. Now after searching for a year, it's everywhere or in some cases really really inexpensive. I can now devote more time in making good wine, and maybe someday really good wine.

montanaWineGuy said:

I agree. I'm still on an efficiency kick, but I am now starting to move towards quality. Early on fruit/berries was difficult to find. Now after searching for a year, it's everywhere or in some cases really really inexpensive. I can now devote more time in making good wine, and maybe someday really good wine.

Click to expand...

That's the spirit. Strive to make wine to be proud of and friends and neighbors will have to join AA.

dralarms said:

That's the spirit. Strive to make wine to be proud of and friends and neighbors will have to join AA.

Click to expand...

Like you wouldn't believe. I had a neighbor help me drop a very large Red Fir that was leaning a bit to much towards the house. He brought the tractor, cable, chain, and a snatch block and helped me drop it in a safe direction. Gave him a bottle of wine and we were good.

I just pressed 420 pounds of apples today and got out about 25 gallons of juice.

Last year I put about 160 pounds through a juicer and got about 12 gallons or so.