6 Best Cider Presses For Making Apple Cider That Old Farmers Swear By
Discover the top 6 cider presses trusted by generations of farmers. Our guide reviews the most durable, traditional models for making authentic cider at home.
The air gets that crisp edge, the leaves start to turn, and suddenly you’re staring at bushels of apples from those trees you’ve tended all year. Turning that bounty into gallons of sweet, tangy cider is one of autumn’s greatest rewards. But the tool you use for the job, the cider press, will make the difference between a joyful tradition and a frustrating chore.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you!
What Makes a Cider Press ‘Farmer-Approved’?
A farmer’s approval isn’t about brand names; it’s about whether a tool survives the season. A good press is built from honest materials like cast iron for the hardware and a hardwood like oak or maple for the tub and pressing plates. Anything that feels flimsy or relies on cheap plastic parts is a non-starter because it will fail under the immense pressure needed to extract juice.
It’s also about smart design. The screw mechanism should be thick and precisely threaded—an "acme" thread is the gold standard—to translate your effort into powerful, even pressure. A press that wobbles or requires you to brace it with your whole body is a poorly designed tool. Stability means safety and efficiency.
Finally, practicality wins the day. How long does it take to clean? A press with a dozen nooks and crannies will become a sticky, wasp-attracting nightmare. A well-designed press disassembles easily, allowing you to hose down the basket and plates so it’s ready for the next batch, or the next season.
Happy Valley Pioneer: The Homesteader’s Dream
The Pioneer press is the image most people have in their heads when they think of making cider. It’s a classic, single-tub design that has been a fixture on homesteads for decades for a good reason: it works, and it lasts. The combination of heavy cast iron and a stout hardwood frame gives it a feeling of permanence.
This is a batch-process machine. You load the ground apple pulp (the "pomace"), press it, collect the juice, then retract the screw to empty the spent pulp and start over. It’s a simple, reliable rhythm. For a family with a handful of productive trees, this pace is perfect for an afternoon of cider making.
The Pioneer isn’t built for speed; it’s built for satisfaction and longevity. It’s an investment in a piece of equipment that you’ll use every fall, one that connects you to the harvest in a very direct way. It’s the right scale for turning a good harvest into 5 to 15 gallons of cider without feeling overwhelmed.
Jaffrey Double Tub Press for Continuous Pressing
When your orchard starts producing more apples than you can handle in a single afternoon, you start looking at bottlenecks. With a single-tub press, the biggest delay is the "reset"—emptying the spent pomace and refilling the tub. The Jaffrey-style double tub press solves this problem elegantly.
The design is brilliant in its simplicity. A single, heavy-duty pressing mechanism swings on a pivot between two tubs. While you are pressing a batch in one tub, your partner (and you’ll want a partner) can be emptying the other and refilling it with fresh pomace. As soon as one press is done, you swing the mechanism over and start on the next.
This turns a stop-and-start process into a continuous flow. It’s the kind of upgrade you make when you graduate from a hobby to a serious seasonal operation, or when you host a neighborhood pressing day. The initial cost is higher, but if you’re processing hundreds of pounds of apples, the time you save is worth every penny. This is the press for someone who values workflow above all else.
Weston Fruit & Wine Press: A Versatile Workhorse
Not everyone is a cider purist. Some of us also have grapes, pears, or other soft fruits to process. The Weston press is a modern workhorse designed for this kind of versatility, often featuring a steel frame and basket instead of traditional wood.
Many Weston models use a ratchet-style handle, which can be easier for some folks to operate than the traditional T-handle or wheel. You can apply pressure in short, powerful strokes. They also typically feature a convenient pour spout at the base, making it easy to direct the flow of juice right into your bucket without a lot of mess.
The tradeoff is a potential loss of that "heirloom" feel. A powder-coated steel press is incredibly functional and easy to clean, but it may not have the same generational appeal as a classic oak and iron press. However, for the practical homesteader who needs one tool for multiple jobs, the Weston is an excellent, no-nonsense choice.
Maximizer Press: Get Every Last Drop of Juice
The name says it all. The Maximizer is engineered for one primary goal: maximum juice extraction. These presses often look a bit different, sometimes featuring an integrated grinder right on top of the press itself, which is a huge space and time saver.
The real magic is in the pressing mechanism and design. They are built to exert tremendous, even pressure across the entire batch of pomace. The result is a drier "cake" of spent pulp and more juice in your bucket from the same amount of apples. When you’ve spent all season tending your trees, wasting even a little bit of that harvest feels wrong.
This press is for the efficiency-minded producer. If you meticulously measure your inputs and outputs and strive to minimize waste, the higher yield from a Maximizer will be deeply satisfying. It proves that good engineering can improve upon even the most traditional processes.
SQUEEZE Master Press for Small Batch Cider Making
Bigger isn’t always better. If you have a single productive tree in your backyard, or you enjoy foraging for wild apples, a massive floor-standing press is complete overkill. A tabletop press like the SQUEEZE Master is the perfect tool for the small-batch enthusiast.
These presses are compact, easy for one person to manage, and simple to store in a shed or garage. Their smaller capacity—typically 1 to 3 gallons of pomace at a time—is ideal for experimenting. You can press a batch of Gravensteins, then a batch of Golden Russets, and compare the flavors without committing to a 50-gallon production run.
Don’t mistake its small size for a lack of quality. The best tabletop presses still use a robust screw and a sturdy frame. They offer a low-cost, low-commitment way to get into cider making, letting you learn the craft and decide if you want to scale up later.
Happy Valley Homesteader: Built for Generations
While the Pioneer is a fantastic homestead press, the Homesteader model is its bigger, tougher sibling. This is the press you buy when you know that cider making is, and will continue to be, a central part of your family’s autumn tradition. It is, without exaggeration, built to be passed down to your grandchildren.
Everything about the Homesteader is overbuilt in the best possible way. The cast iron components are thicker, the oak tub is heavier, and the acme-threaded screw is a monster designed for relentless use. It has a larger capacity than the Pioneer, allowing you to process more fruit with each press, making it suitable for a small, established orchard.
This is not a starter press. It’s a significant investment in a piece of legacy equipment. You buy a Homesteader when you’ve outgrown a smaller press and you’re tired of borrowing a neighbor’s. It’s a statement that you are serious about the craft and want a tool that will never, ever let you down.
Don’t Forget the Grinder: Prepping Your Apples
You can own the best press in the world, but if you throw whole apples in it, you’ll get little more than a trickle of juice and a whole lot of frustration. Apples must be crushed into a pulp—pomace—before pressing. This is the single most overlooked step for beginners.
The grinder, sometimes called a crusher or scratter, does the vital work of breaking the apples’ cell walls. This releases the juice, allowing the press to do its job of squeezing it out. An apple grinder typically has a flywheel and a set of teeth or rollers that tear the fruit into a perfect, pulpy consistency.
Your grinder should be matched to the scale of your press. Using a small, hand-crank grinder to feed a giant double-tub press is a recipe for a very long and tiring day. Conversely, a powerful electric grinder paired with a tiny tabletop press is overkill. Think of the grinder and press as a single system; one can’t be effective without the other.
Ultimately, the best cider press is the one that fits the scale of your harvest and the rhythm of your homestead. Whether it’s a small tabletop model for experimenting or a double-tub workhorse for community pressings, choosing the right tool transforms a task into a tradition. Choose well, and you’ll be enjoying the sweet taste of your own hard work for many autumns to come.
