Apple Pressing Service

Dean and Kim who run the Market Garden at Ragmans are offering an apple pressing service this year.

If you’d like your apples pressed please read the information below and contact them:

Dean on: 07501 772781

Email: ragmansgarden@gmail.com

Facebook Page:  CLICK HERE

FAQs

What apples can you press?

You can make apple juice with any apple variety, cookers and desert apples. They are good mixed, producing a sweeter/more dry juice depending on the sweetness and mix of the apples. We can also press pears; pear and apple is delicious.

When do we press?

This year we will be pressing in October and early November

Minimum/Maximum Amounts

Maximum limit. We may be able to process commercial quantities of apples. Call us to talk through your requirements.

Minimum limit. We require a minimum of 300kg of fruit. This would be similar to 25+ shopping bags full. We appreciate it can be hard to estimate weight so feel free to send a photo of fruit either harvested or on the trees.

What you need to do:

Pick your fruit – the better quality the fruit the better the juice
No rotting fruit or badly bruised fruit please. We will discard any we find that is turning*.
Bag it up or put it into boxes or crates. Make sure you can lift them!

*IMPORTANT - Please note: If fruit is ‘turning’ or partially rotted (going brown) we will reject it. We may need to store the apples for up to a week from date of delivery, if it is in poor condition a lot of wastage can occur. We will carry out a final check and will sort fruit as we press but if the fruit is in a poor condition and is too difficult to sort we reserve the right not to press. Windfalls can be juiced if they are in good condition. Please ensure any animals grazing your orchards are out of the orchard for 6 weeks before you pick the fruit.

An easy way to tell if your fruit is ready is to taste it (!) and check the pips - they should be dark brown when the apples are ripe.

What we do:

We will wash the fruit, mill it, press it, bottle it (750ml green glass) and pasteurise it.

Fruit will be pressed in batches.

We don’t add anything to the juice – no sugar or preservatives. The pasteurisation process will preserve the juice for 24 months.

We will pack your juice in boxes of 12 to make storage and handling easier, otherwise please drop off your boxes/crates for the bottles.

Our juice process takes 2 days. We will call or message you when your juice is ready to be collected. We charge storage for juice left with us for over a week.

How much does it cost?

Please ring Dean for a quote:   07896 967807

Re using old bottles

Due to strict health and safety regulations it is NOT possible for us to re use your old bottles.

Organic or Biodynamic

Ragmans Juice processing site is registered with the local Environmental Health Service and with the Soil Association for producing apple juice to organic standards. If you have organic or Biodynamic fruit certification in place we can process your fruit separately but need to know this in advance.

Records

We keep records of all the juice we process. You are welcome to inspect our records.