Wine fruit mush straining solids before pressing

[boozeforbaby]

I have been making raspberry wine in 5 gall batches using a small "boots brand" wine press to filter off the mushed up fruit after 5 days of fermentation. This involves squeezing the liquor and solids through a fine mesh straining bag by hand and then pressing the solids which is time consuming and laborious. To avoid the hand squeezing stage, it occurred to me that I could utilize a 5 gall carboy from a commercial water cooler (which a have a few of)
By using the container as a hopper and removing the bottom, inverting it and placing a strong plastic grid covered by plastic mesh just above the neck.
A fine mesh cloth bag or muslin pillow case placed inside and would be filled with the must containing solids and covered with a cloth and left to drain into another container overnight.
The remaining solids residue left in the hopper would be pressed the following day.

My concern is that it would clog up and gravity alone would not be strong enough to pull the liquid through the fine mesh of the filter bag even given quite few hours overnight. Then again it should gradually seep through eventually anyway - maybe?

I would be grateful for any opinions please

Here is a link to a rough illustration of my contraption

http://i783.photobucket.com/albums/yy113/sausage1953/bottle_zpsvnxbwk1p.jpg

I would be grateful for any help! - Thanks

 

[WellingtonToad]

I am interested in your result. Recently, I spent a few hours trying to press all of the juice from a batch of Kumquat wine. At the end (physically exhausted) I left the wine to drip over night. The wine had drained through the bag/press, and the pressing operation was much easier the next day.
Just leave a bit of sugar in the wine, press at 1010 SG or somewhere near there so that the wine is still protected by the yeasties.

 

[salcoco]

it will clog up.

 

[Winorick]

If you're making 5 gallons, how much more liquid are you retrieving by going thru this extra pressing? Maybe a cup? Two? It seems like a light pressing of the bag for a minute or so would be enough.

 

[WellingtonToad]

Winorick, don't kid yourself. During the exercise described before I had pressed off 25 litres of Kumquat and called it a day. 25 litres being the size of my large demijohn. Allowing it to drain overnight and press next day, I collected another 2+ litres. To me that is almost 3 bottles.
Is that worth it or not?

 

[WineYooper]

Normally I freeze my berries and before they thaw I put them in a mesh bag and put in my primary. When I first start and the fruit is thawed I will have it in my primary and use my fists to press it to get as much juice out to start, then start adding h20 and other ingredients.The berries will start giving up juice when they start thawing. Once you get the ferment going you can squeeze every day and before it's sg dry remove the fruit. I take my mesh bag and as I squeeze daily I tie a knot in the bag and continue tying a knot without opening the first knot. I have done this with thirty pounds of blackberries so it is possible. You can check your sg when you get your liquid levels close and then add sugar to adjust the sg, remember the sugar will add volume to the total. For a 6 gal batch it may be 10# or more.

 

[Vinobeau]

Normally I freeze my berries and before they thaw I put them in a mesh bag and put in my primary. When I first start and the fruit is thawed I will have it in my primary and use my fists to press it to get as much juice out to start, then start adding h20 and other ingredients.The berries will start giving up juice when they start thawing. Once you get the ferment going you can squeeze every day and before it's sg dry remove the fruit. I take my mesh bag and as I squeeze daily I tie a knot in the bag and continue tying a knot without opening the first knot. I have done this with thirty pounds of blackberries so it is possible. You can check your sg when you get your liquid levels close and then add sugar to adjust the sg, remember the sugar will add volume to the total. For a 6 gal batch it may be 10# or more.

Huh? Could you rephrase, I'm a little confused.

 

[boozeforbaby]

Extraction processes

Just to recap my methods:

Frozen blocks of soft fruit are added to bucket along with 25L of elcheapo Aldi bottled spring water +5x campden tabs and 5x tsp pectolase, 24hours later Lavin yeast added (KV1116) - mix up daily x2 . 5/7 days later the pale looking floating top is skimmed off placed in bucket for pressing. Using the press as container for a wine filter bag, the rest is squeezed through by hand and then the remaining solids pressed out leaving solid cakes of waste. This part of the process is tedious and takes over half an hour and is the bit i would like to avoid (and i worry about the flys etc!)

I am wondering, if my filter idea is prone to clogging would it be possible to employ some centrifugal method such an old small spin dryer or something similar as an extractor?