1.6 Gallon Fruit Wine Press - 100% Natural Apple, Grape & Berries Crusher | Manual Juice Maker for Kitchen | Solid Wood Basket with 6 Blocks | Heavy Duty Cider & Wine Making Press for Home Brewing, DIY Juicing & Farmhouse Use

I've done 2 years of pressing with grapes (only a few bushes) with this and the only complaint I have is that I'll be replacing the 2 piece pressing plate because it is undersized enough to allow grapes to squeeze through the sides even if you center it perfectly. I had to squeeze and resqueeze, but I was still disappointed with the yield after I dumped out what was left. I'm just estimating, but I think there was a gallon or so left that should've been extracted. It is a solid piece of equipment though, just go slow and be patient. And do some measurements and replace that squeezin' plate!I made watermelon juice and am soon to make fresh pineapple juice. Yum! One problem is that there isn't enough blocks so you have to make your own. Without enough blocks I couldn't press the watermelon down far enough to get all the juice. Luckily, I had a small press so I spooned the melon out of this large press and got another 1 1/2 quarts. Total yield for 2 watermelons was 4 quarts. A second problem is that the paint comes off of the unit that you turn & I was concerned I might get paint in the juice but I didn't. I'm very happy with it. I had not had fresh watermelon juice since the 1970s but always remembered it because it was so delicious & hoped someday I would have it again. Someday came thanks to this great fruit press.Overall great though I did need to purchase some extra wood to extend the vertical distance it can press. After 1 year of use and probably 30+ gallons the wood fitting for the top split. Overall good.Great, affordable wine press.The equipment is high quality and well engineered. With that being said, it's somewhat kludgy that requires some augmenting and innovation. The first time I tried to press apples, I made the mistake of trying to fill the bag the manufacturer provided. Too many apple chunks, not nearly enough pressure. I got two 4" wooden blocks to augment the ones in the kit to help squeeze the apples. Then I did two critical things 1) ditch the mesh bag provided and use pint sized mesh bags from the grocery store, like those used for potato fingerlings, and 2) slice the apples into 1/8" wide slivers that the device can crush. Voila! You'll have a functional fruit press!I bought this December of 2020 for my wife for Christmas, She was going to make wine. She did this past year but had the grapes squeezed by where she bought them, It came out bad and she is giving up on it, We have never used this wine press its still in the box when you sent it. Never even opened. Is there any chance to return this product ? I realize we will never use it. The corker and corks I bought were used and worked great. However we will never use this wine press. Please consider a return because I don't want it to just sit in a closet. Thank you John BrownThe product was nice but FedEx charged me 44% for Canadian tax and their fees. Actually the tax on their fees was 2 dollars, the tax on the product was 6 dollars and the rest was fees from FedEx. The reason I say it was dishonest was they did not mention it was shipping from out of country and I would be on the hook for the fees. Still a decent product but I would rather have known the full cost up front.Product all nice and shiny and well packed, that is what was packed. I have worked and managed factory assemblies and can't believe that this item was ever inspected for completeness. Did someone ever try to assemble this unit at the factory? Did someone ever read the instruction along with assembling this unit?Now that the bitching is over, lets see what my problem is: First I read the instructions which say the kit contains 12 cage slats. I go to the kit and find that there are 22 cage slats? I go to the metal ring that the slats are to be mounted on and I count how many slats are needed to complete the ring which comes to 25 slats? So why the miscount in the instructions and the miscount on what is actually needed to put this cage together? I gave you one star because it is forcing me to rate you a minimum of one star. I wound prefer to give no star. I have spent $170 dollars on something I cannot use. Unless you can send me another 3 slats in the next three or four days as I need to process my apples in the next few days.This press works fine, we pressed grapes and apples. I cut an extra piece of wood to fit inside at the bottom so the slatted cage doesn't move around. One iron bar is ok, but I used two more for ease of turning. You'll have to replace the mesh bag fairly soon, it's not robust. All in all for the money, it's a reasonable starter press. I'm pleased with it.The price dropped $54 so I bought it. Should have been another $100 cheaper. Screws are cheap, when I was done screwing in 50 of them, there was far too many metal shards under it. but screws were long enough. for the amount of assembly required it should have been noted. (For the price it should have been put together). The paint on the rims are damaged And a big chip in the paint on the spinning piece. The rims will rust. . . Most of the boards are sanded smooth but a few were not, have pieces coming off. Again for the price I paid these issues shouldn’t be there, nor should there be an hour of work to put it together. The machined metal parts seem soild.It is exactly what I expected for a low cost press. The wooden basket is not connected to the base and so you need to keep it centred and ensure it doesn’t lift up when pressing low volume of grapes. There is no ratchet mechanism and only one bar to twist with. The included wood blocks are sufficient if you can fill the basket over the halfway mark, but you’ll need to get more for smaller batches. These are all made clear in the description so I knew exactly what I was getting and what I had to do to work around them. It does what it promises, no more and no less.