Glossary · Milling and pressing
Hair
Also written hair cloth, haircloth. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
A coarse cloth of horsehair, and later of woven synthetic fibre, used to wrap pomace in a press. The word survives as the trade name for press cloths regardless of what they are now made from.
- Subject
- Milling and pressing
- Also written
- hair cloth, haircloth
In more detail
Horsehair was used because it is strong, drains freely and survives repeated wetting and washing. Modern hairs are polypropylene or nylon monofilament, chosen by mesh aperture: a coarse cloth drains fast and lets more solids through, a fine one gives clearer juice and presses more slowly.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Milling and pressing
Press cloth
The woven sheet in which a layer of pomace is folded before pressing. Mesh size trades juice clarity against pressing speed, and cleanliness of cloths is a principal control on spoilage organisms in the press house.
Milling and pressing
Rack and cloth
The standard traditional pressing method: pomace is wrapped in a square cloth to form a parcel, a slatted rack is laid on top, and the layers are stacked into a cheese and pressed.
Milling and pressing
Cheese
The stack of pomace built up in a traditional press: alternating layers of pomace wrapped in cloth, or bound with straw, forming a squat block that juice runs out of under pressure.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Hereford Museum of Cider collections and interpretation
Hereford Cider Museum Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24
Somerset Rural Life Museum — cider collections
South West Heritage Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24
Cider and perry production technical training material
Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry Academy · reference work · registered as competent for this subject
Searched again on 2026-08-25 and it remains the one printed source here that a bibliographic check cannot fix, because it is not a published work with an edition. It is course material issued to participants of a training programme, so there is no catalogue record to verify, no ISBN, and no lawful public copy. Its state stays `registered` for that reason rather than through inattention.