Glossary · Milling and pressing
Scratter
Also written scratter mill, grater mill. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
A mill that tears apples apart between a rotating toothed or studded drum and a fixed plate, producing the coarse pomace that a press can work with.
- Subject
- Milling and pressing
- Also written
- scratter mill, grater mill
In more detail
The scratter replaced the horse-drawn stone mill in the nineteenth century and remains the archetype of the small cider mill. Particle size is its critical variable: too coarse and juice stays locked in unbroken cells, too fine and the pomace turns to a paste that seals the press and will not drain.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Milling and pressing
Milling
Breaking fruit down into pomace so that its cells rupture and its juice can be pressed out. It is the step that determines pressing yield more than any other.
Equipment
Apple mill
The machine that reduces whole fruit to pomace. Modern forms include scratter, hammer, centrifugal and roller mills; the word also historically named the whole cider-making premises.
Equipment
Hammer mill
A mill that shatters fruit with swinging hammers inside a screened chamber, the screen aperture setting particle size. Fast and high-capacity, but capable of producing pomace too fine to press.
Equipment
Stone mill
The pre-industrial cider mill: a circular stone trough, the chase, in which an upright stone wheel was drawn round by a horse to crush fruit against the trough.
Milling and pressing
Pomace
Milled fruit — flesh, skin, pips and stalk fragments — before pressing, and the spent solids left in the press afterwards. Both senses are in everyday use and context distinguishes them.
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
The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers
Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against the Open Library union catalogue: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781603584739, one edition recorded. That establishes the citation points at a real book in a stated edition, which is what a citation needs and is all it establishes. No copy was opened and nothing is quoted from it. The book itself is in print and not digitised in any open collection; where CiderHQ needs a figure from this territory it uses an accessible research source instead and says so.