Tool
Where did the volume go between the press and the bottle?
Enter the volume you measured at each stage — pressed, in the vessel, racked, finished, packaged — and see what each transfer lost, its share of the total loss and which stage cost the most. No benchmark is offered, because what a batch should lose depends on what was done to it.
Batch yield and loss tracker
Optional. Clear the box to leave it out; with it, the yields are also given per tonne.
After any juice left in the press tray, hoses and settling.
The total after every racking, if there was more than one.
The same as the last figure if nothing was done.
Containers filled times their volume, or the keg total.
Volume that reached the package
90.5% of the juice pressed reached the package
Packaged per tonne of fruit: 588 L/t
How this is worked out
- Juice recovered from the fruit: 650.0 L from 1000 kg = 650 L per tonne
- Pressed → In the vessel: lost 5.0 L, 0.8% of what went in, 8% of all the loss
- In the vessel → Racked: lost 35.0 L, 5.4% of what went in, 56% of all the loss
- Racked → Finished: lost 10.0 L, 1.6% of what went in, 16% of all the loss
- Finished → Packaged: lost 12.0 L, 2.0% of what went in, 19% of all the loss
- Lost in all: 62.0 L, 9.5% of the juice pressed
- Largest single loss: In the vessel → Racked
What this assumes (2)
- Every percentage is only as good as the volumes entered. A tank without a calibrated sight glass or dip chart can be several per cent out, which on one stage can be most of what the tool reports.
- There is no benchmark here for what a batch should lose. It depends on the fruit, the press, how long the cider sat on its lees, how it was clarified and how it was packaged; compare a batch with your own previous batches, measured the same way.
Where volume goes
Most of the loss in a batch happens at a handful of transfers, and each has its own cause. Juice stays behind in the press cake and the tray. Lees are left at every racking, and the deeper the sediment the more cider is drawn off with it or left above it. Fining and filtration hold back cider in the sediment and the filter media. At the end, the filler, hoses and the last of the tank go to waste, and so do bottles rejected for fill height.
Volume also leaves without being drawn off. Carbon dioxide carries a little away during fermentation, and a vessel left with headspace for long enough loses cider and gains oxygen — which is the reason for topping up, a deliberate gain that the tracker reports as one.
What the tracker is for is comparison with yourself. Two batches measured the same way show which transfer changed; a single batch against a figure from somewhere else shows mostly how differently the two were measured.
A dip stick, a sight glass and a count of filled containers each carry their own error. The share of the loss the tracker attributes to a stage is only meaningful if the volumes either side of it were read the same way.