When we shared our daily updates about our 6-bushels of sauce, a lot of people wanted to know about our “Tomato Slayer” – also known as a tomato squeezer, tomato crusher and some even call a tomato press. We have an electric grinder that goes by the very beautiful name, “O.M.R.A. No. 3″:
It’s 0.50 horsepower of pure tomato crushing power (insert evil snicker here).
My parents used a food mill for many years before eventually upgrading to a hand-crank machine which they later McGuyvered by attaching a furnace motor to in order to save their arms. They bought this unit about 10 years ago, initially splitting it with a friend for $400.
The price is heavy; especially up-front. In retrospect, it’s lasted 10 years and is going strong and has produced roughly 1,500 jars of sauce (we do more than 150 jars every year). That’s about $0.26 cents a jar (assuming we stop here, which we have no plans to). It can also make apple sauce, pumpkin butters and an optional attachment can turn it into a meat grinder/ sausage maker.
The device is fairly simple. We wash and cut tomatoes (checking for rot, softness, black spots) before dropping them into the hopper on the top where an individual guides them down the tube. This guidance is gentle at first but can become a difficult push as the day goes on on the machine gets clogged (we stop to clean it to make things easier on the machine and the people using it).
The tomatoes hit an auger (it’s like a giant drill bit) which forces them down a tube that has many perforations in it (it’s covered in sauce in the picture). Tomato juice escapes through the holes and is funneled down a trough into a foodsafe bucket (not supplied) and becomes our sauce. The skin, seed and remaining pulp all exit the far end of the auger and into another bucket. We put them pulp through the machine 3 additional times which increases our yield (we have gone from 16 or 17 quarts per bushel to 20 or 21).
It takes about 30-45 minutes per bushel to process.
We then cook the sauce down and bottle it and dehydrate the skins and see to make tomato powder.
It’s an amazing piece of equipment that has paid for itself over time.
Any other questions on the tomato squeezer? Would love to answer them…
Great piece of machinery. I’d be curious to know if you think there are any major benefits over using a Kitchenaid with the saucing attachments. It seems like the same process at a much lower price – in fact, some people might even already have one in their kitchen. Any thoughts?
I haen’t used the kitchenaid so it’s tough to say though I’m not sure it would handle the volume of a specific tool like this? If it would,. that would be great!
It seems to me you would need to spend more time loading the Kitchenaid. It’s hopper is pretty small. Also, the attachment seems smaller so it would probably take longer to juice the tomatoes.
the OMRA machines are gazillions times better than the Kitchen Aid if you mean the stand mixer with the fruit & veggie attachment. Joel’s right they can’t handle the volume. The hopper is WAY too small. If you’re doing even a single bushel of tomatoes, you’ll be driven crazy. I have an OMRA 2250, a manual tomato squeezer, that cost me $139. It’s excellent, and taken care of it will outlive us all. It has heft. I’ve used electric tomato processors but they’re liable to mechanical breakdown eventually – unless you’re spending $$$ on a professional kitchen model (and they cost more than $400). For tomato processing, the place to go in Toronto is Consiglios (where I got my $139 unit last year) . Ask for John Consiglio. http://www.consiglioskitchenware.com/store/pc/OMRA-Tomato-Machine-s-c1560.htm. (please ignore John’s video on how to make passata like they do in the Consiglio family; the recipe and method are not really up to snuff) but boy John C sure knows his tomato processors and he’s got a huge selection!
Since this is my first year getting back to trying tomatoes (been canning jalapeño jam and zucchini relish for at least two decades), does a food mill do the same as these awesome machines? We, too, use a lot of tomatoes and I can see the benefit if I can produce a good product.
The limitation of food mills, at least the hand cranked ones that push soft veg thru a sieve is that they gum up with skin and seed and need to be constantly dissambled and cleaned out. Thats exactly why a specialized tomato squeezer is worth the expense if you plan to process at least a bushel of tomatoes a year. Now if you’re pressed for time and can only can up whole peeled tomatoes in water, a food mill is very useful for when you open the jar and want to puree caned tomatoes into passata/sauce. I love my food mill but i dont use it when making tomato passata i plan to can in large quantities.
A food mill does a very similar task Dana, just not the same quantity. We processed 6 bushels (around 300 pounds) of tomatoes through the machine 4 times within 3 hours. Although there were four of us, that would be difficult with a food mill (although if you have one and aren’t afraid of the work – go for it!). My family used to use a food mill before stepping up our production.
J