I bought this to replace an antique I purchased at a yard sale. The old one cut a core with a diameter of 1", and the peeler cut off another 1/2". Consequently, on a small apple I was left with a thin ribbon of product. I wasn't sure if time had healed all the ills of the old one, but I am totally satisfied with this peeler. My husband checked the adjustments before we started. I bought the clamp model instead of the suction cup model. Those never stick securely enough for me to do the job. I clamped it to a large cutting board, using pliers to tighten it firmly. I then used woodworking clamps to secure the board to the counter top. There was enough room my board still to do the paring necessary for the blemish removal work.
Securely anchored, I started the process. Immediately I noticed how smoothly the crank worked. How fast it was.
The peel was thin, the core of adequate size but not too wasteful. The apples were sliced cleanly and in a fun spiral that made cutting out blemishes easy. Usually there was a piece of skin remaining on the stem end and sometimes on the flower end, which was easily removed.
I was going to save the cores and peels to make jelly, but after processing 63 quarts of apples I would have been at that for weeks. As it was, we burned through 8 bucketfuls in a couple of partial days work.
One of the tricky, learning curve things was odd shaped apples. On the misshapen ones, I centered the stem on the prongs and then tried to align the stem end so right and left halves of the Apple were even, paying no attention to where I thought the stem would be. I didn't cut into the core, but the tool worked better with this alignment. I also learned that it likes to go fast. Tentative turning of the crank seemed to give rougher surfaces. Another note, the cutter is sharp, so take a care when putting your hands around the business (sharp) end of the tool.
I quickly fell into an apple processing maniac mode. You turn the crank, the apple is peeled, cored and sliced in front of your eyes, you back up the crank and the core pops off, you release the crank and position the prongs to receive another apple while throwing the core and thin peel into the waste bucket. I was working with pippin apples so very dense, I pushed the apples on maybe 1/3 of the length of the prong for good round even apples, but all the way on for weird shaped ones which created more drag and force to accommodate the uneven terrain.
There are lots of nooks and crannies where bits of apple like to cling and I rinsed off the board and tool every hour or so. At the end of our task, I cleaned it very well, with a toothpick in some spots, put it in warmish oven to drive off the water in the unreachable spots, and put a light coat of vegetable oil on it. It is metal, and I want this to last a long time.
Another heads up: this is a messy job. I put a damp towel underneath it, and still had to wipe up stickiness from the floor from time to time.
Overall I couldn't have everrrrrr done this job without this tool.. I haven't tried all the other peeler brands out there, but this one worked really well for me.
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