truckjohn

Recipes 

Just go get one and taste it... Should answer your questions.... or at least some of your questions....

If you have a refractometer handy - you can check the brix with only a few drops of juice from one apple.... If the brix is up in the 20's - then you got good cider making apples no matter how bitter or sour they taste....

There are many varieties of apples that just hang on the tree - and some of them keep getting better the longer they hang....

Thanks

Daze

Recipes 

what has the temperature been??? if it has dropped below freezing and stayed there long enough for the apples to freeze than I would not even consider them but if it has stayed above freezing (keeping in mind a good hard frost where the apples have not frozen solid will make an apple sweeter) than they may still be good to use. I said it before and truckjohn has reiterated what I said if it is still good enough to eat than it is good enough to make in to cider.

Dicky

Recipes 

It has dropped below freezing a few times, this is England after all. It's pretty likely that they have been frozen solid a couple of times. But most of them look to be in pretty good condition.

Dicky

Daze

Recipes 

if they have frozen solid they will be soft and mooshie. It takes a wile for apple on the tree to freeze so dropping below freezing a time or two is not the issue. We always weight until after the first hard frost before we use any of my dads apples

truckjohn

Recipes 

Dicky

As we have said a couple times... There is only 1 way to find out... and you are the only one who can do it.... It will take you all of 10 minutes to find out....

Just go pick an apple and give it a taste.... Then.. Post back here with what it tastes like...

With some of the real bitter sharp "Cider" or semi-wild apples... Turning mushy after freezing them will degrade the Tannins - and the apples will all of a sudden taste magically delicious with a really nice balance between Sweet and Tart where they tasted horrible and acrid before.... The texture will be weird - you don't want to eat a bunch of them fresh - but they are fine for cider and especially jelly....

I have done that sort of thing a bunch of times successfully... Let those horrible, acrid apples sit on the tree till they turn brown and mushy well below freezing - and all of a sudden, the tannin degrades enough and the flavor blooms.... They make great jelly and cider....

Now.. If they taste bland and mushy with a hint of sweetness.. leave them for the birds....

Thanks

vinper

Recipes 

So ,are crab apples good for cider? I dont like to eat them

clevernonsense

Recipes 

if the weather has complied correctly, they could actually be fine. average apple in a grocery store is ONE YEAR old. I've stored apples in a root cellar for several months and still seemed fresh.

on the flip side, the tree itself has been ripening the heck out of those apples, so no idea what they actually are like. I'd probably take a bit and be ready to spit it out quickly

dinnerstick

Recipes 

crabs are all different but they tend to be high in sugar and very high in tannins (hence the inedible puckeryness), variable in acid. a small amount is a good supplement to a cider blend when you don't have access to bittersweet/bittersharp cider apples. you can also make a crabapple wine, check jack keller's site if interested:
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques40.asp