Identify this please!

My neighbors say these are wild cherries. There's a ton of them and it's October. Hummm. I can't find anything that matches exactly on the internet. So what are they and can I make wine out of them?
I'm not convinced that it is chokecherry - the photos on the internet show a bunch of berries clustered together. These are exactly as shown. but hundreds of these little clusters. They are about 1/2" around. They say the birds don't eat them so they thought they were poisonous. But another neighbor ate one and he's still among the living...

They look to be an ornamental apple of some sort. I'm guessing they aren't poisonous, but I'd probably not eat them. Cut one in half. If there is a single large hard seed inside, it would be a stone fruit(cherry, peach, plum, etc). If it looks like and apple inside, you'll have your answer.

They look just like the little crabapples I make wine from every year.

Jacob_Marley said:

They look just like the little crabapples I make wine from every year.

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I'm pretty sure its a crabapple. There are two seeds inside like an apple. They are soooo tiny I'm not sure it would be worth it to make wine. All the recipes say to use real crabapples, not ornamentals. Besides I think the stems and leaves might be toxic to us humans.

What is your recipe Jacob? Is it sweet or dry? Maybe it will give me some incentive to make something out of all this free stuff!

Taste one, some of the crabs used for pollination are small, NOT POISONOUS, and have such a high acid and tannins it will blow you away!! I tossed a few in my last cyser just because. WVMJ

Taste the apples, they should be pretty nice right now.

They also make great applesauce. Wash, destem and put in a pot with water, sugar, cinnamon & cloves. Hard simmer for a good while until the apples burst and dissolve. Crush them up a bit and push through a sieve with a rubbermaid spatula.

I’ll have to dig out the recipe for the wine and transcribe it later today or tomorrow. But you can get a start on the process now if you are going to give this a try.

For wine, I pick the apples late in the season from now through as late as I can before the first hard freeze to allow as much starch as possible convert to sugars ... watching to make sure the apples do not start getting rot on the tree (over-ripe).

Pick them ... de-stem at least 80% of them ... pick out any leaves, twigs and rotten apples (note that the occasional hole in an apple does not necessarily mean it was bad. Wash the apples in a K-meta solution. Drain and put the apples into 1 or 2 gallon size freezer bags and freeze them for about 3-4 days (this way you know they are frozen through). Take them out and thaw them. Crush, grind or process them. Though it’s a bit time consuming a food processor will do in a pinch ... just a few pulses will do ... I’ve also crushed with a sanitized 4x4 post (like you tamp down stone aggregate etc).

Put the apple pulp & juice in your primary fermenter and add just enough “warm but not hot” water, to cover. Add pectinase (pectic enzyme) ... I use approximately 2 tablespoons of pectinase per 5 gallons of pulp/water. Let sit overnight.

If I am picking them unusually early in the season I’ve also used a dose of amylase as well ... an enzyme to convert the starch. This is not likely necessary for your purposes though.

A hint when picking all these small apples ... I am not choosy as I grab them and put them in the bucket (I use 5 gallon buckets) ... only the ones that are really horrible I avoid grabbing. Then, when I do the “picking-them-over” while seated I sort the undesirable ones from the one’s I’ll use. I also destem at that time. A small pair of pliers may help from you getting carpal tunnel syndrome from pulling off all those tough little stems.

Like I say, I’ll dig out the recipe when I get back to the house within the next day or so.

Why do you go through the trouble of destemming them? WVMJ

How many do I pick and how much will this all make?