bag full of crab apples

I just spotted a crab apple tree that was LOADED with fruit. Nice big, russet ones, 1- 1 1/2 in diameter. I am trying to figure out what to do with them. Here is what I am thinking:

process all of them into pulp (how?)
freeze pulp in quart baggies
use the pulp as an additive for my cider making

I have been making cider from store bought juice all fall, and it is really pretty good. But I figure adding crab apple pulp should raise the quality.

What say yea?

I made a crabapple wine from 100% tart crabapples that, once aged out was the best apple anything I ever had!

Mash them anyway possible, add campden to sanitize then ferment out. Add sugar if the SG is too low...

SmokeyMcBong said:

Mash them anyway possible, add campden to sanitize then ferment out. Add sugar if the SG is too low...

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Note that he means mash them in the mechanical sense, not in the "convert your malt starches to sugar" sense.

They make an excellent jelly. Quarter them, cover with water and boil until they are mushy. Strain the juice through a jelly bag and add a cup of sugar for each cup of juice (? check this on the internet). Boil until the temp is about 220, test for gelatinization, put into mason jars and sterilize. No pectin necessary as crab apples are loaded with it.

My wife makes crab apple jelly most years from our crazy productive tree. I added some to a saison this year - came out amazing. I'd recommend adding the strained juice instead of apple pieces/mash as they take up a good amount of space and reduce the yield of your cider/beer.

What do they taste like fresh?

z-bob said:

What do they taste like fresh?

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Bitter as hell!

you could freeze and then press too!
Not all crab apples make good cider but maybe you have the good ones. Try looking here to see if you can identify

http://www.applename.com/id.aspx

There's another google link. Try looking up fruit ID and it's near top of list. Has photos

Or you could add six-pounds to a gallon of water and make wine. PM Yooper, she is the authority on crab apple wine.

z-bob said:

What do they taste like fresh?

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They taste pretty nice if they are soft. They have a very strong apple taste, but sweet and a little bitter. The hard ones are very bitter.

I ended up doing two 1 gal batch ciders with the crabs. One batch is almost all crabapple, with a little apple juice and sugar added. The other is mostly apple juice with 1 cup of crushed crabs added. They are both fermenting away, day 5.

I plan to drink them right away to see if I like them. If yes, I can make some more to age since the tree is loaded.

Our crabapple tree dropped a bunch of apples on the neighbors yard. The old man didn't take kindly to them and raked them into a pile on my side of the yard! Made me laugh like crazy when I saw the pile. Being a home brewer, I thought about how I could ferment them, but I never got around to doing any research.

I usually pick a bucketful of Dolgo crabapples from the tree at the water treatment plant. (at least I think they are Dolgo) I use them to make jelly. This year there was a crop failure due to a late freeze. I still got enough to make almost a quart of juice.

I mixed it with 3 quarts of pasteurized apple juice and a pound of sugar and some K1-V1116 lees. Racked it after 3 weeks and topped up with more apple juice to fill the 4 liter jug. I think it's about finished because it's clearing. Oddly enough, all the red color dropped at the end of the primary.

I cold-crashed my crabapple cider for a couple hours yesterday, then tried it last night. It was about 6.5 %abv, sparkled just a little, and a tad of residual sweetness. Very good.

In the past my wife has never liked cider, but she drank a big glass last night and kept commenting how good it was.

I soon as I have a chance I am going to harvest another bag of those crabapples and repeat that recipe. I figure if I can let it age a few months it will amazing.

GeneDaniels1963 said:

I cold-crashed my crabapple cider for a couple hours yesterday, then tried it last night. It was about 6.5 %abv, sparkled just a little, and a tad of residual sweetness. Very good.

In the past my wife has never liked cider, but she drank a big glass last night and kept commenting how good it was.

I soon as I have a chance I am going to harvest another bag of those crabapples and repeat that recipe. I figure if I can let it age a few months it will amazing.

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Did you ever determine what variety they were?

I do not know what kind they are, but they look like the pictures of "Orange Pippin"