Limited Edition run

[chevalcider]

Why is it that my small experimental batch of cider turned out to be my best ever?! I had 20 gallons of fresh pressed cider fermenting when I decided to try a small batch from a tree I've never harvested from before. I happened to see this tree over the course of the summer every time I passed by it and decided to stop by and ask if I could pick some fruit off of it. I actually gathered three grocery bags full off of the ground and took them home to press and ferment. With a one week old baby in the house I really didn't have time to do more than that. I almost lost the batch to infection a few times. It was fermenting in an old stainless steel milking machine bucket and I'd covered it in aluminum foil...well, the foil ripped a little and those little fruit flies happened to get in. I racked and sulphited heavily. After about two months in secondary I noticed some funny stuff on top. Another sulphite treatment and some more age and then off to the bottles. Now I open the bottles for sampling and I must say that this is the best cider I have made to date. It is an unknown apple variety as of yet. I think that it is an apple-crab. When I gathered the apples they were all mealy and not pleasant to eat. I know now that I am going to talk to the owners next year and ask to pick the apples. Most are happy to allow apples to ripen to my satisfaction if they know I will clean up all of the fallen fruit as well. I don't necessarily use the fallen fruit but I do make a practice of cleaning it up for the owners when I pick their apples.

 

[MarkKF]

Why is it that my small experimental batch of cider turned out to be my best ever?!

Happened to me. Did a one gal. batch back in the fall that I bottle conditioned and drank without aging. It was so good I'm trying to replicate the flavor now in a 5 gal. batch that I'm gonna age and force carb. Maybe it was the reused yeast. IDK.

 

[WVMJ]

Do you have a yard where you can plant an apple tree? WVMJ

 

[chevalcider]

Do you have a yard where you can plant an apple tree? WVMJ

It would be dicey. I could make it work but then we wouldn't have much of a yard for the kids to play in. I live in a town with apple trees growing on every second lot. Finding apples isn't too much of an issue. I actually like going around and trying different varieties. I'm in the northern prairies and the varieties that most people are recommending for good cider making are out of our hardiness zone. Most varieties that would work in Minnesota would be too soft for our winters.

 

[WVMJ]

So you already found a great cider trees thriving in your zone, get a rootstock hardy for your area and some scions from your favorite apple tree and graft it, you can keep the tree smaller, it doesnt have to overtake your yard, heck put it in your front yard as an ornamental. Since there are so many apple trees around you wont have to worry about a pollinator for it. We also like to forage for wild apples for cider, I like to rescue a few of them that are better for cider and put them in our little orchard to see how they do under some care. Just think of the cider you could make with these apples if you could pick them at the perfect time WVMJ

 

[chevalcider]

So you already found a great cider trees thriving in your zone, get a rootstock hardy for your area and some scions from your favorite apple tree and graft it, you can keep the tree smaller, it doesnt have to overtake your yard, heck put it in your front yard as an ornamental. Since there are so many apple trees around you wont have to worry about a pollinator for it. We also like to forage for wild apples for cider, I like to rescue a few of them that are better for cider and put them in our little orchard to see how they do under some care. Just think of the cider you could make with these apples if you could pick them at the perfect time WVMJ

Oh the ideas you plant in my head! For now I will be asking for rights to the tree if at all possible. One saving grace is the fact that the apples aren't really popular in these parts. Not the best for eating, etc. but very nice for hard cider.

 

[WVMJ]

If you ask for the rights to a tree on someone elses property they will say no and think they have the next red delicious tree in their yard and think its worth money. Since you didnt beed it, didnt find it in the middle of an abandoned field its kind of like just ask them for a few scions to graft and share them with people, it could after all be a wildling or a cultivated tree someone planted ages ago. You can swap out some scions with other cidermakers, I have a nasty apple we found in the wild, we only got 2 apples off of it since it grows in a frost pocket but its been grafted and put on a hill to see if they really are nasty apples or if just the 2 apples on it got everything concentrated from a whole tree. Once you learn to graft its all open up, you cant pass an apple tree without thinking I can put a limp of that one my tree and see how it grows in my yard, just a warning. Keep a pair of pruners in your car, a few ziplock bags and a marker, always make sure to tag everything or you will have a desk full of scions you have grafted onto your rootstocks without keeping track of what they are, then you have to wait until they fruit to see if you screwed up or not, so always take a pen also. WVMJ