Apples!

[me&thegals]

applesauce and fruit roll-ups for storage, lots in the cellar for as long as they are good, then use them up as they soften and yellow, and TONS eaten fresh and cooked into pies. My kids and husband probably eat about 3-4 each daily when apples are in season

 

[patandchickens]

What i would like to know is how do you store the apples so they last a long time.

Some ideas:

A large part of the battle is to start with appropriate varieties of apples (for instance, Golden Delicious, which btw has nothing whatsoever to do with red delicious and is actually a fine apple for all purposes, is one of the ones that stores very well). Start with them slightly underripe and absolutely sound. Anything with ANY hint of a bruise, don't bother trying; and if the crop is liable to be wormy (e.g. if it is homegrown organic and has had worminess problems in the past) it is also not worth trying to store b/c you'll lose so much more.

You want somewhere around 35-40 degrees F (sorry, some temperatures I have trouble thinking of the C equivalent ) but where they will absolutely for sure NOT freeze, and where there is good air circulation. If it's too 'tight' or small, the ethylene builds up and prematurely overripens the fruit. Also you don't want it too dry, as that makes them shrivel and get punky. Not every house has terrific conditions for long-term storage though so you have to respect the limitations of what you've got

Especially valuable apples can be individually wrapped in newspaper and stored in a single layer. You can't do this with, like, the full crop from half a dozen storage-apple trees, though.

My m-i-l dips or wipes (not sure which) each one in a dilute bleach solution and then dries very well before storing in big bushel baskets. She says this reduces rot problems. She has been doing this a loong time and is probably right but I haven't tried it myself.

And either give a cat free access to the space, or set lots and lots of mousetraps

HTH,

Pat

 

[enjoy the ride]

I have heard that attic space is a good place to over-winter apples. The best apple orchardist I have ever known did this but I have never tried it.

 

[robbobbin]

Here in central it is a great year for apples-well at least 6 of my 7 trees are LOADED with apples.
I had never considered taking some early as Pat described, but am glad to hear it. Processing apples is so time consuming and finger staining-I'm glad to hear I can do them in stages.
Probably gonna still have to give plenty away this year.
I wish I knew what variety they all are. They are all very old trees-older then me and my dh. So we've no clue-except one is yellow-hehehe
I like to make penny applebutter. yum
I freeze cleaned ready to use chunks.
I make applesauce.
I dehydrate a few-should do more but they don't always turn out for me.

Hmmmm, can't think of anything else right now...oh wait-the chickens love them too!

 

[Nuggetsowner:)]

We have apple trees and use the apples for the usual things like applesauce, pie filling etc.

One hint that I have read about and am thinking of trying next year is...when apples are small (not exactly sure how small is small but) you can take old panyhose and wrap the fruit in them. You secure it with a twist tie or something that can be opened to give more room if necessary. This is supposed to keep the worms away. Now I don't know how I would do every apple on the trees but I think I may try to do at least the ones I can reach on one tree so I can see how it works.

 

[Farmfresh]

I do homemade apple sauce, apple butter (which I make in the crock pot!), and apple jelly. I prepare apples (also peaches and other pie fruits) for making a pie. Cutting them, adding the spice, tapioca, sugar etc.. just like for a pie -Except I put it in a Ziplock bag arranged inside of a pie plate. I form the "pie" and freeze it solid.

When I want a pie ... lazy me ... I just pop the frozen filling in a prepared pie shell (you can even cheat and BUY the shell) and bake.

But out BEST most FAVORITE way to use apples is dehydrated! I peel and slice them thin with a mandolin slicer, then sprinkle them liberally with cinnamon and dry them to a leathery consistency. I then pop them in a 150 degree oven for about 10 min to pasteurize them killing any leftover insect eggs or spoors that might cause later problems. And bag them up. One year I did 20 pounds of apples this way and the family (5 of us then) ate ALL of them in a couple of weeks - so I did 20 more pounds!