[kyoto49]

Sure this has already been asked, but I can't find the thread!  Sorry.

We have a bumper crop of eating apples this year on our 4 trees.  What is the best way of storing them?

Thanks

[orfy]

I add water and yeast.

[mashauk]

Depends what type they are, I have russets which I found out to my dismay don't store, so this year they are being made into cider!  Other than that I'd say individually wrapped in paper if they're perfect and in a crate, my mum used to wrap them in tissue paper and put them in a drawer but that was in pre-central heating days.

[Skip]

Tell us the varieties you have harvested so we can be more specific with our storing advice.

[kyoto49]

HI,
Sorry I am a bit unsure of the varieties, as I inherited some of the trees.  1 is a russet, but as someone said these don't store, we'll eat these first.  I THINK the other 3 are 1 Worcester, 1 Golden Del and 1 Braeburn,

Thanks very much

[Skip]

Aha, if you are a cooking buff you will have something special on your hands with the Golden Delicious, a top American variety.  Store some in a cool, airy place and after three or four weeks they will shrivel up.  This process is called bletching.  Then, they will be one of the world's best apples for tarte tartin, an upside down cake.  This dish is to die for.  Do a google search and you will find top recipes.  When you bake a tarte tartin let me know and I'll fly over and do the taste test!  If you are not confident at cooking it contact some of the top restaurants in your area.  Any chef who has cooked a tarte tartin will jump at the chance to buy your blecthed Golden Delicious apples and will gladly bake them!

Braeburn, a NZ variety, is not a good storing apple so plan on using it fairly soon.  If you want a really good storing variety get some scion material during winter of Granny Smith (our most famous Australian apple) and graft it onto your trees in early spring.  They keep for months.  The UK has some brilliant cooking apple varieties too, with Bramley's Seedlings (bred in Nottingham) being the most famous.

As a general rule, three main elements are required for long storage - a thick skin, dense flesh and a fairly high acid level.  The Granny Smith has all these characteristics, hence its great storing capacity.

[Trillium]

I have a cold cellar which does a fine job for my potatoes, but you can't store apples in the same area. And I've nowhere else where the apples wouldn't freez or wither from warmth. My solution is to simply peel, core, slice and freeze all the apples I want. They're ready for whatever we need to do with them - crumbles, pies, etc and no waste.

[kyoto49]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  Unfortunately I cant stand cooked apples in any shape, so I will just have to live on raw apples for a few weeks before they deteriorate!

[Trillium]

Then you'll have to do as they did years ago - very regularly go through all your apple containers and pick out the ones which are going bad. If you leave them, the rot spreads quickly. It might surprise you how long the rest will survive if any bad ones are removed.

Another alternative is to simply dry apple slices. They're good eating and don't need cooking. Either use a dehyrator unit or slice them up, string them up and hang them in a warm airy spot until dry enough to store. They're a bit chewy (like dried apricots) but still nice.