Hi,

I am going to be moving to Atascadero and was wondering about apples there - the summer days are pretty hot but it cools off to 50-60 deg. most nights - fabulous for wine grapes I'm not sure about apples though (I suspect it's good for some not so good for other cultivars). I can't handle commercial Granny Smiths, bleh! I am a big fan of cider and perry, the only place I know to buy it is Trader Joe's, I keep hoping someone will open a Cider House and Tasting Room in Central Calif. sometime soon. As far as blending I hope someone responds, otherwise there might be some historical texts on it (lost art) and even in the French language. You could check with Cal Poly SLO, they have brewing, viticulture and I'm willing to bet if not courses on cider making a prof. who is knowledgable. Good luck!

Atascadero is perfect for apples, they need that drop in temperature at night, especially in the Spring to avoid fireblight. Tree of Antiquity is down in that region, they grow a lot of Heirloom apples.

Apple Cider could be the next big thing.

Axel--

There's a couple of us here in the high desert who are going after cider apples in a pretty big way. I've planted Kingston Black, Dabinett, Michelin, Yarlington Mill and Muscadet de Bernay. A friend in Los Alamos is putting in about 25 bittersweet and bittersharp trees, mostly Dabinett, Michelin and Kingston Black.

My goal is to do a very tradition Normandy cidre doux, using the keeving/defecation process. We also put up several varietals, including Kingston Black and Yarlington Mill, both bottle-conditioned and still.

A very good resource if you're interested in cider is the Cider Digest list. Several members of this forum, including Scott Smith, post regularly there. They can be contacted at cider-request@talisman.com

Another great resource is the Mt Vernon station at WSU, where they have been doing various cider trials since about 2002. Lots of data about varieties and what does well and why.

Well worth a look.

Don

Here in warm inland Southern California we have a different method for dealing with fireblight; we usually get a few days over 100 degrees by April, which knocks out fireblight for the year. Our lack of chilling hours makes the trees fruit a couple months later than normal, blossoming in late May or June sometimes, which puts our harvest in late November and December. This works out well, as in the winter periods of offshore airflow gives us dry desert air with days in the mid to upper-70's with intense sunlight and nights in the upper 30's, about the same as Washington's Yakima Valley in October. It colors up the apples really nice.

This year we planted some sharps and bitter sharps like Yarlington Mill, Tom Putt, Kingston Black, Hewe's Crab, and Bramley to go along with the Golden Russet, Arkansas Black, and Wickson Crab. Our favorite sweet cider has been good old Rome Beauty.

Applenut

The Internet book Apples and Apple Products (1950) from CornellÂs Core Historical Literature of Agriculture library has a whole chapter on apple cider that may be helpful.

Here is a link that might be useful: Apple and Apple Products- Fermentation Products

I'll start by saying I have never made cider but I have drunk plenty! I think it is important also to clear up the nomenclature. In the UK cider is ALWAYS alcoholic. So any references in the UK literature mean an alcoholic drink. Secondly the fruit mentioned above such as Cox and Bramley are not cider apples. Cox is an eater and Bramley is a cooker. Cider apples are usually fairly small and tart and would not generally be any good for eating. I live in Somerset which is one of the traditional homes of English cider and hope that you will all look at UK sources of info as well as French ones. We have been making it just as long as they have and it is by no means a 'lost art' round here! The North West of Spain also produces cider. In fact it is made in most places with a Celtic heritage where apples will grow. There are loads of UK sites with info. No need to translate. Just google Somerset, Hereford or Gloucestershire cider or something similar.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cider info.

I wanted to underscore flora uk's link to Andrew Lea's excellent site for anyone interested in learning about making (hard) cider. He is a research scientist as well as an amateur cidermaker, a concise and witty writer, and his explanation of the process should be really required reading.

Well worth checking out.

Don

Wow, lots of great feedback. Seems a lot of folks are getting into this. So this leads me into another question, as there are apparently folks in many different climates growing apples.

The best advice I was given on cider apples is that the varieties we choose should be ones that ripen here when the trees begin to turn. The theory is that the best flavor for apples comes when they ripen as the leaves begin to turn. Hence a lot of Summer apples aren't that great.

On the Central Coast, the best apples are those that take advantage of the full growing season, blooming early and ripening late, as in January. "Lady Williams" and "Hower Pippin" are good examples, but there is room for breeding good cider apples here.

A good example of how the season affects the apple can be seen with Akero, a swedish that is actually a Winter apple in Sweden, keeping for a long time, yet at lower latitudes, it's a late Summer apple, with not so good keeping qualities.

So for us, the best cider would be obtained from low chill very late season apples. So some crossing in between the Normandie varieties and the California and Australian varieties might yield new good cider apples.

Finally, does anyone in warm climates have experience with Cox Orange Pippin? Someone told me it needs to go in where there is afternoon shade. I'd love to hear other's opinions.

Regarding harvest time vs best apples for cider, I think there are two components to be considered. It seems like the later ripening apples themselves have characteristic and flavor profiles that make them good for cider. The so-called "hard" apples, some of which you need to store ("sweat") for weeks before they reach their peak of flavor. Don't try that with a Yellow Transparent.

But there is another thing at work and that is seasonal temperature and how it effect fermentation. For making great (hard) cider, slow fermentation is essential and the speed of fermentation is hugely influenced by temperature.

In the olden days, apples pressed in early would be subjected to fermentation temperatures still in the 60's, 70's and, with an Indian Summer, even possibly the 80's. The cider would ferment to dryness in weeks, which produced a lot of off-tasting by-products of a "hot" fermentation. But as the outside temperatures cool and, with them, the cider cellar, fermentation slows way down. Instead of weeks, cooler fermentation can take months. And it's that slow process that can produce really wonderful cider.

So, it's partly that late bearing apples are good for cider. It's also partly that cooler fall temperatures make for slower, better fermentation.

Mmmm... Now I'm getting thirsty.

Don

I'd like to follow-up on flora uk's comment: "Cider apples are usually fairly small and tart and would not generally be any good for eating."

This is quite true, particularly from the historic standpoint. Today, we have identified many named heirloom varieties that have been catagorized to be good for the table, good for cooking, good for cider, or combinations of uses.

But our ancestors' "cider orchards" were usually orchards of un-named seedling trees. These orchards produced apples that were pretty useless for anything but cider.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Heirloom Orchardist

It's true that the American cider heritage is primarily Apple Johnny Seed seedlings, which are mostly crab apples that have no added value besides cider.

I don't know much about the British cider industry, but the above is definitely not true for the Continental European cider varieties, including the famous Normandie cider apples, and those of Spain and germany. The cider apples there take on one of all of the following attributes: sweets, sharps, bitters. In the case of sweets and sharps, these are quite good table and cooking apples as well. Bitters are also suitable as cooking apples. (Nothing like a chocolate covered cooked bitter apple.)

The trouble with the "popular" cider apples like Kingston Black is that they produce poorly or irregularly. That's where the French and the Germans have a head start - there's a rather big gene base of large, balanced and productive cider varietal selections.

Golden Russet is quite popular for cider, and it is an eating apple. Something like Kingston Black, a bittersharp, is added only 5-7% to a base combining sweets and sharps.

Of course, by Modern American standards, only the bland and pretty apples seem to be candidates for table apples, as it seems based on the popularity of golden delicious, red delicious, braeburn and gala. Personally, I can't even eat these apples, they're horrible in my view, like sweetened sawdust. When gotten fresh of a tree, it's different, but they are usually picked before they are ready, and unlike good heirloom late Winter apples, they don't improve in storage, especially the commercial nitrogen controlled atmosphere storage.

The art of good Winter apples that sweeten up and become their best after mellowing in storage has largely dissapeared except for the few hobbyists that still practice the trade for fun, and the even fewer small commercial operations that are trying to bring heirloom apples back to the table.