What's for dinner?

[Jovial Monk]

Rhubarb and strawberry is better.

[Bobby]

bump

[Bobby]

Rhubarb and strawberry is better.

No - how could you beat this?
Rhubarb and apple with a dob of ice cream.

[Jovial Monk]

Looking forward to making apple butter from my own garden in Tassie:

Crab apples: Gorgeous and Yellow Hornet. Nice amount of pectin

Cooking apples: Granny Smith, Bramleys Seedling, Sturmer Pippin and a “French tart” Calville Blanc D'Hiver

Sweet Apples: Golden Harvey (main use will be for making a sweet cider)

Aromatic apples: Cornish Aromatic, McIntosh, Court of Wick, Court Pendu Plat

Others: Jonathan, Hubbardston’s Nonsuch, Winesap (might juice and can the juice instead) Esopus Spitzenburg (a parent of Jonathan) and some I likely forgot or still to get. King David maybe, spicy-tart and absolutely delicious, most will go to make dry cider, maybe some juice.

[Bobby]

Monk - that is too much work.
I'd rather just buy the fruit I need and make whatever.

[Jovial Monk]

Anything good requires time and effort.

Hardly any of the apples I listed (I have others, cider apples plus eating and perry pears) can be found without a great deal of effort. By using a combination I can make the apple butter/juice/cider more complex.

[Jovial Monk]

For cider I have three bittersweet apple varieties:

Dabinett—needs quite a few chill hours to set fruit. I thought “Tassie, be OK” but George Town was not cold enough, only 800 chill hours (and decreasing with AGW of course.) So need higher ground. This is a classic cider apple, can make a great single variety cider.

Yarlington Mill—another classic variety

Brown Snout—the immediate area around where the flower was turns brown. This is said to have a dessert wine flavor, so I bought a few more.

Now, I need to read up and experiment with blending apples but a small amount of aromatic apples will give the cider some apple character: (hard) cider is not like apple juice like wine is not like grape juice. Maybe a few tart or sweet apples for complexity?

For dry cider I have the french tart and King David, possibly some crabs for a bit of tartness, some sweet to tone the tartness down—this can be done post ferment. Some Improved Foxwhelp Sharp sweet into the blend, ferment some of this by itself for blending.

For sweet cider I have Golden Harvey, said to make a strong sweet cider. Dessert apples could also go into this as can some Foxwhelp.

Now—you may be asking yourself—bitter apples, bitter cider??? Most cider sold here is made from dessert apples sweet or tart. Bittersweet apples have pectins and tannins to create mouthfeel and these add bitterness.

Ciders, even more so perry are pears have a non–fermentable sugar called sorbitol, tend not to be strong, 5% abv at most. There are two varieties used to make Calvados, apple brandy, and I bought two trees of each variety.


Gonna be fun!

[Valkie]

Just tomato soup tonight.

Not feeling well.

Methinks the strawberry I ate is having an argument with my diverticulitis.

Buggar

[Valkie]

Just tomato soup tonight.

Not feeling well.

Methinks the strawberry I ate is having an argument with my diverticulitis.

Buggar

[Jovial Monk]

Where is the “Edit Post” button?

OIC. How about 12 hours to edit a post?

I happen to dislike seeing a typo in one of my posts, want to fix them. The real PA has hardly any limits on editing time.