Cider Apples Part 2

Cider Apples Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

There are a lot of apples grown in Washington State. You will recognize names like Red Delicious...Honey Crisp and Pink Lady. But what about Crow Egg, Brown Thorn, Michelin or Stoke Red? Those are some of the 80 varieties of hard cider apples that are being tested at WSU’s Mount Vernon NWREC. Carol Mills Associate Professor, Horticulturist says hard ciders are not plain apple juice.

MILLS: This is hard cider. Hard cider is fermented so that it has an alcohol level and by regulation it’s not to exceed 7% otherwise that goes into a hard liquor.

And like wines, ciders have different feels to them.

MILLS: Ciders have different textures to them. Just as in wine grapes, apples have tannin and tannin gives the cider a different texture, a different mouth feel. So ciders that have a higher tannin are going to have more body to the product and apples that tend to have lower (tannins) are going to be a lighter cider.

Cider apples do not have to be pretty and flawless to be used unlike eating or dessert apples and Mills feels there is a good opportunity here.

MILLS: We believe that there is a great opportunity to create an industry on cider and Washington State is really the leading state in the country where we have at this point I believe 20 commercial cideries in the Pacific Northwest and they are producing very high quality ciders. They’re winning ribbons at the national level. So we are really well situated to capture this emerging market.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.