How will I know when the cooking apples are ripe?

Mojisola

Try shaking the fallen apples - if they're properly ripe, the pips will rattle.

If they're not fully ripe, go with the chutney suggestion.

Sambucus_Nigra

RAS wrote: »

You will find the fruit dropping now is unripe but still Ok for things like jams, jellies and chutneys.

And wine. Apple juiced, and mixed with white grape juice and sugar to 1.08 and fermented to dry. Yum.

Confuzzled

Money_maker wrote: »

No reason why you can't have this crumble. I stew up my windfalls, adding sugar if necessary (hasn't been but mine are eaters). You can then freeze or use.

also if you want to reduce the amount of sugar used to cover tartness or sharpness you can add a bit of bicarbonate of soda... i would think these apples would be fine for dehydrating if you have a dehydrator, as every fruit that goes in comes out sweeter than when it when in

zippychick

as this has dropped down the board ive moved it to the greenfingered board to see if you can get some help over here

Zip

chumbasmum

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

And wine. Apple juiced, and mixed with white grape juice and sugar to 1.08 and fermented to dry. Yum.

Ooooooo! am i missing a trick here. I have an old and reliable cooking apple tree and although I make chutney/crumbles etc (and giving away more than people want) I had no idea that I could be making something drinkeable!!!

I did look into cider but most of the forums said that cooking apples weren't the best - eating apples were much better

Please share any reliable drinkeable uses!!:j

I know nothing so would love to know... do you chop,mash the apples.
Leave to ferment?
Bottle?
sugar?

This has made my day...free(ish) booze!

mirrorimage0

hi all, we have a garden of roughly 120ft and have slowly managed to get rid of all the weeds, brambles and trying to level it all out with top soil and wacker plates etc.

now we have to grass seed it and hopefully have a nice lawn for next summer (albeit for the kids to run around on and ruin again lol)

question is where to buy the grass seed, im not a keen gardner i know nothing about which type or how much it should cost etc, i have seen some on ebay i think it was around £30 is it worth just ordering this and hoping for the best?




sorry thought i was starting a new thread and posted on yours somehow lol