2014 Grafting Adventures of CrazyED

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CrasyEd,

Any more info on the franklin cider, ripe/drop dates, disease issues, height? Bought a 3-4' one from stark, looks like they lopped a 5-6' one in half to fit the cheaper shipping box. They say zone 4, mine is at home in 5 borderline 6, but would like one up in the adirondacks 3b sandy soil.

Got 2 liberty's and a enterprise, and one more of each grafted in the nursery. Thinking of adding freedom . Any expereince with that one. Slow to bear like enteprise onB118 or M111.

You do all fresh cider? Any hard cider? Thinking of adding pristine to get a early hard cider with some pear mixed in. Have trailman on anty in the nursery could stay home for that.

 

[CrazyEd]

I haven’t been impressed with Franklin Cider apple trees. I planted 2 the first year they were available, both were from Cummins. One died completely, I replaced it’s planting hole yesterday. The trees are slow growing. The one tree I do have, the fruit was not very impressive on the eye, it was a nasty looking crab. But maybe it’s what’s inside that really counts when it comes to making cider. Honestly Franklin cider apple for me is under whelming, I wouldn’t plant it again or recommend it. There are so many better options, It didn’t live up to the hype on our farm.

I do have one freedom. We got some fruit from it last year, but I don’t have any pics. My sister said it was good.

Last year was my first year doing cider. All we did was fresh cider. 40? Gallons worth. Might do some hard cider in the future but I don’t know. I don’t need more equipment in my house I have enough hobbies already.

Here are what my Franklin cider apples looked like.

 

[TenPoint]

Is this your first Violi’s?

I planted one in 2016 and still no apples. Great looking tree just no fruit yet. Planted another one yesterday.

 

[CrazyEd]

Is this your first Violi’s?

I planted one in 2016 and still no apples. Great looking tree just no fruit yet. Planted another one yesterday.

No. I have another one that put out a lot of nice fruit last year. Without having my records in front of me it was probably planted between 2015-2018.

November 12, 2022. Good sized fruit. My dad ate one earlier in the season and said it made his face numb, bad reaction or something. I ate one later and I didn’t have issue. I don’t recall the tasting notes though.

 

[TenPoint]

Good to hear. I don’t need to eat any just would like to see some fruit eventually.

 

[CrazyEd]

Good to hear. I don’t need to eat any just would like to see some fruit eventually.

I double checked my notes. That tree in the pic was Planted in 2018. If you scroll this thread you might find notes about when I grafted those. I actually have 4 of these trees on the farm now after checking my master list. I think a couple have fruited.

 

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Thanks for the info. Spent a little time watering the new trees today. Buds aren't swelling up any on that franklin.

What apples have yuliked so far for cider?

 

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View attachment 47515
I also bought 2 presses and 2 choppers. Game on! Full on Maximizer and electric chopper and a manual chopper to keep at the farm with the tabletop press.

CraztyEd,

Who makes that manual chopper? Does the turn wheel have a pulley groove you can put a motor on it?

Also, any overview on your cider making? Varieties or blends you like, overall storage times, think you'd do different next time.


Got 3 liberty trees growing, got a redfield, golden delicious, granny smith, harrison, redfield, chestnut, and kerr so far. Looking to get some early season apples or crabapples in. Have 2 trailman, thinking pristine, redfree, cranberry. I got CAR in my area zone 5.

 

[CrazyEd]

CraztyEd,

Who makes that manual chopper? Does the turn wheel have a pulley groove you can put a motor on it?

Also, any overview on your cider making? Varieties or blends you like, overall storage times, think you'd do different next time.


Got 3 liberty trees growing, got a redfield, golden delicious, granny smith, harrison, redfield, chestnut, and kerr so far. Looking to get some early season apples or crabapples in. Have 2 trailman, thinking pristine, redfree, cranberry. I got CAR in my area zone 5.

Here is the equipment i purchased last season.

Simple Rig:

Maximizer® Apple Grinder

The Maximizer® apple grinder: It’s an apple crusher, apple pulper, apple pulverizer and apple masher. Get more juice from your apples – Click now!

pleasanthillgrain.com

Tabletop Fruit Press 1.25 Gallon

Tabletop Fruit Press: This well-made stainless steel fruit press is perfect for apples, grapes and more. Almond milk too – Click now for Free Shipping to 48 states!

pleasanthillgrain.com

Bad Ass Rig:

Electric Apple Grinder

Our electric apple grinder makes fine pulp of your apples. Compared to pressing whole apples, this fast and powerful grinder lets you get up to four times as much juice from your fruit!

pleasanthillgrain.com

Maximizer® Fruit/Apple Cider Press with Stainless Basket

Heavy steel Maximizer® fruit press apple cider press with stainless basket

pleasanthillgrain.com

This was our first time ever doing cider and I didn't do a lot of research like I normally do. We only did sweet/fresh cider, no hard cider yet. We did some blending and 1 single variety batch. The first batch we did was like Zestar, Jersey Mac, Pristine. That was really good. Then we did something with Sweet 16 /Honeycrisp and it was just way too sweet. it was that batch where my wife said the first batch was better, she liked more tart in the cider. Then we did a good amount of Honeygold/Kerr/Liberty that was really good and then we did a bunch of straight up liberty. All the cider we made we frozen in 1 gallon buckets and 1/2 gallon buckets. They stack well in the freezer.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08JXVTQ1Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Might try some hard cider this year depending on how the crop is. We really learned a lot this past season and we are gaining more knowledge through experience on what varieties keep well, which don't. Even harvest times with so many varieties, it's hard to know when something's ready on our farm so we are taking notes. Which ones we really like and the others we are ok with hitting the ground and feeding the critters. We processed apple sauce and cider on the same day last year, we don't do that again, too much work. Need to break it up or reduce the volume.

This is what we use for apple sauce and it works great, however I need the power model. Don't have time to crank by hand. I'll probably buy a power one this season. Works with tomatoes too.

Tomato & Food Strainer

Strain tomatoes, apples, berries and more with the VKP250 food strainer.

pleasanthillgrain.com

 

[silver_yummies]

Sounds awesome Ed! How was the straight up Liberty batch? I’ve got a lot of Liberty trees myself, curious how the cider is

 

[CrazyEd]

Sounds awesome Ed! How was the straight up Liberty batch? I’ve got a lot of Liberty trees myself, curious how the cider is

Real good. No complaints.

 

[sandbur]

Here is the equipment i purchased last season.

Simple Rig:

Maximizer® Apple Grinder

The Maximizer® apple grinder: It’s an apple crusher, apple pulper, apple pulverizer and apple masher. Get more juice from your apples – Click now!

pleasanthillgrain.com

Tabletop Fruit Press 1.25 Gallon

Tabletop Fruit Press: This well-made stainless steel fruit press is perfect for apples, grapes and more. Almond milk too – Click now for Free Shipping to 48 states!

pleasanthillgrain.com

Bad Ass Rig:

Electric Apple Grinder

Our electric apple grinder makes fine pulp of your apples. Compared to pressing whole apples, this fast and powerful grinder lets you get up to four times as much juice from your fruit!

pleasanthillgrain.com

Maximizer® Fruit/Apple Cider Press with Stainless Basket

Heavy steel Maximizer® fruit press apple cider press with stainless basket

pleasanthillgrain.com

This was our first time ever doing cider and I didn't do a lot of research like I normally do. We only did sweet/fresh cider, no hard cider yet. We did some blending and 1 single variety batch. The first batch we did was like Zestar, Jersey Mac, Pristine. That was really good. Then we did something with Sweet 16 /Honeycrisp and it was just way too sweet. it was that batch where my wife said the first batch was better, she liked more tart in the cider. Then we did a good amount of Honeygold/Kerr/Liberty that was really good and then we did a bunch of straight up liberty. All the cider we made we frozen in 1 gallon buckets and 1/2 gallon buckets. They stack well in the freezer.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08JXVTQ1Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Might try some hard cider this year depending on how the crop is. We really learned a lot this past season and we are gaining more knowledge through experience on what varieties keep well, which don't. Even harvest times with so many varieties, it's hard to know when something's ready on our farm so we are taking notes. Which ones we really like and the others we are ok with hitting the ground and feeding the critters. We processed apple sauce and cider on the same day last year, we don't do that again, too much work. Need to break it up or reduce the volume.

This is what we use for apple sauce and it works great, however I need the power model. Don't have time to crank by hand. I'll probably buy a power one this season. Works with tomatoes too.

Tomato & Food Strainer

Strain tomatoes, apples, berries and more with the VKP250 food strainer.

pleasanthillgrain.com

I have that electric grinder and I really like it.
Some of our favorite sweet cider has a large component of chestnut crab. 30-50 % chestnut is the best for us and not too many sweet apples. My neighbor gets sweet cider from two of us and he says my cider is more ‘crabby’. :)

We only have two bags of apple sauce left in the freezer. Trailman and Whitney. Whitney is somewhat bland.
We will miss the applesauce for oatmeal and for milk shakes(often my dessert) made with sugar substitute.

 

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Schemeing what to plant this fall or next spring.

Pristine is high on the list. I got a chestnut grafted, hasn't bud broke yet though. Was tempted to give cranberry a try. Adding another enterprise and liberty. Seems the purdue rutgers co-op has a lot of good ideas, was considerering bonkers co-op 35.

Feel like i should get another scion source at home for making trees for camp u pni zone 3. Had nova-ezgro on order before my bicep tore, might try frostbite, sweet 16, or maybe honeycrisp.

 

[CrazyEd]

Pristine is a great apple, it's one of our favorites. It's early, delicious for fresh eating too. Definitely one of my favs!

Frostbite gets hit by CAR by our place if my memory is correct. Sweet 16 is my daughters favorite. Honeycrisp doesn't do very well at our farm. Liberty and Enterprise are rockstars, they live up to all the hype. Florina and Galarina are both top performers.

 

[rocksnstumps]

Added a Triumph at my buddies place in place of Honey crisp, supposed to be more disease resistant and easier to grow along with a Sweet 16 for a couple of requested people apples. Triumph fairly new release so maybe not lots of feedback from general public yet but at least it has 30 yr history at U of MN. Probably more solid info on this one than say, I dunno Franklin Cider. Have some FC at my land close by too though.

 

[bigboreblr]

CrazyEd,

What zone is your camp up there? Any preference for a zone 3 apple you wouldn't mind near a treestand around the end of october? Got about 10 kerr cooking in the nursery, 2 signal fire, 2 all winter hangover, a chestnut, crossbow, and droptine. All on antonovka. I got a few dolgo and transcedent bareroots from willis that were too small to graft in the nursery too. 1/2 of them will be what they are, and the other half will be grafted to likely what I got already.

Deer density is low, but adding a few plots and some other things for deer to eat has risen the confidence of our camp members staying out on the stand. Even the goofballs are hunting a bit harder now too. Had a member who would drive his side by side with a sound system around opening weekend of rifle, 4th week in october. Remember one hunt I was overlooking the reservior on a big hill, 1/2 a mile away I could hear him play fire on the mountain...... He actually sat in a treestand the whole morning last year....

 

[CrazyEd]

CrazyEd,

What zone is your camp up there? Any preference for a zone 3 apple you wouldn't mind near a treestand around the end of october? Got about 10 kerr cooking in the nursery, 2 signal fire, 2 all winter hangover, a chestnut, crossbow, and droptine. All on antonovka. I got a few dolgo and transcedent bareroots from willis that were too small to graft in the nursery too. 1/2 of them will be what they are, and the other half will be grafted to likely what I got already.

Deer density is low, but adding a few plots and some other things for deer to eat has risen the confidence of our camp members staying out on the stand. Even the goofballs are hunting a bit harder now too. Had a member who would drive his side by side with a sound system around opening weekend of rifle, 4th week in october. Remember one hunt I was overlooking the reservior on a big hill, 1/2 a mile away I could hear him play fire on the mountain...... He actually sat in a treestand the whole morning last year....

Technically zone 5 but, on the edge. Zone4 is very close.

Kerr is a super solid producer, a work horse and should begin dropping in October, slowly. They do hang well, I’d have to dig through my pics but it’s a good one for hunting over in my opinion. I just planted a violi’s and an all winter hangover within bow range of a ladder stand I put up last season that is in a great spot. We’ll see how that works out long term.

Love fire on the mountain! Just not in the treestand!

 

[TenPoint]

Technically zone 5 but, on the edge. Zone4 is very close.

Kerr is a super solid producer, a work horse and should begin dropping in October, slowly. They do hang well, I’d have to dig through my pics but it’s a good one for hunting over in my opinion. I just planted a violi’s and an all winter hangover within bow range of a ladder stand I put up last season that is in a great spot. We’ll see how that works out long term.

Love fire on the mountain! Just not in the treestand!

My all-winter hangover has produced very well lately. Planted in 2016 on Antonovka. Violi’s that same year has not produced yet. Great looking tree though. I finally got apples on my Kerr last year. Tasty little things.

 

[hunts_with_stick]

Btw, I have the maximizer grinder and hooked up an electric motor to it. Absolutely love it.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

My all-winter hangover has produced very well lately. Planted in 2016 on Antonovka. Violi’s that same year has not produced yet. Great looking tree though. I finally got apples on my Kerr last year. Tasty little things.

We love the AWH crabs at camp. Our Violi's is a slow producer, too, - but our Violi's is in a spot that doesn't get morning sun. It may be a victim of frosts hammering the blossoms on cold mornings. Kerr = good tree.