Crab Apples

Crealcritter

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My plan is to graft 4 different varieties of crab apples on to MM111 root stocks come March. My wife says she wants some crab apples to make pectin. So I started researching and discovered there's some really interesting heirloom crab apple varieties. I never really thought much about crab apples until I researched them.

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Alasgun

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We have one tree, roughly 8 in. Diameter that we pick 9-10 gallons from each fall for sauce. This is less than half of what the tree produces so we leave the remainder for the birds who find them about February.
 

Zeedman

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I have young crab apple trees... but for now, I forage from trees elsewhere (a local fast-food restaurant) that were planted all around the property as decoration. The property owners don't mind, the fruit was just falling to the ground & rotting every year - much more than I can handle. These are thumb-sized crabs, and they make a tangy, deep red jelly.

The larger crab apples are not that difficult to process, although greater quantities take time. After washing, I split the apples (discarding any wormy / rotten) and cut off the blossom end. Then boil a full kettle of them to make juice, with only enough water to almost cover the fruit. There is no need to remove the seeds, since the boiling process neutralizes the toxins in the seeds I freeze quarts of any juice that I don't use right away. I boil wild plums whole to make juice too, and likewise freeze extra quarts. The two juices combined make an exceptional jelly.

I'm really curios how crab apples are processed to produce pectin? How well refined are the results?
 

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