4 replies to this topic

[Darterboy]

Got permission to pick at the Birmingham Botanical gardens. The variety is Callaway. Got about 5 quarts from the apples pictured. The juice tastes amazing- sweet, sour with a puckering tannic zing. If I'd been a week or two earlier I could've filled 4 buckets. Would love to try fermenting this juice straight. Maybe next year. Added a gallon to 4 gallons of Honeycrisp juice already fermented to dryness. Took a couple of days but fermentation has picked back up.

 

[neddles]

Never heard of Callaway but that doesn't surprise me with you in Alabama and me in Wisconsin. Sounds like a good addition to your cider. Let us know how this comes out. 

[Darterboy]

Never heard of Callaway but that doesn't surprise me with you in Alabama and me in Wisconsin. 

All I can find out about it is that it is a very popular ornamental crab apple for growing in the South. Most people bitch about the mess the fruit makes. These are probably the same people that plant those god-awful, smell-like-piss-in-the-springtime Bradford pear trees everywhere. 

[armagh]

All I can find out about it is that it is a very popular ornamental crab apple for growing in the South. Most people bitch about the mess the fruit makes. These are probably the same people that plant those god-awful, smell-like-piss-in-the-springtime Bradford pear trees everywhere. 

Unless I am mistaken, Callaway is a variant of Malus angustifolia. There are something like 50 species of crabapple growing in the U.S. and they all have subvariants, either by accident or deign.  Angustifolia produces larger fruit than a lot of other varieties.  That's a nice bucket full.

[fatbloke]

Equally, I can only find reference to it being of a "crab" apple type, though with mention of large fruit and it being almost good enough for straight eating.

 

The OP's description seems to allude to it being more of a "cider" type apple i.e. "amazing- sweet, sour with a puckering tannic zing". I'd bet it would be excellent fermented down, but then back sweetened (xylitol or something that doesn't give a "metallic" sort of taste like a lot of non-fermentable sweeteners can).....