Crealcritter
Garden Addicted
Does anyone here grow crab apples to make pectin?
Jesus is Lord and Christ
Jesus is Lord and Christ
Crab Apples
- Thread starter Crealcritter
- Start date
Eleanor
Deeply Rooted
Does anyone here grow crab apples to make pectin?
Jesus is Lord and Christ
We do! Over the years we've slowly been adding to the legacy trees on our property; that and I've foraged from trees "in the wild."
R2elk
Deeply Rooted
We used to make crabapple jelly way back when. You can use them as a pollinator for apple trees.Does anyone here grow crab apples to make pectin?
Jesus is Lord and Christ
I have made wine from the crabapples.
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Crealcritter
Garden Addicted
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.
Jesus is Lord and Christ
Jesus is Lord and Christ
Alasgun
Deeply Rooted
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.
Finnie
Deeply Rooted
How do you all process your crabapples? We have crabapple trees, but it seems like it would be an awful lot of work to use them.
Zeedman
Garden Master
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?
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?
