by Dwight Bradley

 

In the last Newsletter I reported on the September 1996 apple tasting, but forgot to include data on the sugar content. Bob Beyer took a slice of each apple that we tasted and squeezed a bit of juice into an refractometer, which measures sugar content in brix (I don’t find “brix” in my dictionary). So here again are the apples, this time in order of sugar content; the average tasting score (on a scale of 1-10. with 10 highest) is also given.

 

The sweetest apple was an unknown crab, which looked like Dolgo, with a brix of 17. It wasn’t a particularly sweet-tasting apple; in fact it was puckery-tart. This and. the other top finishers did not do especially well in the taste testing. The two top finishers in the tasting. Ginger Gold and Oriole, did have fairly high sugar contents, but so did a lot of mediocre varieties.

 

Some of the varieties with low sugar contents simply weren’t ripe. Others, such as Westland and Heyer 12, were plenty ripe and just never do get much sweeter than the ones we tested.

 

Refractometer measurements like these will come in handy in selecting varieties to mix for sweet and hard ciders with the proper balance. Novosibirsk! Sweet has great potential as a sweeting variety because its acid content is so low.

 

Variety (with initials of           Sugar               Avg. tasting

grower in some cases)             content            score

(1-10)

 

Unknown crab                        17                    5-2

10th &E                                  16.75               6.6

Centennial                               16                    5.3

Canada Red                            15                    7.2

Golden Trans.                         15                    6.5

Novosibirsk! Sweet                 15                    5.7

Yellow Jay                              15                    7.0

Parkland                                  14.5                 7.5

Ginger Gold BB                     14                    8-6

Harris mystery                         14                    7.0

Hazen LC                                14                    6.9

Oriole                                      14                    8.0

Root mystery                          14                    5.9

Heyer 20                                 13.5                 4.9

State Fair                                 13.5                 8.1

Unknown huge green              13.5                 6.0

Vista Bella                              13.5                 6.8

8th & M                                  13                    7.1

Hazen                                      13                    6.1

Rosthem 12                             13                    6.4

Summerred                              13                    7.4

Westland LC                           13                    5.3

Golden Trans.                         12.5                 6.2

Norland                                   12                    6.3

Parkland                                  12                    6.9

Pristine                                    12                    7.2

Red Duchess                           12                    6.3

Unknown Knik N                   12                    6.6

Unknown Knik S                    12                    5.7

15^th St.                                     11.5                 7.7

Geneva Early                          11.5                 5.0

Trailman                                  11.5                 5.3

Yellow Trans. HH                   11.5                 3.9

Adnac                                     11                    5.7

Graven stein                            11                    6.7

Mantet                                     11                    4.9

Red Duchess                           11                    6.2

Westland KF                           11                    6.9

Westland VV                          11                    4.8

Jovce                                       10.5                 4.8

Mantet KF                              10.5                 5.9

Red Trans.                               10.5                 6.4

10. Trans. KF 10.5 4.4

Jersey Mac                              10                    6.2

Yorks Greening                       10                    4.8

Heyer 12                                 10                    6.0

Summerred                              9                      5.9