Best tasting apples

But which one, the sweet American or tart English Golden Russet.

This is sweet…and given my faith in the orchard could possibly even be pomme gris, but they were sold as golden russet and they have very little tart to them.

I have both American and English grafted this spring so I will probably know in about what three years?

1 Like

The best tasting apple was today’s find at the tippity top of my Goldrush tree. No leaves left and I was throwing some kitchen scraps in my compost and noticed it all alone on the tree. I shook the tree and down it fell. Perfect crunch, first sweet then acid on the back side.

11 Likes

I think commercial nurseries sell American exclusively in this country- it is the only one I’ve seen commercial orchards grow. Famous for its cider but some people do love it. Jim Cummins was surprised when I told him I didn’t find it very exciting. At the orchard that I grow it there are at least 4 others in its season growing there I like more- Baldwin, Spitz, Braebern, Spy and Goldrush- oops that’s five. For a super syrupy cider it is amazing, but I don’t think you get a lot of juice per apple because it is pretty dry, or at least syrupy instead of dripping wet juicy.

Here in the northeast, Baldwin sometimes gets very good quality- truly an appley apple. In the old days when I’d read the results of taste tests it tended to either score very high or very low. It gets really good on the tree for about a day and then drops to the ground. Only holds the great quality in storage for a few weeks and then gets just a bit mushy.

1 Like

Alan, I think its the other way around – Golden Russet almost always refers to English Golden Russet. American Golden Russet is Bullock. See Apples of New York; this set the naming convention most people follow.

1 Like

whatever I got was syrupy-sweet, little acid but very pleasant-tasting, like if you took a “good” golden delicious, then concentrated it. I assume that is more likely AGR, or possibly pome gris instead, rather than EGR,

No, if the sweet is American, I can say that Adams sells American as Golden Russet as have other nurseries I’ve purchased it from. I’ve also read about Golden Russet in Good Fruit magazine described as syrupy sweet- never as a tart.

It is semi-common here for apple farms that sell directly to the customer and I’ve never seen Golden Russet sold that had tartness. I even sent Roger Way American (sweet) Golden Russet to identify 20 odd years ago and he just called it Golden Russet as if there was no other type.

I have Golden Russet from Cummins and it is definitely not the same as my graft of American Golden Russet aka Bullock. I have read many conflicting opinions on how sour Golden Russet is and I expect it is based on the conditions they are grown in. In theory there could be some mix-up, but no picture has confirmed any to me. AGR is more like brass in color whereas (E)GR is a strong yellow on the non-russet parts, and further south like where I am it has little russet compared to AGR.

1 Like

OK, it is English Golden Russet, but it is not a tart apple- at least according to Seed Savers’ take on it. “highly flavored, fine textured (though I think it’s pretty grainy) yellow flesh. Very sugary juice.” That is the Golden Russet I know well, the extremely sugary juice is distinctive.

From this discussion and some others I’ve heard I had thought there was an American Golden Russet and an English one with the English version being quite tangy tart, but the American one is English Golden Russet, according to them, and is the only Golden Russet they list besides a sport called Wheeler’s Golden Russet. And it is said to have originated in NY- not England.

In looking up acidity measurements on GR I find two reporting TA of .5 which is on the high side, similar to Jonathan. What I think might be happening is the apple has so much sugar that it doesn’t come across subjectively as a sour apple when you eat it.

Yes, it certainly doesn’t taste acidic. The Golden Russet I have at the site I mentioned with other varieties I prefer were purchased from Cummins.

1 Like

I bought my Golden Russet from Schlabach. Its description is
“NY, 1845. Seedling of English Russet. The champage of old time cider apples.”

From another thread about Golden Russet, a person said the seedling of English Russet is an American Golden Russet.

I am so confused.

1 Like

Your apple is Golden Russet (EGR), not Bullock (AGR). There are multiple competing origin stories for EGR, one of them is it is a seedling of English Russet.

BTW in looking for confirmation of this I noticed that the VVA page on Golden Russet mentions there are multiple “strains and cultivars” of GR: https://www.albemarleciderworks.com/product/trees/golden-russett-apple-tree. I wonder if they are referring to EGR vs AGR or something else.

Does this mean I will get the sour one? Bummer.

Given Alan’s experience in a similar climate I think it will be the sugary sweet one. Which also measures fairly high in total acidity.

I should say nothing is 100% certain here, this is the kind of question I would like to hear Tom Burford’s opinion on. At one point I asked on one of the cider forums about why my Hewes Crab was so much earlier than the descriptions, and someone on the list asked Tom. It turns out he believes the Hewes of today is a seedling of the 1800’s version. It could be that there are multiple different GR variants in circulation today all under that name.

1 Like

Thanks, Scott. Hopefully, I will know in a few years.

Reading posts about older ( and better) strain of Golden Delicious makes me want to grow that strain, too.

I expect Hoople’s Antique Gold is as good or better than these old strains (it is also a GD strain, it is a sport not a child), but I would also like to try one of the old ones given my fond memories.

I hear ya about that; I settled for getting Hooples scions, but am still seriously considering sweet-talking Alan for some scionwood from his older golden delicious client-trees

Just wonder how many members here have old GD strains that are the good ones.

Please stand up :grin:

1 Like

Well, how old do you judge that they’d need to be to qualify as a “good one”? I’ve got a (probably) 50-year-old tree that produces very good fruit, usually a bit rough-skinned and often with some russet around the stem, but the 100-year-old trees out there may well be different (and possibly better).

1 Like