How do you like them apples
 

Question for the gang..

What is your favorite kind of apple? If you have multiple favorites, please list what seperates them.

For me, I am a big fan of Honeycrisp and Fuji varieties.

I like the Honeycrisp for its tarty sweetness which I find somewhere between a granny smith and a golden delicious..

The Fuji I like for how tame the flavor is. Its just a sweet, easy going apple.

What say you, FOFC?

Cripps Pink apples. I'm not sure what it is about them, I think it's the unique flavor for a crisp apple, but there the only apple I'll buy when they're available.

Grapples are pretty good.

I think apples are way overrated. Just a boring fruit that I avoid whenever I can.

Galas. Not too sweet, not at all mealy.

Macintosh, Granny Smith and Golden Delicious are my favorites.

Haralsons are my favorite.

SweeTango is my favorite, its 'parent' apples (Zestar / Honeycrisp) are probably my next favorites.

ah Apples. I grew up in the Hudson Valley, about five minutes away from an apple orchard and we had a few apple trees in our backyard, so I like them a lot, especially this time of year (apple cider for the win!). Empire apples are big in NY-they are my favorite-also like Granny Smith and Golden Delicious.

I stick with Granny Smiths mostly - really like the tartness.

Yup, Granny Smith most of the time, with the occasional Gala for its mellowness.

I think a Fuji apple the one of the greatest things on Earth. A Macoun is not very far behind.

Anyone not saying Honey Crisp, hasn't had one.

When Honey Crisp are not in season, I go with the Cripps Lady Pink as they're the closest approximation.

Honey Crisp are simply hands down far better than any other apple out there.

red delicious (let the scoffing begin)

Hey, if you like tasteless mush with a wax paper coating, there's nothing wrong with red delicious.

Tier One:

Honeycrisp
Pink Lady

Tier Two:

Gala
Braeburn (sp?)

No poll?

SI

Definitely need a poll so we can include the trapple - trout apple.

Fiona. Actually, she's the only Apple I know.

Oh, wait...

I'm allergic.

Macintosh

Granny Smith.

Didn't Stupid answer this not too long ago? I thought he said Red Delicious.

I like Honeycrisp. Although, IF you get a firm Red Delicious those can be great too, but its tough to find a firm one.

Stupid says Red Delicious
Smart says Granny Smith

I like Granny Smith and Golden Delicious about equally.

Granny Smith. Or Fuji every once in a while.

Fuji are my absolute favorite. I like the crispness.

Galas are also high on my list. For tart ones, I like Granny Smith, but I tend to use those if I'm not eating the apple alone...like if I'm making a grilled cheese, or if I'm eating it with peanut butter and cinnamon.

/tk

Hands down macintosh. Granny smith a close second.

How is it hands down if there's a close second ;)

SI

1. iPad
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Oh man.. I would have included a poll but it would have needed about 40 options or so I would guess. I'm stoked my local store just started carrying Honeycrisp apples though, the price is a little high, but worth every penny. Cut them bad boys up and put em on some peanut butter laden toasted bread with a dash of cinnamon/sugar and a teaspoon full of honey and you have a sandwich for the ages.

I go the Braeburn, Fuji route when it comes to apples. I am not a big Granny Smith fan.

It's honey crisp and who gives a shit about anything else.

Red Delicious have had the flavor completely bred out of them. Look it up.

Quiet you! :-P

We need weekly polls, a nomination thread, and a 64-apple tournament just in time for March. No exposed seed pics, pervballs.

I dislike Mark Appel

Whenever I ask my almost-5-year-old daughter, "How do you like them apples?!", she says, "I don't like them apples, Daddy."

My gears are officially turning..

After poking around on wikipedia I can't wait to get my hands on a SweeTango.

I havent had Honey Crips or Pink Lady, but I dislike all other kinds of apples I have eaten. I guess they arent awful, but very boring and not enjoyable.

you should definitely give honeycrisps a try then. They're explosively flavorful compared to all the other apples I have tried.

Honey Crisp is a great apple. And apparently not too hard to come by.

Fujis are good, and again pretty easy to come by.

I guess I'm going to have to try these Pink Ladies.

Just a couple of hours away from us, near San Luis Obispo there is an apple farm, Gopher Glen Home Page . As we've been visiting family over there on a regular basis, we've made this place a regular stop. Awesome variety, and a chance to try apples that you've generally never heard of. Right now in our fridge we have some Golden Delicious('cause my son really liked the sample) and Jonalicious. The latter are pretty freaking incredible, sweet and crisp. I really liked the Empires we got earlier this year crisp with a bit of tart to accompany the sweet.

Macoun?

I don't know if this is just a CT thing but I am shocked nobody else has mentioned these. I didn't even like apples because all I ever had was the local grocery store large bin crap. then I had a Macoun from a local farm and started exploring different kinds. Fuji and Macoun edge out the honey crisps and buying from an apple orchard is the best way to enjoy a fresh apple.

Macoun apple - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Short season for them, just like Fujis and they are hard to grow. It seems like every season is a bad Macoun season around here.

I've always been partial to the tart green Granny Smiths. Never had a honey crisp, I'll have to look out for them.

I'm curious about these Macoun, but information from someone saying that a Fuji edges out a Honey Crisp is suspect ;).

It really is an incredible apple. The past couple years I've enjoyed going to local orchards with my kids and I've had a chance to sample a number of different apple varieties I've never seen for sale before. One place had these by the peck and I got some to take home after having read about the apple before. Amazing stuff. Unfortunately there was a nasty frost in the spring here this year that has killed a lot of the crops so I haven't seen them around much this year other than at rather high prices and for short periods of time.

I don't claim to have tried every variety, but as of now, this is me. I'll eat other apples, but I feel like I'm betraying my true love.

Red Delicious, fresh off the trees from a New England orchard...

While I recognize that "I just go with what my mom / my family / the people where I grew up liked" is perfectly fine for less impactful decisions like ketchup, peanut butter, and religion -- I think we need to recognize that apples are more serious. You need to shake off inertia bias and become your own person.


In my own words, I think the rankings go like this:

1. Honeycrisp
2. Well, what the fuck kind DO we have??? (i.e. multi-way tie)

Yup, I pretty much agree.

Starting about 2-3 years ago I moved to almost a literal "apple a day" routine. I still eat 3-4 apples a week. I tried a lot of apples at the time.

I agree with the above scale except with the modification of:

1. Honeycrisp



.
.


.
2. Cripps Lady Pink

.
.
.
3. Whatever else is around.

Lady Pink is not as good as Honeycrisp, but it has similar traits and tends to be better than the others.

I have yet to taste an apple any better than a Red Delicious fresh off the orchard tree. I've tried many, nothing beats that taste, sweetness, and texture. You can blame it on whatever you want, but I've eaten a ton of apples (and pies) in my life, and that is my preference.

I will admit that a Granny Smith sliced and sauteed and added to a grilled cheese on toasted sourdough is pretty fucking sick.

I'm just being entertaining for effect, sorry if you're the guy in the crossfire, nothing personal.

Caramel apples or Candy Apples?

I much prefer Caramel.

Caramel for sure. The kind rolled in nuts, or if the option is available just cut up and dipped in the stuff.

I'm gonna have to grab a few more honeycrisps and get down with those and some of that sweet, sweet caramel.

The most recent QS v3.2.1.11 firmware had a glitch that upped the snark slider to "loveable bastard", which was one level too high

SI

Every year my wife offers to make caramel apples and it sounds like a great idea every time. However, they're really just a pain to eat. Any after the first day have to be refrigerated and then have to sit out for like an hour before they aren't hard as a rock. Even on that first day, you have the whole sticky chin problem as a full apple on a stick is just not a natural shape to eat.

We've gone to making caramel apple slices. Higher caramel:apple ratio and a lot less of a pain to eat.

SI

I like apple slices with peanut butter on them. The taste of apple + peanut butter = win.

I shall take nothing in a thread titled "How do you like them apples" seriously. I will pretend to, however.

HoneyCrisp...holy cow these are good. Sought them out at the local store. I can't imagine Kate Upton sitting on my face would be much better than this.

:eek:

Guess I'll have to try HoneyCrisp if I can find them.

I love Fuji apples.. can't find Honeycrisp as easily around here.

We are FOFC, indeed.

Honey crisp or pink ladies, for sure. I wouldn't bother eating anything else anymore.

Thread over.

I'm just waiting for this thread to blow up with some mad apple hate.

"Oh you're one of those Red Delicious favoring freaks? You're exactly what is wrong with this country. Stuck in the old ways- Let me guess, asshole.. You think women should be stripped of their right to vote and slavery should be re-introduced too, huh... You'd probably eat a Russet if they were still widely available, wouldn't you? What if your children grow up and start buying SweeTangos and Zestars and Honeycrisps? What are you gonna do then you bigoted, small minded prick? You can't change progress, man. This ain't your grandpas orchard!"

Suddenly we'll find that we're all be cider selves with anger for our fellow compatriots, losing just a little more of that humanity that made up the core of who we are as a species. People will be boxed by the bushel.

I went out and grabbed some honey crisps after this thread and I find them to be a little too sweet, if that's possible. I think I prefer Fujis as they're a little milder.

SI

I tried honey crisp because of the thread too. Still not as a good as Macintosh or Granny Smith.

What are honeycrisps going for in your area? I paid roughly $1 an apple, which seems pretty high in comparison to normal apple prices.

The honeycrisp were $2.99 per pound. Macintosh were $1.88 per pound. The rest of the apples (at Acme anyway) were in the $1.69/lb to $2.99/lb range. I bought 3 and the total was $3.41, so yeah, a bit over $1 per apple.

I bought a couple of SweeTangos cuz of the thread... one will be in tomorrow's lunch bag.

I have a couple shitty apple trees. May cut them down and plant some good apple trees in the spring. Time to do some research as to what grows.

And then wait like 20 years for apples?

SI

Actually more like 3-5 or 5-7 for dwarf trees (can't recall which), bigger ones add a couple years to the range.

well, i figure I'll be here for awhile probably.

After a bit of googling, it seems in the 3-5 range for the dwarf trees (which you buy when they are over a year old) and 7-8 for regular apple trees.

Tried out some Kiku apples last night. I guess they are a fiji variant. Really sweet, possibly the best apple I've had.

As with everyone else: Honeycrisps whenever possible. I've also found Keepsake apples to be a good alternative when the honeycrisps aren't in. It's another Minnesota apple that is apparently closely related to the northern spy and distantly related to the honeycrisp.

This weekend I found an orchard within driving distance that had SweeTangos and Zestars available for picking. They're still great apples.

They're starting to show back up in stores too.. I'm getting close to my annual apple freak out.

My next door neighbor has a couple apple trees and this year they grew like 8 billion apples. He brought over a couple baskets the other day and they are delicious! No idea what kind they are, but I would choose them over anything from the supermarket that I've tried.

Somehow we have this miraculous apple tree in our yard. There's an old, unpruned crabapple type tree in the yard that's just a pain. My son says, "Oh my gosh, look an apple!" when looking out the window and my wife and I were saying, "Uh-huh, yeah, wow," both thinking 'what a dunderhead, there's always apples out there.' But he runs out and comes in with this big beautiful red apple and then points out this tree on the other side of the yard which is very tall, blends in with the row of trees, but has a few really big nice apples hanging way up in the air. I can't figure out how we could have possibly missed this tree for the last six years, or if maybe it's never had any apples on it before? Bizarre.

But they're not Pink Ladies.

Just as I was reading this thread my mom texted me from an apple orchard. Told her to pick up some honey crisps for me.

I just got some honeycrisp today, but I do like me some Fuji.

Honeycrisp #1 with Gala a close #2... The flavor of Fuji's are good, but their consistency is usually too mushy for my taste so i stay away from them.

Pink Ladies all the way. No others are close.

I wasn't going to bump this topic, but since someone else did, the University of Minnesota recently came up with a new variety of honeycrisp that ripens earlier in the year (August?). They haven't come up with a commercial name for it yet (I think it's MN-55 currently) and it won't be available for retail until 2018, but thought I'd put the news out for honeycrisp lovers.

My favourites are

Gravenstein
Yellow Transparent
Astrichan

All are early apples, tart and don't keep for long.

The new varieties are too sweet for my liking or taste like sawdust because they've been hybridized for shipping, much like tomatoes.

Now I like a good apple as much as anyone, but...

NICE

xkcd: Apple Spectrum

winnar

Haha, perfect.

Opal apples are pretty good.

I used to think, "The redder the apple, the bedder the apple" but I'm open to new apple experiences. Imma try this honeycrisp the cool kids are talking about.

I prefer a pink apple. Those seem to be the sweetest. Pink being a combo of red and yellow