They Make Cider From Wild Apples

They Make Cider From Wild Apples CROPS New Techniques Apple cider’s popularity is exploding with single and multi-apple flavors so Brix Cider came up with a unique source for their apples Partners Matt and Marie Raboin search the hills of southwest Wisconsin for wild apple trees “With wild apples every cider comes out tasting a little different ” says Matt Raboin Making cider started as a hobby for the Raboins while they were dating in 2008 They’ve been producing cider commercially since 2016 and opened their own cidery with a farm-to-table restaurant in 2019 “There are a lot of small orchards in Wisconsin and we’ve sourced apples from a bunch of them ” says Raboin “We pick a lot ourselves and also buy prepicked We know the people we buy from and are supporting local orchards sometimes making custom ciders for them to sell at their own orchard ” When Raboin talks about wild apples he may be describing trees of a forgotten variety remaining in an abandoned farm orchard It’s also possible that he’s talking about one grown from seed “Any tree that comes up from seed will be different ” says Raboin “Many farms used to have a small orchard perhaps 20 trees Apple seed would be dispersed by cows and other animals ” The idea of using apples from these orchard escapes came when his wife was traveling back roads and remote fields working for the Natural Resource and Conservation Service “She’d see apple trees on a back pasture and we thought we might be able to do something with them ” says Raboin “We started picking them with permission and it became a kind of adventure We’d drive out in the field park and pull out our ladders ” Results depend on the year as one year they’ll do poorly and another produces a ton of apples Bugs and disease also eliminate many wild apples from ciders Taste of course is the key factor “We’ll taste an apple or two which can be tricky as they may not be ripe at the time so we skip that tree ” says Raboin “It’s not efficient like picking in an orchard where you know all the trees of a variety are ripe ” Even one that doesn’t taste great as a fresh-eating apple may have the potential for cider Astringency can be a sought-after component in a blend while a very sweet apple by itself may produce a bland and relatively tasteless cider It often becomes a base for other fruits such as cherry or elderberry “When we find an apple that’s really good we pick as much as we can ” says Raboin “If it’s exceptional we flag it and come back in the winter to collect scion wood for grafting in our orchard ” Once the Raboins get their apples home to the Brix Cider brewhouse wild apples may be treated differently Yeast is a common ingredient for starting fermentation but not necessarily so with wild apples “We often let them spontaneously ferment with the spores naturally on them or in the air around them ” says Raboin If the resulting cider is good enough it may be blended with other ciders or be bottled with its own label and name The end result is seldom a surprise he says “After tasting lots of apples and making lots of ciders you get a sense of what comes through in the cider ” says Raboin Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Brix Cider 119 S 2nd St Mount Horeb Wis 53572 ph 608-437-2749; matt@brixcider com; www brixcider com

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