More On Cider Fruit

More On Cider Fruit

More On Cider Fruit. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

Lars Ringsrud with Snowdrift Cider in East Wenatchee has a passion for making cider. They grow their own apples and create unique blends from the apples. Ringsrud says they and a small handful of other cideries are also using some of the red-fleshed varieties of apples for a truly unique cider.

RINGSRUD: What we consistently find across the red-fleshed varieties is obviously some really enticing red color but really interesting fruit flavors, berries, strawberries, raspberries rhubarb, watermelon that all comes in with the red anthocyanins in the flesh.

Most cider apples are not the kinds you will find in the grocery stores although those can be used very successfully but Ringsrud talks about what it takes from an orchard to make cider.

RINGSRUD: With our orchard we pretty much calculate that we can get about a thousand cases per acre and we're very small. We're at three to four thousand cases right now so obviously it doesn't take a lot of acreage to get production but like I said, we're small. There are several producers here that are in the tens of thousands - hundreds of thousands of gallons so they would be looking for more acreage but obviously it's a tough transition for orchardists.

And by that he means that there are some major differences in the cider apple market.

RINGSRUD: Along with cider fruit and growing it is the difference that there's no fresh market for it. There's no packing so the fruit that an orchardist has to grow for vier making has got to hit the market at a price that makes sense for him but also balances out for the cider producer. So really there's kind of two tiers of price structure within cider depending on where the fruit comes from.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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