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| Surrounded by the plastic and newsprint that kept it over the winter, this 2025 GoldRush apple proved still good to eat in June of 2026. |
As things turned out, my eyes were bigger than my stomach when I squirreled away a score of these apples last fall to eat in April.
But no matter: GoldRush is a phenomenal keeper apple, still good in June.
This is my last one.
The GoldRush were in very good condition when I bought them at Clarkdale Fruit Farms last December. Some years they are picked a bit green, but this harvest had better color, many with a slight small orange blush.
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| This is the same apple. Note the blush. |
These apples improve with age, when properly stored. My technique involves wrapping each apple individually in newsprint and placing them together in plastic bags that I've perforated to allow moisture to escape slowly.
I keep them in my refrigerator, but a cool cellar could answer too.
It's not a perfect method but it served very well this year. I think I only had one apple with any rot.
Eating
Mine has a tiny bit of wrinkling, and a yielding quality when squeezed. For most apples these would be warning signs that their cellular structure had deteriorated and the apple would be a mealy mess.
Not GoldRush. Sure enough, each bite squishes a little before the cells of the apple split with a satisfying crunch.
In storage, the apple has grown almost too sweet: not too sweet to enjoy, but it's hard to parse the flavors that come though the sugar beyond a lively generic spiciness.
There is some vanilla and a bit of pear. The apple's Golden Delicious ancestry is clearly present, too.
June days
Then the early harvest will be afoot, and hope springs eternal.
Will be eating my last Goldrush tomorrow (have one every day in my breakfast mash). Even in June it is better than anything the grocery stores have. They are a long season apple and get more difficult to mature as you move further north. Come the end of October we cover our Goldrush apples with row covers to trap some heat. This pushes the apple to ripen better and we harvest in the beginning of November. We just put them in the fridge, not even wrapped. We have planted Winecrisp and Sundance apples to see if they can rival what Goldrush does. This apple deserves *** stars - there is nothing like it in June.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the "more difficult to mature" is partly why they are sometimes picked a bit green in these parts.
DeleteI do refrigerate them, but the orchard I bought them from just keeps them in bags in an unheated room. I'd guess mine were like that for 6 or 7 weeks before I bought them.
The faster you can get them into refrigeration the better they store. If we didn't use row covers in Concord NH, we would be picking lots of green Goldrush apples. Ten degrees warmer in the day, five degrees warmer at night. We did a dinner a few weeks back and had apples and "Olde" cheese. Five varieties of apples including Honeycrisp and Goldrush. The Goldrush were gone well before any of the other apples.
ReplyDeleteHow would you rate the June Honeycrisp? I don't think of them as keepers, am I wrong?
DeleteGold Rush is a winner this time of year - often the apple I reach for, although our EverCrisp still outpace Gold Rush in terms of sales. Honeycrisp in June? No, thank you! At our orchard we prefer them to be gone by January, or else they develop a wine-y taste, and not of the good kind. And that is even with the benefits of smartfresh (or hazel) and controlled atmosphere storage. Honeycrisp will physically hold up until June, but the flavor will be meh at best. At least that's what I find here at my orchard in western PA.
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