Apple variety Egremont Russet
A well known variety, ripe from mid to late September until perhaps Christmas. Certainly not ripe when this video was made in mid August but looking great on the tree.
Edward Bunyard wrote ('The Anatomy of Dessert' 1929)
'In Egremont Russet we have a fruit of superb quality, its abundant juice and remarkable nutty flavour are unapproached in their season.'
Rosanne Sanders writes 'The origin of this apple appears to have been lost. ...probably originated in England, first recorded in 1872' .....she continues 'the trees have moderate vigour..resonably hardy...a little biennial in cropping and the flavour is 'sweet with a rich nutty flavour'
not the crunchiest apple, develops more of a chewy melting texture. The tyranny of 'crunch' is reducing our choice of apples, I will put up a video on how to taste and describe apples later
We find it does occasionally miss a year's fruiting, but crops well 3 or 4 years out of 5. The juice has the highest sugar level of any we make, makes a good addition to any sweet or hard cider.
Like all apples, it has its faults. It is quite scab resistant but where it has short stalks, so can be hard to thin-you can't get the snippers in where you need them to be. I have discussed the reasons for fruit thinning elsewhere. If there are very large numbers of tiny fruits, you can thin them by carefully holding a bunch of fruit and twisting surplus apples off. This doesn't always succeed and the whole lot fall off, you can only learn by trying.
Egremont can also suffer from bitter pit. This is a physiological disorder, said to be due to a combination of trace element deficiency and irregular rainfall, which leads to brown spots in the apple which makes it inedible. It is said to be preventable by liquid seaweed or similar foliar feed and regular watering in time of drought. Its not a really big problem most of the time.
All in all, Egremont Russet is a first class mid season apple and one that our customers most frequently ask for by name. I think it is one of the most beautiful apples to behold.
PS the epithet 'russet' refers to the rough skin which some people think is a fault, I disagree.