How To Cook How To Preserve The Freshness Of Apples In Winter? - Recipe

We offer you to get acquainted with some subtleties for preserving the useful properties of apples in winter and the freshness of the fruits themselves .

We start with the fact that not all varieties of apples can be stored for a long time. Summer fruits, for example, are not suitable for this purpose, and autumn apples last until the New Year without losing their vitamins and taste. On the other hand, winter species will be present on your table until spring. You guessed it that for consumption during the cold months it is best to choose the latest apples.

• Before storing the fruit for long-term storage, first sort it carefully. For wintering, the most suitable are healthy and undamaged apples, which are torn from the tree a little unripe. There should be no spots, "tunnels" of worms and others on them. From unhealthy make jam, compote, juice or dry.

• Once you have selected whole and uninjured apples, you should sort them according to their size - small, medium and large. This is necessary because the heavy fruits will press the small ones. There is another reason, but we will talk about it later.

• As for the containers used, they must protect the fruit from mechanical damage and allow sufficient air to pass through. Wooden crates and chests are ideal for this purpose. It is important that they are dry, with no signs of mold (black deposits on wood or plastic) and have holes.

• The apples, arranged on straw, are perfectly preserved. Another option is to wrap each fruit in crumpled paper (use a newspaper as a last resort) or cover with dry oak leaves. Sawdust, buckwheat husks, baked sand, well-dried hay are also used. Remember that everything you use should be no thinner than 2 cm (except paper, of course).

• Some gardeners advise that before arranging the apples for storage, dip each of them in a 2% solution of calcium chloride. It is believed that such treatment protects them from drying out. But in the end, nature has created a special coating of autumn and winter varieties, which takes care of their preservation. Therefore, you should not wash or wipe the fruit when preparing it for a long stay.

• Label the dishes with the apples - mark where the small, medium and large ones are respectively. When you decide to eat delicious fruit, start with the smallest in size, as they lose water content the fastest. After them, eat the big ones, because they are the most endangered by rot. Only medium-sized ones can welcome spring if you have stored them properly. This is the second reason why sorting by size is necessary, which we mentioned at the beginning.

• The airy basement is the best place for apples. Do not place the crates directly on the floor, but arrange them on a prepared base (pallet, board or other). Stay away from potatoes, garlic and onions, because the neighborhood with them will adversely affect the aroma of the fruit.
• The temperature in the room where the crop will spend the winter should be from 0 to 7 degrees, and the relative humidity - 70 - 80%.
• In case you do not have a basement, you can keep the apples, distributing them in plastic bags, half a kilo in each, tie them and make side cuts on the packages - these will be the openings for ventilation. Put the bags in the coolest place (for example: on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, on a glazed and unheated terrace or next to the door on a non-glazed terrace). It is important that the fruit does not reach direct sunlight. Of course, this method is suitable for small quantities of apples.
• On a glazed terrace you can also store crates of apples, prepared in the manner described above (using straw or paper). Paper is preferable because when one fruit starts to spoil, it will not infect the others.