Washington Regional Cider Apple Juice Characteristics

In this study, four cider apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) cvs, Brown Snout, Dabinett, Kingston Black, and Yarlington Mill, were collected from four orchards, two in northwest Washington (WA), Alpenfire Cider and Washington State University Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center (WSU NWREC), and two in central WA, Snowdrift Cider Co. and Tieton Cider Works, to compare juice quality characteristics. Northwest WA has a cool, humid summer climate (16.0 °C on average during this study) and is the origin of the state’s cider apple industry, while central WA has a hot, dry summer climate (22.1 °C on average) and is the center of the state’s dessert apple industry. Each year from 2012 to 2015, one crate each of the four cultivars was collected from the four orchards, fruit were pressed, and the juice analyzed for five quality characteristics: soluble solids concentration (SSC, %), specific gravity (SG), pH, titratable acidity (TA, malic acid g^.L^-1), and tannin (tannic acid %). Harvest dates and climate data were recorded annually for each orchard location. There were no significant differences in any of the juice quality characteristics due to region and no significant interaction of region, cultivar, and/or year. Results did show a significant difference in all five juice characteristics due to cultivar. ‘Brown Snout’, ‘Dabinett’, and ‘Kingston Black’ were higher in SSC and SG than ‘Yarlington Mill’; ‘Dabinett’ had the highest pH and lowest titratable acidity while ‘Kingston Black’ had the lowest pH and highest titratable acidity; and tannin was highest in ‘Yarlington Mill’ and lowest in ‘Kingston Black’. There was also a difference in SG and tannin due to year; SG was lowest in 2013 while tannin was highest in 2012. The difference in SG from year to year may be a result of variable year-to-year cold storage time of fruit prior to pressing as SG can increase during cold storage. The difference in tannin from year to year was likely due to climactic variation over the four years. On average, growing degree days increased 10% and chilling hours decreased 10% from 2012 to 2015 in both regions. Results from this study indicate variations in juice quality characteristics occur between cultivars annually and for some characteristics such as SG and tannin within a cultivar from year-to-year. These results indicate that for the four cultivars included in this study there was no significant variation in juice quality characteristics due to production region in WA.