starliner2000

Yeah, makes sense. It will be an experiment to be sure!

The tree is the last one. https://imgur.com/a/13h03Q2#C7LyTk7

We never did much with it since it tasted horrible, so it's pretty over grown, which I am tackling now. It's probably 15ft tall. Trunk is probably 6-8in or so in diameter.

The apples are maybe about the size of a small gala, light and yellow ish, and pretty round. It has produced tons of fruit every year despite zero maintance of the tree. My guess would be it's self pollenating. Only other apples around are grevenstein, jonagold, yellow transparebt, spartan, all planted by my parents.

Can't remember exactly what it tasted like. Last time I had one was in the 90s. My guess woukd be from tannin as I fell like I got a bit of remembrance from it after messing around with adding powdered tannin to one of my recent brews.

Since getting into cider this year, I have learned that my parents have an apple tree on their property on the west coast that they did not plant, that produces terrible tasting apples. They have owned the property since the 70s and none of the surrounding area was built up until the late 80s.

They refer to it was a 'wild apple tree'. Is there any way I can get the apple analyzed? What type of place would do this?

They cleared the property and built the current house. The tree predates the house. None of the lots surrounding theirs were used/cleared until after they built their house. I guess I can look up historic ownership info from the county.

I will definiately check out the cider festival. Would a food lab be able to analyze the chemical composition of the apple? like sugar, tannin, and malic acid compositon to see how it compares to known cider variants? Basically trying to find if I should bother with it this year? (most likely will just for the hell of it).

They did planted a gravenstein and a pollenator for it, along with a couple of spartans, so definiately going to try those out in the fall.

Great info, thanks!