Help regarding sweating apples

[Terry Chalk]

We need some help with not-so-perfect apples.

I have mentioned before that the apple crop here in parts of S.E. Oz suffered from a killer frost and Antarctic breakout at the end of spring. However, some friends escaped the worst of it due to their location near a couple of rivers.

So, we got a call "do you want any apples as we are picking our big old granny smith because the cockatoos are starting to get into the fruit". The apples really are a couple of weeks short of proper ripeness, but beggars can't be choosers. I have successfully made single variety granny smith cider previously.

So, we now have about 50Kg of not completely ripe granny smiths. Brix 10.5/SG1.043 according to the refractometer i.e. a bit lower than I would like, but the pH is 3.6 which suggests that the TA should be over 6g/L. Overall not great but probably O.K.

So now the question... will sweating help. how long, what ideal temperature. etc, etc ?

I have them in milk crates which I can leave covered in the open (outside temperatures range from -5C frost in the morning to 20C middle of the day), or in our cool produce store which is controlled to a max of 18C but can get lower when the outside is cold.

This will be our only source of juice this year unless we buy some from a commercial orchard (not so easy in rural Oz).

So, any help, advice, suggestions etc re how sweating the granny smiths might help is appreciated. This is unknown territory for me as normally we just leave our apples on the trees until they are really ripe.