How to Store Apples Over Winter: A UK Guide

Every autumn the same happy problem arrives: more apples than you can possibly eat while they are at their best. The good news is that a well-chosen apple is built to last. Before fridges and supermarkets, British households kept their own fruit in sheds and cellars right through the winter, and the method still works beautifully today. Get the variety, the picking and the conditions right, and you can be slicing your own apples into a crumble in February.

Which apples actually store well?

This is the part that catches people out. Not all apples are keepers, and no amount of careful storage will change that. The season an apple ripens in tells you almost everything about how long it will last.

Early apples are picked from late July into September and are made to be eaten there and then. Varieties like 'Discovery', 'Beauty of Bath' and 'Stark's Earliest' are lovely straight off the tree but go soft and floury within days. There is no point trying to store them, so enjoy them fresh, give the surplus to neighbours, or turn them into something (more on that below).

The apples worth storing are the late-season maincrop keepers, picked from October onwards. As the RHS puts it, late-ripening cultivars store for longer than early ones. Mid-season apples will keep for roughly four to eight weeks, while true late-season keepers can last several months. Some late varieties are not even ready to eat when you pick them: 'Sturmer Pippin', for example, is sharp at picking in November, ripens in store around January, and keeps until April.

Here are some reliable British keepers to look out for.

When and how should you pick apples for storing?

Timing matters. Pick too early and the apple never develops its flavour or its keeping quality. Pick too late and it is already on the turn.

The classic test is simple and needs no tools. Cup a likely-looking apple in the palm of your hand, lift it gently and give it a slight twist. If it is ready, it will come away easily with its stalk still attached. If you have to tug or the stalk tears, leave it a few more days. You can also cut one open to check the pips: pale pips mean it is not ready, while dark brown pips say it is ripe.

For storing, you want fruit that is ripe but still firm, picked just short of dead ripe. Handle every apple as if it were an egg. A bruise you can barely see becomes a soft brown patch within weeks, and that is where rot begins.

Only ever store fruit you would be proud to hand to a guest: whole, firm, unblemished and with the stalk intact.

Go through your pickings and set aside only the perfect ones for storage. Anything with a bruise, a bird peck, a scab or a broken skin will not keep, so eat those first or cook with them. Leave the natural waxy bloom on the skin and do not wash the fruit, as washing removes that protection and adds moisture. Windfalls, however tempting, are for immediate use or the compost, never the store.

The classic storage method, step by step

There are two traditional ways to lay apples down, and both work. Wrapping each apple limits how far rot can spread if one does turn. Leaving them unwrapped makes it easier to spot a bad one at a glance. Choose whichever suits you.

1. 1

   Sort ruthlessly

   Lay out your picked apples and keep only flawless, firm, dry fruit with stalks intact. Set anything bruised or blemished aside to eat or cook straight away.

2. 2

   Wrap or space them out

   Either wrap each apple in a single sheet of newspaper, or leave them unwrapped and lay them out so no two fruits touch each other. Touching fruit spreads rot fastest.

3. 3

   Use slatted trays or crates

   Arrange the apples in a single layer in slatted wooden trays, cardboard fruit trays or open crates that let air move through the sides and over the top. Stack the trays with gaps between them.

4. 4

   Keep varieties separate

   Store each variety in its own tray and label it. Plan to eat the shorter keepers first and save the long keepers for late winter.

5. 5

   Put them somewhere cool and dark

   Move the trays to a cool, dark, frost-free and slightly humid spot with good ventilation, ideally around 3 to 7C.

Where is the best place to store apples?

The ideal store is cool, dark, frost-free, slightly humid and well ventilated. The RHS recommends an even temperature of 4 to 7C, and notes apples will not survive below roughly 2.8C, so anywhere that dips to a hard frost is out. In practice a range of about 3 to 7C is what you are aiming for.

An unheated shed, a garage, a cellar, an unheated spare room or a covered porch all work well. What you want to avoid is a warm kitchen, which ripens fruit far too fast, and a centrally heated room, where apples quickly go dry and wrinkly. A little humidity keeps them plump, so a slightly damp shed is better than a bone-dry cupboard.

A word on the fridge. It is fine for keeping a bowl or two crisp for a few weeks, but it is not the place for a whole crop: there simply is not room, and you will fill it with fruit at the expense of everything else. Save the fridge for the apples you are eating this week and give the bulk of the harvest a proper cool store.

What about keeping apples away from other produce?

Apples release ethylene, the natural gas that ripens fruit, and that has knock-on effects on what you store nearby. Keep apples well away from pears, which ripen at their own pace and will be rushed along by neighbouring apples. Keep them away from potatoes too: the ethylene can affect your stored spuds, and potatoes give off moisture that makes apples go soft and mouldy sooner. The RHS also advises keeping apples clear of strong smells such as onions, paint and fertiliser, which fruit readily takes on. A dedicated corner for the apples, and nothing else, is the tidy answer.

What can you do with a glut you cannot store?

Even with the best keepers, you will have apples that are bruised, early varieties, or simply too many to lay down. This is where the fun starts. Bruised and early apples are perfect for cooking, so stew and freeze them, bake them into pies and crumbles, or press them for juice. A good chutney is one of the most satisfying ways to use a heavy crop, keeps for months in the cupboard, and turns a surplus into gifts: see our guide to making chutney. For jams, jellies, bottling and the wider art of putting a harvest by, browse the full preserving section.

Store the keepers well, cook or preserve the rest, and a single autumn's picking can feed you for the best part of a year. That is homesteading at its most quietly rewarding.