Emma Miller
Apples are a unique product that has a huge amount of vitamins and great taste. They can be eaten raw or used in desserts, sauces, salads, and meat dishes. If you know how and where to store apples, you can forever provide yourself with a supply of fruit.
How best to store apples in the refrigerator
To do this, all you need to do is stick to two key rules. First, the fruit should be sent to the refrigerator after harvesting. If you delay just one day, their shelf life is reduced by 10 days at once.
Secondly, you need to gradually increase the storage temperature of the fruit. Every week it should increase by 1-2 degrees. This will keep apples juicy and dense, and not destroy cell membranes, which can affect the consistency of the fruit.
What you can’t store apples within the refrigerator
Storing these crunchy fruits with other foods can be a huge mistake. As we know, ethylene is responsible for ripening fruit. This substance continues to be produced in fruits and vegetables even after they have been picked. In addition, producers sometimes spray additional ethylene to speed up ripening.
One overripe apple can release enough ethylene to speed up the ripening process, such as in bananas or cucumbers. Keep pears, mangoes, avocados, peaches, and bananas separate from apples. But don’t take ethylene as a necessary evil. It can be a great help if you need to help bananas or avocados ripen.
But berries, citrus fruits, pineapples, cabbage, and peppers are more resistant to this substance and do not require trepidation.
Other ways to store apples
They can also be stored on a glazed balcony. For this purpose, apples are stacked in bags of 1-2 kg. You can also use wooden crates. To begin with, they must be disinfected and covered with paper. To protect the fruit from moisture and fungus, the container can be covered with husks or sawdust of deciduous trees. Stack the apples in the boxes so that the stalks face the same way and do not damage the neighboring fruits.
Another good place to store apples is in the basement. They can be placed in boxes or bags. But not everyone knows about storing apples in the garden. To do this, you need to dig a hole up to 50 cm deep and lay pine or spruce branches in the bottom. The fruit is stacked in bags or boxes with sawdust. Then, the apples on all sides are covered with pine needles to protect them from rodents. The hole is covered with earth.
