Cider apple
Dolgo Crab
An extremely hardy Russian-derived crab introduced to the northern plains around 1900, very high in acid and rich in anthocyanin, used across northern North America for acid, colour and pollination.
Also written Dolgo, Dolgo Crabapple.
- Classification
- Sharp — Long Ashton classification
- Harvest
- Early (September)
- Single varietal
- Not suited to a single-varietal cider
- Blend role
- Acid lift, Tannin and structure, Early season
- Origin
- Introduced to the United States from Russian material through the South Dakota breeding work of Niels Hansen
- Species
- Malus × robusta
- Vigour
- Very vigorous — a large tree that takes years to settle to cropping
- Biennial bearing
- Regular cropping
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
How it is classified
Long Ashton classification
Sharp
High acid, low tannin. Includes both purpose-grown sharps and many culinary apples.
Basis: Above about 0.45% w/v acid and below about 0.2% w/v tannin.
Assessed in Fruit grown in New York State trial plantings.
Applying an English apple scheme to a species-hybrid crab stretches it well past its intended range. The class is recorded because a research programme assigned it, with that limitation stated.
Every classification on CiderHQ names its system. Why there is more than one.
What it contributes to a blend
A direction, not a measurement. These bands are the level of resolution the evidence supports, and they say which way adding this fruit pushes a blend rather than what the finished cider will be.
| Axis | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Acid | Very high | |
| Tannin | Moderate | |
| Sugar | Moderate | |
| Bitterness | Slight | |
| Astringency | Noticeable | |
| Aroma | Present | |
| Body | Light |
Cornell acid figures plus consistent description of a strongly astringent, deeply pigmented crab.
Ferociously acid with a firm astringency and a deep red pigment that carries straight into the juice.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Dolgo Crab, and for a great deal of cider fruit that is a finding rather than a gap. Bittersweet apples in particular contribute tannin, sugar and body while being close to aromatically mute, and most of what a cider made from them smells of was produced by the fermentation rather than carried in by the fruit. CiderHQ publishes the absence rather than filling the space with descriptors nothing supports.
Measured analysis
Each figure is shown with where and when it was taken. They are not averaged: the same cultivar grown in another climate genuinely gives different numbers, and collapsing them into one would be the most misleading thing this page could do.
Total acid1.200–1.800 % w/v
Geneva, New York State, 2010s · Cornell University, School of Integrative Plant Science
Reported as malic acid, and far outside the range of any cultivated apple in this file. A juice at this acidity is unusable undiluted and is used at a few percent of a blend.
How much acid the juice contains, conventionally reported as malic acid. Measured in percent weight per volume.
Compare within a study to see where these figures sat among the other cultivars the same work analysed — which is a more robust statement than the figures themselves, because absolute values move between laboratories and the ordering inside one study mostly survives.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Early
- Flowering
- Not recorded
- Vigour
- Very vigorous — a large tree that takes years to settle to cropping
- Cropping
- Regular cropping
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
Ripens early, before the main crop, and drops quickly once ripe.
Extremely reliable and heavy-cropping.
A profuse and long-flowering pollen source, and widely planted in northern orchards for pollination as much as for fruit.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Winter cold injury | low | Among the hardiest fruiting apples in cultivation, tolerating winters that kill *Malus domestica* outright. |
| Fire blight | low | — |
| Apple scab | low | — |
Juice and pressing
- Extreme acidity — the highest in this file by a wide margin.
- Substantial anthocyanin, giving a genuine pink to red colour in the finished cider.
- Real astringency from skin and flesh.
- Low sugar, so it dilutes gravity as it sharpens.
How it is used
- Planted across the northern plains and Canadian prairies for jelly, for pollination and for windbreak hardiness.
- Used in small proportion by northern cider makers for acid and colour.
On its own
Not suited to a single-varietal cider
A cider made only from Dolgo would be undrinkably acid. It exists in a blend at a few percent, where it does a great deal of work.
About Dolgo Crab
Dolgo is not really an apple in the sense that the rest of this file means it. It belongs to the Malus × robusta group derived from the Siberian crab Malus baccata, and it was introduced to the American northern plains around 1900 as part of a deliberate effort to find fruit that would survive a Dakota or Manitoba winter. It survives them comfortably, along with almost every disease that troubles the domestic apple.
Its cider use follows from two properties. The acid is extraordinary — well over 1% w/v as malic, roughly double a sharp cider apple — so a few percent of Dolgo juice in a blend will move the total acid measurably. And the fruit is loaded with anthocyanin, so that same few percent puts real colour into the finished cider without any addition. Northern makers use it for both at once.
It also earns its place in an orchard by flowering profusely over a long period and pollinating almost everything around it. In Quebec and northern New England, where the choice of cider fruit is constrained by cold before it is constrained by anything else, a tree that survives the winter, pollinates the block, resists disease and supplies acid and colour is doing four jobs, and the cider maker takes it on those terms.
Names, origin and identity
Cultivar naming is the hardest problem in cider fruit data. The same tree carries different names across ten miles, and two different trees have shared a name for two centuries.
Origin · documented
The introduction is documented. The fruit is not a Malus domestica apple: it belongs to the Malus × robusta group derived from Malus baccata, and this record states the binomial accurately rather than assimilating it to the domestic apple.
| Name | Kind | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Dolgo Siberian Crab | Regional name | the northern plains. Reflects its introduction from Russian material rather than a separate fruit. |
Related cultivars
Recorded relationships, including the ones this fruit is routinely confused with.
Fruit that plays a similar part
Cultivars sharing a classification under the same system and a comparable role in a blend. Not a similarity score — a stated relationship.
Kingston Black
The most celebrated English single-varietal cider apple: a small dark-red bittersharp carrying acid and tannin in one fruit, and a tree difficult enough that its reputation has always outrun its plantings.
Breakwell’s Seedling
An early Monmouthshire cider apple raised in the early twentieth century, sharp with a little tannin, and widely grown on both sides of the border.
Discovery
A very early red dessert apple raised in Essex, used by cidermakers to start the season with something aromatic and sharp.
Katy
A Swedish-raised dessert apple widely grown in Britain and one of the most used dessert cultivars in modern British single-varietal cider.
Porter’s Perfection
A very late Somerset bittersharp with high acid and moderate tannin, cropping heavily in its on years and barely at all in its off ones.
Cheddar Cross
A very early sharp raised at Long Ashton, giving acid at the start of the season when little else is ready.
Where it grows
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- Do cider apple trees need another variety to pollinate them — Almost always. Most apples are self-incompatible, and several important cider varieties are triploid, which means they produce poor pollen and need two compatible partners rather than one.
- How do i balance acid and tannin in a blend — Acid and tannin do different jobs and cannot substitute for each other: acid gives freshness and microbiological safety, tannin gives structure and length. A blend short of acid tastes flabby however tannic it is.
- How do you blend cider
- What is modern american cider like
- What is quebec ice cider
- Why is quebec known for ice cider — Because the winters are cold enough and long enough to concentrate apple juice by freezing reliably, which is the one thing ice cider needs and most cider regions cannot supply.
Where to go next
- How cider apples are classified — Why there are four schemes and none of them is universal.
- The blend explorer — See which way changing the proportions moves a blend.
- Blending — What a cider maker is actually deciding when they build a blend.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
GRIN-Global germplasm database — Malus and Pyrus
United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
University of Vermont cider research
University of Vermont Extension · university · retrieved 2026-08-24
The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers
Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against the Open Library union catalogue: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781603584739, one edition recorded. That establishes the citation points at a real book in a stated edition, which is what a citation needs and is all it establishes. No copy was opened and nothing is quoted from it. The book itself is in print and not digitised in any open collection; where CiderHQ needs a figure from this territory it uses an accessible research source instead and says so.
Research Evidence standard for this record. What that means.