Cider apple
Grenadier
An early English culinary apple of high acid, used by cidermakers to bring sharpness to the first pressings of the season.
Also written Grenadier Apple.
- Classification
- Sharp — Long Ashton classification
- Harvest
- Very early (Late August to early September)
- Single varietal
- Not suited to a single-varietal cider
- Blend role
- Acid lift, Early season
- Origin
- England, probably the south-east
- Species
- Malus domestica
- Flowering
- Pollination group 3
- Vigour
- Moderate
- Biennial bearing
- Slightly biennial
- 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.
A sharp of high acid and negligible tannin, in line with culinary fruit generally.
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 | High | |
| Tannin | Negligible | |
| Sugar | Low | |
| Bitterness | None | |
| Astringency | None | |
| Aroma | Restrained | |
| Body | Light |
Description of an early culinary sharp. No cider analysis attaches to this cultivar. These bands were authored from description; published analyses of this fruit have since been transcribed onto the record from named trial programmes and are shown above. The bands are not derived from those figures, which is why this profile is marked as classified rather than measured.
Supplies sharp acid and low sugar early in the season, and nothing else.
Aroma
No aroma descriptors are recorded for Grenadier, 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.
Measured on the fruit
Measured on the fruit itself, before anything was done to it. These figures hold whatever was later made from the juice.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit diameter | 94 mm (87–102) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fruit firmness | 31.3 N (19.0–43.6) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fruit weight | 291 g (230–352) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Starch pattern index | 8.0 SPI | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
Measured on the juice
Measured on juice as pressed, before fermentation. This is where most cider analysis lives and what the classification schemes are defined on.
| Property | Reading | Where | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brix | 10.5 °Bx (9.1–11.9) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Fructose | 43.0 g/L (40.4–45.6) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Glucose | 12.7 g/L (10.8–14.6) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| pH | 3.23 pH (3.18–3.28) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Sorbitol | 10.6 g/L (7.4–13.8) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Specific gravity | 1.044 SG | England — the source does not name the orchards | 1922–1977Historic analysis | National Association of Cider Makers, Archive of Cider Pomology |
| Sucrose | 66.0 g/L (63.7–68.3) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Titratable acidity | 7.4 g/L (4.0–10.8) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Total acid | 1.090 % w/v | England — the source does not name the orchards | 1922–1977Historic analysis | National Association of Cider Makers, Archive of Cider Pomology |
| Total phenolics | 920.0 mg/L (840.0–1000.0) | USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, USA | 2017Modern analysis | Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit |
| Total tannin | 0.080 % w/v | England — the source does not name the orchards | 1922–1977Historic analysis | National Association of Cider Makers, Archive of Cider Pomology |
How these were measured
- Mean of the fruit sampled per accession; where a bracket is shown it is one standard deviation either side of the mean, not the observed range. Published to two decimal places and shown at the precision CiderHQ displays for the unit.
- Mean of the fruit sampled per accession; where a bracket is shown it is one standard deviation either side of the mean, not the observed range.
- Cornell generic starch–iodine chart, 1–8, where 1 is no hydrolysis and 8 is complete. Mean of replicate fruit; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of it.
- Penetrometer, mean of replicate fruit; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Refractometer on pressed juice. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Titration to pH 8.2 with sodium hydroxide, reported as malic acid equivalents. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Meter on pressed juice before fermentation. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Löwenthal permanganate titration, reported by the source as grams per litre of tannic acid equivalent and stored here as milligrams per litre by exact conversion so that it sits in one column with the Folin–Ciocalteu figures the site also holds. The two methods do not measure the same thing and are not interchangeable.
- Enzymatic assay (Megazyme). Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- D-sorbitol/xylitol assay kit (Megazyme), sorbitol dehydrogenase method. Mean of replicates; a bracket, where shown, is one standard deviation either side of the mean.
- Published in the two-figure form the table uses (a printed 51 meaning 1.051) and written here in full.
- Titration, reported as malic acid, on juice from freshly harvested fruit.
- Method not stated in the compilation; the Long Ashton work behind it used Löwenthal permanganate titration.
- A chart position, not a quantity. Almost every accession here scored at or near 8, which says the fruit was picked at or past full starch conversion rather than that the cultivars are alike.
- One harvest at one site. Soluble solids move several degrees between seasons and with crop load.
- A permanganate figure and a Folin–Ciocalteu figure for the same juice can differ by a factor of two. Compare this reading with other permanganate readings, not with a Folin one.
- A National Association of Cider Makers compilation crediting three bodies of work — MAFF/ADAS acidity and pH from freshly harvested fruit, Long Ashton cider-making trials with dessert and culinary varieties reported in 1977, and the Long Ashton Annual Report for 1922. The compilation does not say which row came from which, so no row can be dated more precisely than the span of the three.
- A National Association of Cider Makers compilation crediting three bodies of work — MAFF/ADAS acidity and pH from freshly harvested fruit, Long Ashton cider-making trials with dessert and culinary varieties reported in 1977, and the Long Ashton Annual Report for 1922. The compilation does not say which row came from which, so no row can be dated more precisely than the span of the three. Several cultivars appear more than once in this table under sample numbers, and the repeats are far apart: Bramley’s acid is 1.21, 1.05 and 1.43 per cent in three rows. Read any single row as one pressing of one parcel of fruit.
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.
Watched in the orchard
What named research programmes recorded about this fruit at their own sites. Bloom, harvest and cropping belong to a place and a run of seasons rather than to a cultivar, so they are reported site by site rather than merged.
USDA-PGRU Malus germplasm characterisation
USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit, Geneva, New York, in the Finger Lakes region of western New York State · 2017 · Cornell University / USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit
Humid continental, with cold winters and warm summers moderated by the Finger Lakes — a sharper seasonal swing than any of the European cider regions whose fruit the collection holds, and warm enough in late summer to bring acid down faster than a maritime autumn does.
- Held as
- PI 589684, held as “Grenadier”
One harvest season. Fruit assessed for weight, diameter, starch pattern index on the Cornell 1–8 chart and flesh firmness by penetrometer; juice pressed and measured for soluble solids by refractometer, titratable acidity by titration to pH 8.2 as malic acid, pH by meter, total phenolics by Löwenthal permanganate titration as tannic acid equivalent, and glucose, fructose, sucrose and sorbitol by enzymatic assay.
Typical English apple juice analyses
England — the compilation does not name the orchards · 1922–1977 · National Association of Cider Makers, Archive of Cider Pomology
English fruit-growing country, and no closer than that: the source gives neither site nor season for any individual row, which is a real limit on what the figures can be asked to do.
- Held as
- Listed as “Grenadier”
Juice from freshly harvested fruit. Acidity and pH credited to MAFF/ADAS; the remainder to Long Ashton cider-making trials with dessert and culinary varieties (1977) and to the Long Ashton Annual Report for 1922. Specific gravity is printed in a two-figure form and written out in full here.
In the orchard
- Harvest window
- Very early
- Flowering
- Pollination group 3
- Vigour
- Moderate
- Cropping
- Slightly biennial
- Keeping
- Poor — mill soon after picking
August into early September. A cooker used straight from the tree.
A heavy and reliable cropper.
Mid-season flowering, and noted for tolerating frost better than most.
Disease and pest susceptibility
| Issue | Susceptibility | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Scab | low | Comparatively resistant, and a traditional choice for a difficult site. |
| Powdery mildew | low | — |
Juice and pressing
- High acid
- Negligible tannin
- Low sugar
- Available in August
How it is used
- An early English cooking apple
- Used by cidermakers to acidify early-season pressings
On its own
Not suited to a single-varietal cider
Very sharp and very low in sugar. Alone it would ferment to something thin and severe.
About Grenadier
Grenadier is an early cooking apple and, for a cidermaker, a source of August acid. Early juice is usually short of it — the early sweets and the early bittersweets both ferment to something flabby — and a proportion of Grenadier fixes the problem at exactly the point in the season when warm weather makes a high-pH ferment risky.
Its low sugar is a real limitation. It brings acid without alcohol, so a blend leaning on it will finish lower in strength as well as sharper, and that has to be planned for rather than discovered.
The tree is unusually healthy — resistant to scab and mildew, frost-tolerant, reliably heavy-cropping — which made it a standard choice for gardens and difficult sites long before anyone was pressing it.
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 · traditional account
Recorded from the 1860s and distributed by English nurseries thereafter. The raising is undocumented.
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.
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.
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.
Katy
A Swedish-raised dessert apple widely grown in Britain and one of the most used dessert cultivars in modern British single-varietal cider.
Cheddar Cross
A very early sharp raised at Long Ashton, giving acid at the start of the season when little else is ready.
Gennet Moyle
A very old English dual-purpose apple recorded since the sixteenth century, used for cooking and for cider in the Three Counties and now rare.
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.
- Can you make cider from bramley apples — You can, and it is normally blended rather than used alone. Bramley is a sharp — Long Ashton recorded 0.85 per cent acid and 0.08 per cent tannin — so it raises acid and drops pH in a bittersweet must, and gives a thin, aggressive cider on its own.
- 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
- Why is sulphite added to cider — Sulphur dioxide suppresses spoilage bacteria and wild yeast before fermentation and protects the finished cider from oxidation. How much of it is active depends strongly on pH, which is why low-acid juice is harder to protect.
- How is supermarket cider made
- What is herefordshire cider
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.
University of Reading / Defra, Brogdale · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The UK national reference collection for apple and pear cultivars. The authority CiderHQ uses for whether two names are the same fruit, which is the central duplicate-resolution problem in cider data.
NIAB (incorporating East Malling Research)
NIAB · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
East Malling developed the M-series apple rootstocks that determine tree size in essentially every modern orchard, cider orchards included. The authority CiderHQ uses for rootstock behaviour.
A Somerset Pomona: The Cider Apples of Somerset
Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001. ISBN 9781874336877 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against Open Library: Liz Copas, The Dovecote Press, 2001, ISBN 9781874336877. The author was Long Ashton’s cider pomologist, which is why this work is registered for Somerset cultivar identity at all — it is the nearest thing to a successor to the station’s own descriptions. No copy was opened. Not digitised in any open collection.
Research Evidence standard for this record. What that means.