The golden rule: only perfect fruit keeps

If there is one lesson worth learning about storing apples, it is this: only perfect fruit keeps. A single bruise, a wasp sting, a patch of scab, a maggot hole or a torn piece of skin is enough to start rot, and rot travels. The old saying about one rotten apple spoiling the barrel is not folklore — it is a plain description of how storage works.

So be ruthless at harvest. Handle every apple as though it were an egg, and if you would not be happy to eat it raw in January, do not put it in the tray. Cook it, juice it or give it away instead. A store filled with second-rate fruit will disappoint you; a store filled with sound fruit will feed you until spring.

Pick the keepers, and pick them at the right moment

Not every apple is built for longevity. Early varieties such as Discovery or Beauty of Bath are at their best within days of picking and will not see out October. The reliable long keepers are the late, firm-fleshed sorts: Bramley's Seedling, Egremont Russet, Ashmead's Kernel, Newton Wonder, Winston and Spartan, with Cox's Orange Pippin a fair keeper if you eat it by midwinter.

To test ripeness, cup an apple in your hand, lift it and give a gentle twist. If the stalk parts from the spur cleanly, without tearing the wood or the fruit, it is ready. Cut a few open: brown seeds mean ripe. Pick on a dry morning once the dew has lifted, and leave the stalk attached — it acts as a plug, sealing the fruit against infection.

Wrap each apple in newspaper

Give every apple its own square of newspaper, roughly 20cm across. Sit the fruit in the middle, fold the corners over it and twist the paper closed at the top to make a small parcel. It takes an evening and a pot of tea, but it is the single most effective thing you can do.

The wrapping cushions each apple against its neighbours and, just as importantly, isolates any fruit that does turn, so rot cannot creep from one to the next through the tray. Plain newsprint is ideal; avoid glossy colour supplements, which hold damp and rub off ink. Dried straw or clean tissue paper works as a substitute, but newspaper is free and does the job beautifully.

Trays, shelves and a cold, dark corner

Store the parcels in shallow trays — traditional slatted wooden ones are perfect, but cardboard boxes or seed trays lined with newspaper serve just as well. Arrange the fruit in a single layer, or two at most, sitting eye uppermost. Never tip apples into a deep box or a sealed plastic bag.

The ideal conditions are simple:

• A steady temperature of about 2–5°C, cool but frost-free.
• Darkness, since light encourages ripening and greening.
• Moving air, so trays should stand on slatted shelves or upended crates rather than the floor.
• Humidity, helped by a bucket of water in the corner or a damp concrete floor, without the fruit itself ever getting wet.
• Distance from petrol cans, paint tins, onions and potatoes — apples readily absorb taints and give off ethylene gas that makes other produce sprout.

A garage, shed, cellar or stone pantry does this job admirably. The weight of stacked fruit causes bruising that only shows weeks later, which is why depth matters as much as temperature.

Check them every few weeks

From October onwards, set aside half an hour every two or three weeks to go through the trays. Feel each parcel through the paper and unwrap anything that seems soft, looks discoloured or smells sweet and musty. Be honest with yourself: a suspect apple should go straight onto the compost heap or into the pan, never back into the tray.

This is also the moment to look for mice droppings and nibbled paper, and to move the trays if the shed has turned damp. Eat the short keepers first. Coxes and russets are usually at their best between November and January, while Bramleys, Winstons and Ashmead's Kernel will often hold their firmness into March or even April if the weather stays cold. Label each tray with the variety and the date so you know what to reach for and when.

Make use of the bruised and the fallen

Every orchard produces fruit that will never store. Windfalls, wasp-nibbled apples and anything you have dropped should be used within a few days. Stew them and freeze in bags, cook them down into sauce or apple butter, press them for juice, or dry rings in a very low oven and keep them in jars. A batch of chutney in October is a fine use of a bucket of doubtful fruit, and it saves the good apples from contamination.

One last caution: never wash apples before storing. Wiping with a dry cloth is fine, but water carries spores into the eye and the stalk cavity and will shorten their life dramatically. Get the ritual right — sound fruit, individual wrapping, shallow trays, a cold dark corner and a regular inspection — and you will still be eating your own apples when the blossom is back on the trees.