GoldRush Apples

GoldRush was crossed at Urbana, Illinois in 1972 and introduced in 1993.

Its programme-mate CrimsonCrisp took thirty-five.

It is GoldRush’s designation inside the PRI programme, which numbered its selections rather than naming them. Co-op 38 became GoldRush; Co-op 39 became CrimsonCrisp.

You will still see Co-op 38 in nursery catalogues and orchard literature. It is the same apple.

Golden Delicious as the seed parent, crossed with Co-op 17 — a breeding selection also catalogued as PRI 1689-100 — as the pollen parent.

Golden Delicious gave it the yellow skin, the honeyed base and the dense flesh.

The cultivar name is GoldRush — one word, capital G and capital R. You will see “Gold Rush” and “Goldrush” widely, including in nursery listings and, until this rewrite, on our own page.

All three refer to the same apple, so search whichever way you like. We have standardized on GoldRush because that is how it was released.

No. It came from conventional controlled pollination — pollen moved by hand in 1972, seedlings grown out, one selected, then propagated by grafting.

The twenty-one years between cross and release is what that process actually costs.

No — it is a modern planned-breeding cultivar, released in 1993. It is younger than a great many people reading this page.

It behaves like an heirloom in one respect, though: it is intensely flavored, stores all winter and rewards patience, which is exactly what the old keeping apples did. For genuine heirlooms see our heirloom apples.

Intensely tart when first picked — sharp enough that many people find it too much straight off the tree — over a dense, hard, fine-grained flesh with a honeyed base underneath the acid.

Then it changes. Over weeks and months in storage the acidity settles and a spiced, complex, almost winey quality emerges. A March GoldRush is one of the best-flavored apples you can eat, and it is a genuinely different fruit from the October version.

Because malic acid degrades slowly in cold storage while the sugars and aromatic compounds stay put. On most apples that trade is a loss — they go flat as they soften. GoldRush is hard enough and acidic enough that it simply comes into balance.

Growers and cider makers treat this as the point of the variety rather than a quirk. If you have tried GoldRush in October and did not like it, try it again in February.

In October, quite possibly. It is one of the sharpest apples grown, and freshly picked it is a bracing experience.

By December it is balanced, and by late winter it is superb — sweet-tart, spiced and still rock-hard. Whether GoldRush is “too tart” depends almost entirely on when you meet it.

Very hard rather than explosively crisp. The flesh is dense and fine-grained, and it breaks with a firm snap instead of the bursting, juicy crunch of a Honeycrisp.

What matters more is that it stays that way. GoldRush is still hard in March when most apples have gone soft — the density is what makes the seven-month storage possible.

Golden yellow, sometimes with a faint bronze or pink blush on the sunny side, and usually a degree of russeting — the fine brown netting around the stem end that some people mistake for damage.

That russet is normal and characteristic, inherited from the Golden Delicious side. It is a cosmetic trait, not a flaw, and it has nothing to do with how the apple eats.

Because that is what GoldRush does. Russeting is a natural corky layer the skin forms, and this variety is prone to it — particularly around the stem, and more so in wet or cool spring weather.

It is one reason GoldRush struggles in mainstream retail: shoppers trained on flawless red apples read russet as a defect. It affects nothing you can taste.

Up to seven months at peak quality in proper cold storage — the longest of any apple we grow, and one of the longest of any apple grown anywhere.

In an ordinary home refrigerator, expect four to six months of genuinely good eating, which is still remarkable. A GoldRush picked in November is a perfectly good apple the following May.

November — the last variety off the tree in most orchards, ours included. It needs every day of that long hang to build the sugar underneath the acidity.

Picked early, GoldRush is harshly sour and never recovers. See Harvest Times for where this year’s crop stands and Ready to Ship for what is leaving the farm today.

Cold and loosely bagged in the crisper drawer, at 33 to 38°F. Humidity matters — a loosely closed bag stops the fruit drying out over the months you will be keeping it.

This is the one apple where storing it is the plan rather than a compromise. Buy it in late autumn, put it away, and start eating it in January when everything else in the shop has gone soft.

It can, if the air is too dry — and over five or six months a refrigerator is a dry place. The fix is simple: keep the fruit loosely bagged rather than open on a shelf.

A slightly shrivelled GoldRush is still perfectly good to eat and excellent for cooking or cider. The flesh underneath stays hard long after the skin starts to soften.

Yes, and they freeze unusually well because the flesh is so dense. Peel, core and slice, treat with lemon water, drain, freeze on a tray in a single layer, then bag.

Honestly though, freezing GoldRush is slightly beside the point. Most apples get frozen because they will not keep. This one keeps for seven months on its own.

Yes, and it is one of the better choices for a home orchard. It is a tough, reliable tree that crops heavily, and the fruit keeps so long that one tree can feed you most of the winter.

It is the last apple we pick, so give it a long season. Full sun, decent drainage, and a second variety nearby to pollinate it.

On a dwarfing rootstock such as M.9 or B.9, about 8 to 10 feet, needing permanent staking. Semi-dwarf makes 12 to 15 feet; a standard tree goes to 20 to 25.

GoldRush is a moderately vigorous, fairly upright tree and takes well to training. It also tends to over-set, so thinning matters if you want decent fruit size.

Another apple variety flowering at the same time. Gala, Fuji, Golden Delicious, CrimsonCrisp, Enterprise, Liberty and most flowering crabapples all work.

GoldRush is a normal diploid, so unlike Jonagold or Mutsu it pollinates its partners perfectly well and one good companion is enough. A crabapple within about fifty feet is the simplest answer.

On a dwarfing rootstock, a light first crop in 2 to 4 years; semi-dwarf 4 to 6; standard seedling rootstock 6 to 10.

It is a reliable and heavy bearer once established — heavy enough that thinning is worth the trouble, since an over-cropped GoldRush gives you a great many small apples.

Three, and they are worth knowing before you plant. It ripens very late, so a short autumn will defeat it. It russets readily, which matters if you are selling to people who expect flawless skin. And it over-sets, so it needs thinning.

For a home grower the trade is usually easy.

No apple tree should be described as universally immune — the same is true of its programme-mate CrimsonCrisp.

You can grow a tree; it will not be a GoldRush. Apples do not come true from seed — every pip is a fresh cross between the mother apple and whatever pollinated its blossom.

Every GoldRush alive is grafted from that single 1972 Illinois seedling.

No — we are a fruit farm, not a nursery. We ship apples, not trees.

Tell the nursery your USDA zone and your first-frost date, because the late November ripening is the one thing that will decide whether it works where you are.

Excellent, and for the same reason as Granny Smith: the flesh is hard enough to hold its slices through a long bake, and there is more than enough acidity to survive the sugar.

GoldRush has the advantage of also being genuinely flavorful rather than merely sour, so a pie made from it alone tastes of something. Use a little less lemon than a recipe suggests.

It is one of the best modern cider apples in America, and cider makers seek it out. High sugar, very high acid and real aromatic complexity are exactly what a single-varietal cider needs.

It also presses late, which suits a cider maker’s calendar — the fruit comes in after the autumn rush.

They make a bright, sharp, genuinely interesting sauce — but the flesh is hard, so allow 40 to 50 minutes of simmering rather than 20.

You will need less sugar than the sharpness suggests, particularly with stored fruit. If you want it faster, blend half and half with a tender apple like McIntosh.

Very good. The dense flesh slices cleanly and thinly, and the high acidity gives dried rings a bright, almost citrus-like flavor rather than the flat sweetness a low-acid apple produces.

The sugar content means they dry chewy rather than brittle. No lemon dip needed — the apple’s own acid keeps the color.

Apple flesh and skin are generally considered safe for dogs in small amounts. Remove the core and the seeds — apple seeds contain amygdalin, and the core is a choking and obstruction risk.

GoldRush is very hard, so cut it into manageable pieces rather than handing over a whole apple. Any apple is a treat rather than a food. Ask your veterinarian about your own dog — we grow apples, we are not veterinarians.

Strong ones. The acidity stands up to sharp aged cheddar, blue cheese and hard alpine cheeses like Gruyère in a way that a sweet apple cannot — it is a partner rather than a garnish.

A stored GoldRush in midwinter, when the spice has come forward, is one of the better things you can put next to a strong cheddar.

For pie and tart, most bakers do — the skin is thin but tends to separate into strips over a long bake, and the russet can be slightly tough.

For sauce and apple butter, leave it on: the skin adds pectin and you sieve or blend it out at the end.

A medium GoldRush — about 180 grams — is roughly 90 to 100 calories. A small one is nearer 70 to 80; a large one runs 110 to 125.

The figure to work from is 52 calories per 100 grams, from USDA, for a raw apple with the skin on. GoldRush is a firm, medium-sized apple that eats both sweet and distinctly tart.

A large GoldRush of about 225 grams comes to roughly 110 to 125 calories.

Across the sizes we pack: small (~145 g) about 75, medium (~180 g) about 94, large (~225 g) about 117. Multiply the weight in grams by 0.52 for a close estimate at any size.

A small GoldRush of about 145 grams is roughly 70 to 80 calories.

A kitchen scale beats guessing from the word on the bag — and the apple count on a case is the quickest guide, since a 72-count fruit is considerably larger than a 125-count.

Per 100 grams of raw GoldRush with the skin on: about 52 calories, 13.81 g carbohydrate, 2.4 g fiber, 0.26 g protein, 0.17 g fat, 107 mg potassium and 85.56 g water.

For a medium apple of about 180 grams that is roughly 94 calories, 25 g carbohydrate and 4.3 g fiber. The full table by size is in the nutrition section above.

About 23 to 27 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, of which roughly 4.3 grams is fiber — so approximately 21 grams of net carbs.

Per 100 grams that is 13.81 grams. That is typical for an apple.

Roughly 25 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, with about 4.3 grams of that being dietary fiber.

Essentially all of an apple’s calories are carbohydrate — there is almost no fat and, in this cultivar, about 0.26 grams of protein per 100 grams.

About 17 to 21 grams in a medium apple, all of it the fruit’s own — nothing is added. That is 10.4 grams per 100 grams of fruit.

GoldRush tastes intensely tart despite carrying substantial sugar — the acid simply overwhelms it at harvest. Over months in storage the acid falls away and the sweetness comes forward, which is why a March GoldRush tastes so different from a November one.

About 4.3 grams in a medium apple with the skin on — 2.4 grams per 100 grams.

That is about average for an apple. Peeling costs you roughly a third of it.

Very little of either: about 0.5 grams of protein and 0.3 grams of fat in a medium apple, and virtually no sodium.

Apples are almost entirely water and carbohydrate — GoldRush is about 85.56 percent water by weight.

About 107 mg per 100 grams, so roughly 193 mg in a medium apple.

That is typical for an apple.

About 8.3 mg in a medium apple — 4.6 mg per 100 grams.

Apples are not a major vitamin C source next to citrus; an orange carries roughly ten times as much. What there is sits mostly just under the skin and degrades with heat, so a raw unpeeled apple retains more of it than a baked one.

For fiber, yes — roughly a third of it sits in the skin, along with most of the fruit’s color compounds.

GoldRush skin is thin but often russeted, and the russet can be slightly tough. Most bakers peel it for pie and leave it on for sauce. Rinse under running water and rub with your hands before eating, as with any fresh fruit.

Roughly two large, three medium or four small apples make a pound — three medium is the standard working assumption in American recipes.

GoldRush runs medium, so expect three to the pound. A 9-inch pie takes seven or eight.

Both hold their shape and both bring acidity, so both work. The difference is depth: Granny Smith is sharp but fairly one-dimensional, while GoldRush is sharp and complex, with a spiced, honeyed character underneath.

A pie made only of Granny Smith can taste austere. A pie made only of GoldRush usually does not. Granny Smith is far easier to find.

That is where the similarity ends. CrimsonCrisp is deep red, picked in September, and at its best within a few months.

GoldRush is yellow, picked in November, and at its best after a few months. They cover opposite halves of the season from the same breeding effort.

Golden Delicious is GoldRush’s seed parent, and the resemblance is visible — the yellow skin, the russeting, the honeyed base note.

Everything else diverges. Golden Delicious is mild, low in acid, tender and bruises easily; GoldRush is intensely tart, rock-hard and keeps for most of a year.

GoldRush, comfortably — up to seven months at peak quality against Northern Spy’s several months. Both are late, tart and excellent for pie.

Northern Spy is coarser-grained, juicier and more traditionally American in flavor; GoldRush is denser, sharper and more spiced. Northern Spy takes eight to twelve years to bear, which is the other large difference if you are planting one.

Nothing we grow is really close. For the tartness, Granny Smith. For the keeping, Fuji or EverCrisp. For the complexity and the winter improvement, Winesap or Stayman.

GoldRush is the only one that does all four at once, which is precisely why cider makers and serious bakers hunt for it.

Here, when they are picked — the listings above show what is available and shipping from our farm today. GoldRush comes in around November, later than almost anything else.

If nothing is listed, the crop is still on the tree or the season has passed. Harvest Times shows where things stand and Ready to Ship lists everything leaving the farm now.

Three things work against it in retail, none of which affect the eating. It russets, and chain buyers want flawless skin. It ripens in November, after the autumn apple push is over. And it is genuinely too tart for most shoppers in the weeks right after harvest, which is exactly when it would be on sale.

An apple that needs to be explained, and then stored for two months, is not what a supermarket wants. It is precisely what a farm can offer.

Buy it when we have it — November — and eat it later. That is the whole trick with this variety.

Put it in the crisper drawer, loosely bagged, and start on it around the New Year. By February and March it will be better than almost anything else you can buy, which is not something you can say about many apples.

Because GoldRush is the last apple we pick.

Check Ready to Ship for the varieties that are available today, or Harvest Times to see what is coming and roughly when.