Green Granny Smith Crisp apples.

Sharply tart and bracingly acidic, with a clean, almost lemony finish and very little sweetness behind it. There is a distinct green, grassy note in a fresh one that fades with storage.

It is the reference point the whole apple world uses for tartness — when a variety is described as "tart as a Granny Smith", this is the benchmark being cited. Texture matters as much as flavor: very firm, dense and crunchy, with thick skin and fine-grained white flesh.

Tart rather than sour, though the line is thin and picked-early fruit crosses it. The sharpness comes from malic acid, which Granny Smith carries in unusually high concentration — the same acid that gives green grapes and rhubarb their bite.

A fully mature Granny Smith mellows noticeably. The tartness softens over weeks in storage as the acid slowly degrades, which is why a February apple is rounder than an October one.

There is real sugar in there — about 9.6 grams per 100 grams, not far below a Gala. You just cannot taste much of it, because the high acidity masks it almost completely.

You can prove it in the kitchen: cook a Granny Smith down into sauce and it turns out sweeter than most people expect, because heat drives off some acidity while the sugar stays put.

Very. It is one of the firmest apples sold, with dense, fine-grained flesh and thick skin, and it holds that firmness longer in storage than almost anything except Fuji.

The character of the crunch is hard and clean rather than juicy-explosive. If you want the bursting texture, that is Honeycrisp; Granny Smith is the harder, drier, more structural apple.

More slowly than most, and its high acidity is the reason — acid slows the enzyme that causes browning. Cut slices hold up noticeably better than a McIntosh or a Fuji.

Not as slowly as a Cortland, which is the genuine slow-browning apple. A squeeze of lemon and cold storage extend it further either way.

Because it has been in storage. Malic acid degrades slowly over months, so a Granny Smith eaten in March is measurably rounder and less sharp than one eaten straight off the tree in October.

Most supermarket Granny Smith is controlled-atmosphere fruit months past harvest, which is why a fresh-picked one can be a surprise — it is considerably sharper than people expect.

Of course — and plenty of people prefer them that way. Granny Smith has a reputation as a "cooking apple", which is misleading: it is a perfectly good eating apple if you like your fruit sharp.

Chilling helps, and so does a fully mature apple rather than an early-picked one. If you find it too sharp on its own, it is transformed alongside sharp cheddar, peanut butter or salted nuts — fat and salt blunt the acidity.

They are the standard against which baking apples are judged. Two properties do it: the flesh is firm enough to hold its shape through a long bake rather than collapsing into mush, and the acidity survives the sugar in a filling instead of disappearing into it.

The one caution is that Granny Smith on its own can bake a little one-note and dry. Most good pies blend it — two-thirds Granny Smith for structure and acid, one-third a sweet apple such as Fuji or Golden Delicious for depth.

Because a pie needs an apple that is still an apple after an hour in the oven. Granny Smith's dense flesh and thick cell walls keep the slices distinct, so you get layers rather than a single sweet sludge under the crust.

The acidity matters just as much. A pie filling carries a lot of sugar, and without acid to push against it the result tastes flat and cloying. Granny Smith supplies both the structure and the balance, which is why it appears in more American pie recipes than any other variety.

You can, and plenty of excellent pies are made that way — but blending is better. All Granny Smith gives you a pie that is sharp and firm and slightly austere.

The standard fix is roughly two parts Granny Smith to one part sweet apple. Golden Delicious, Fuji, Gala and Braeburn all work; the sweet apple softens and fills the gaps while the Granny Smith holds the shape.

A standard 9-inch double-crust pie takes 6 to 8 cups of sliced apple, which is about 8 medium Granny Smith apples, or roughly 2½ to 3 pounds.

Slice them no thicker than a quarter inch: Granny Smith softens slowly, and thick slices can still be crunchy when the crust is done. Mound the filling high — it settles less than a soft apple would.

Better than almost any apple. The slices stay distinct through pie, tart, galette and roasting, which is exactly what those dishes want.

That same property works against you in applesauce and apple butter, where you want collapse. Granny Smith will get there, but it needs 35 to 45 minutes of simmering rather than the 20 a soft apple takes.

Yes, and it makes a bright, sharp, distinctly grown-up sauce rather than a sweet one. Expect to add some sugar — unlike a Fuji, Granny Smith does not bring enough of its own.

Give it longer than a soft apple: 35 to 45 minutes of simmering with a splash of water. Many cooks blend it half and half with a sweet variety, which gives you the acidity without needing much added sugar at all.

Anywhere structure and acid are the point: pie, tart, galette, crisp, strudel, apple cake, and roasted in wedges beside pork, sausage or squash. Granny Smith is also the classic choice for caramel apples, where the tartness is what stops the caramel being sickly.

In savory cooking it cuts through fat — in stuffing, with roast duck, in a curry, or grated raw into a slaw. Where it is not first choice is anything wanting sweetness without help.

Apple pie is the obvious one, and the reason most people buy them. Beyond that: apple crisp and crumble, tarte tatin, galette, apple cake, strudel, caramel apples, sharp applesauce, apple butter, chutney, slaw, and Waldorf-style salads.

Savory uses are underrated. Roasted in wedges with pork or squash, grated into a pork stuffing, sliced into a sharp cheddar sandwich, or simmered into a chutney — the acidity does work there that a sweet apple cannot. There are six worked recipes in the recipes section above.

For pie, tart and crisp, most bakers do. Granny Smith skin is thicker and tougher than average and tends to separate into chewy strips during a long bake.

For sauce, butter and chutney, leave it on — the skin adds pectin and you sieve or blend it out at the end. For roasting in wedges, leave it on as well: it helps them hold together.

They are the traditional choice, and for a good reason: caramel is overwhelmingly sweet, and a sweet apple underneath it gives you nothing but sugar. Granny Smith's sharpness cuts straight through.

The firm flesh also stands up to being skewered and dipped without bruising or weeping. Wash and dry the apples thoroughly first — the natural wax on the skin is the usual reason caramel slides off.

Yes, and the slow browning helps. Cut into matchsticks or thin slices, the tartness works against rich ingredients — sharp cheddar, blue cheese, walnuts, bacon, celery root, fennel.

Toss the slices straight into the dressing as you cut them. The acid in a vinaigrette both stops browning and echoes the apple's own acidity.

For juice, Granny Smith gives a pale, sharp, very refreshing result that most people prefer blended with something sweeter rather than drunk straight.

In cider it is genuinely useful as a sharp — the acidic component a good blend needs. On its own it makes a thin, one-dimensional cider; at 20 to 30 percent of a blend it supplies the backbone that sweet apples cannot.

Yes, and they freeze better than most because the firm flesh survives it. Peel and slice, treat with lemon water or another anti-browning dip, drain well, freeze in a single layer on a tray, then bag.

Use them from frozen in cooked dishes. Thawed slices will not have fresh-eating crunch — that is true of every apple — but for a pie or crisp in February they are excellent.

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

Granny Smith is among the lower-sugar apples, which some owners prefer, but any apple is a treat rather than a food. Ask your veterinarian about your own dog, particularly a small one or one on a controlled diet — we grow apples, we are not veterinarians.

Sharp aged cheddar is the classic and the best — the tartness and the salt sharpen each other. Blue cheeses work strikingly well for the same reason, as does a hard alpine cheese like Gruyère.

Creamy mild cheeses are the weak pairing: brie and fresh chevre get overwhelmed. If you are building a board, put Granny Smith next to the strongest cheese on it.

Very good, though it wants help. Granny Smith gives apple butter a sharpness that keeps the long, slow reduction from tasting like pure sugar, and its skin is high in pectin, which thickens the result.

Blend it with a sweet apple — roughly half and half with Fuji or Golden Delicious — or you will need a great deal of added sugar to balance it. Allow extra cooking time; the flesh is dense and takes longer to break down.

Yes, and it is one of the best apples for both. The firm flesh stays in recognisable pieces through the vinegar and the simmering instead of turning to pulp, and the acidity suits the style.

Apple chutney with onion, ginger, mustard seed and cider vinegar is a classic use, and quick-pickled Granny Smith matchsticks are excellent with pork or a rich cheese. Use a tested recipe for anything you intend to can and keep.

A medium Granny Smith — about 190 grams — is roughly 105 to 115 calories. A small one is nearer 80 to 90; a large one runs 125 to 140.

The figure to work from is 58 calories per 100 grams, from USDA, for a raw apple with the skin on. That is above the generic raw-apple figure of 52, and above Gala and Golden Delicious at 57 — a common surprise, since Granny Smith tastes far less sweet than any of them.

A large Granny Smith of about 230 grams comes to roughly 125 to 140 calories.

Across the sizes we pack: small (~150 g) about 87, medium (~190 g) about 110, large (~230 g) about 133. Multiply the weight in grams by 0.58 for a close estimate at any size.

A small Granny Smith of about 150 grams is roughly 80 to 90 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 Granny Smith with the skin on: about 58 calories, 13.61 g carbohydrate, 2.8 g fiber, 0.44 g protein, 0.19 g fat, 120 mg potassium and 85.46 g water.

For a medium apple of about 190 grams that is roughly 110 calories, 26 g carbohydrate and 5.3 g fiber. The full table by size is in the nutrition section above.

About 24 to 28 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, of which roughly 5.3 grams is fiber — so approximately 21 grams of net carbs.

Per 100 grams that is 13.61 grams. Granny Smith sits slightly below Fuji and Red Delicious on carbohydrate, though not by as much as the taste difference suggests.

Roughly 26 grams of total carbohydrate in a medium apple, with about 5.3 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 0.44 grams of protein per 100 grams.

About 18 to 22 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.

Granny Smith tastes sharp rather than sweet, but that is acidity doing the work, not an absence of sugar. It carries unusually high malic acid, and acid suppresses the perception of sweetness — which is why the measured gap between it and a sweet apple is much smaller than the tasted one.

About 5.3 grams in a medium apple with the skin on — 2.8 grams per 100 grams.

Granny Smith is the highest-fiber apple USDA lists a cultivar entry for, at 2.8 g per 100 g against 2.4 for a generic apple and 2.1 for Fuji. Peeling costs you roughly a third of it.

Very little of either: about 0.8 grams of protein and 0.4 grams of fat in a medium apple, and virtually no sodium.

Apples are almost entirely water and carbohydrate — Granny Smith is about 85.46 percent water by weight.

About 120 mg per 100 grams, so roughly 228 mg in a medium apple.

Granny Smith is the highest-potassium apple USDA lists separately, at 120 mg per 100 g. Sodium is negligible.

About 8.7 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 colour compounds.

Granny Smith skin is thicker and tougher than average, which is why most bakers peel it for pie and leave it on for sauce, where it adds pectin and gets sieved out at the end. 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.

Three medium Granny Smith to the pound, and a pound gives about 3 cups sliced — so a 9-inch pie taking 6 to 8 cups needs roughly 2½ to 3 pounds, about 8 medium apples.

Not quite, though in most American stores they might as well be. Granny Smith is a green apple — overwhelmingly the most common one — but it is a specific named variety, and there are other green apples.

When a recipe, a nutrition label or a shopper says "green apple" in the United States, Granny Smith is almost always what is meant. Elsewhere it may mean Bramley, Crispin or another green cultivar entirely.

Mutsu, also sold as Crispin, is large, green-gold and far sweeter. Bramley is the British cooking apple, greener and sharper still. Rhode Island Greening is a heirloom American pie apple. Shizuka and Pippin varieties are green to green-gold.

Golden Delicious picked early is green and frequently mistaken for a Granny Smith — but it is honey-sweet, tender and unmistakable once you bite it.

If you mean a Granny Smith, which is what "green apple" nearly always means in an American context, about 48 calories per 100 grams — roughly 91 in a medium apple.

Green apples generally run a little lower than red ones for a simple reason: most green varieties are more acidic and less sugary. Other green apples vary — Mutsu is sweeter, so its figures sit closer to a red apple's.

Nutritionally they are close. A green apple such as Granny Smith carries somewhat less sugar and slightly fewer calories per gram; red-skinned apples carry more of the red pigment compounds called anthocyanins, which green apples lack.

The differences are small next to the difference between eating an apple and not. We grow fruit rather than give dietary advice — for the numbers themselves, the nutrition table above lays them out.

Bright, uniform grass-green, often with a faint pale-yellow blush on the side that faced the sun, and scattered light lenticel dots across the skin. There are no reds, pinks or stripes at all.

It is one of the few commercial apples with no red pigment whatsoever, which is exactly why it became the shorthand for "green apple" worldwide.

Yes, if left long enough. A Granny Smith that hangs past its picking window, or sits warm for weeks after harvest, gradually loses chlorophyll and shifts toward yellow-green and then yellow.

The fruit is still edible, but yellowing goes with softening flesh and fading acidity — it is the apple telling you it is past its best. Bright green is the freshness signal on this variety.

Because the variety produces no anthocyanins, the pigments that make other apples red. What remains visible is chlorophyll, the green pigment present in all developing apples but usually masked as the fruit colors up.

In most varieties chlorophyll breaks down during ripening and red or yellow takes over. In Granny Smith it simply persists, so the apple stays the color an unripe apple normally is.

Granny Smith is a very late apple — usually among the last picked. In most of the United States that means late October into November, and it needs the long hang to develop properly.

Because it stores exceptionally well, it is then sold from controlled-atmosphere rooms nearly year-round, which is why most people have never eaten a fresh-picked one. Our own timing is on the Harvest Times page, and Ready to Ship shows what is leaving the farm today.

Late — later than almost anything else in the orchard, typically late October into November in the northern United States. Picked too early, the fruit is harshly acidic, starchy and never develops its proper character.

The ripeness signals are subtle on a variety with no red to watch. Growers look for the ground color shifting from hard grass-green toward a faintly lighter green, seeds turning fully brown, and a starch test rather than relying on the eye.

Colour tells you less here than on any other apple, since it stays green either way. Cut one open: the seeds should be dark brown, not white or pale tan. The apple should come away from the spur with a gentle upward twist rather than needing a pull.

A faint yellow cast on the sunny side is a good sign; a distinctly yellow apple has gone past. And taste one — a ripe Granny Smith is sharply tart but not mouth-puckeringly harsh.

Longer than nearly any apple. In a cold crisper drawer at 33 to 38°F, sound fruit commonly holds good texture for three to four months, and commercial controlled-atmosphere storage stretches that past six.

Its high acidity is part of why: acid slows the chemistry of softening. Left on a warm counter it is a different story — expect a week or two before the texture starts going.

Cold, and in the crisper drawer. Loosely closed in a bag keeps the humidity up so the fruit does not dry out and go rubbery. That single step is worth months of shelf life.

Keep apples away from onions and other strong-smelling foods, since they absorb odours, and apart from bananas, avocados and leafy greens, since apples give off ethylene gas that ripens neighbours faster. Sort before storing: one bruised apple hastens the rest.

Controlled-atmosphere storage. Apples are held just above freezing in rooms with the oxygen dropped to around 1 to 2 percent, which slows respiration almost to a stop. Granny Smith takes to it better than almost any variety.

Southern-hemisphere fruit fills the remaining gap — Granny Smith is grown heavily in Australia, New Zealand, Chile and South Africa, where the harvest falls opposite to ours. A fresh-picked one from a local orchard in autumn is still a different apple from either.

For a week or two, yes — and a bowl of bright green apples is a fine thing to look at. But you are trading months of shelf life for it.

Apples ripen several times faster at room temperature than in a refrigerator. If you are eating them within a few days, the counter is fine. For anything longer, the crisper drawer is worth it.

Yes, with one significant caveat: Granny Smith needs a long growing season. It requires roughly 170 to 180 frost-free days to mature properly, which is more than many northern gardens get.

It is hardy to about USDA zone 5 and does well through zone 9, and it has a low chill requirement of around 400 hours. Where it struggles is not winter cold but autumn — if frost arrives before the fruit finishes, you get hard, harshly acidic apples.

It depends on the rootstock far more than the variety. On a dwarfing rootstock such as M.9 or B.9, expect a first light crop in 2 to 4 years. Semi-dwarf takes 4 to 6, and a standard seedling rootstock 6 to 10.

Granny Smith is a vigorous, heavy-bearing variety once it starts, and it will over-crop and go biennial — a heavy year then a light one — if the fruit is not thinned early in the season.

Dwarf on M.9 reaches about 8 to 10 feet and needs permanent staking, since dwarfing rootstocks have brittle, shallow roots. Semi-dwarf makes 12 to 15 feet, and a standard tree will go to 20 to 25.

Granny Smith itself is a vigorous, spreading, wide-canopied tree. It takes more pruning than an upright variety to keep light reaching the inner fruit and air moving through the canopy.

Yes. Granny Smith is not reliably self-fertile and needs a different apple variety flowering at the same time. Fuji, Gala, Golden Delicious, Braeburn and most flowering crabapples all work.

Avoid Mutsu, Jonagold and Gravenstein as the partner: those are triploid varieties with sterile pollen and cannot pollinate anything. A crabapple within about 50 feet is the simplest insurance.

The long season is the main one — in a cool climate the fruit may simply not finish before frost.

It over-crops readily, so thinning matters more than on most varieties, and sunburn can mark the fruit in hot climates precisely because there is no red pigment to shield the skin.

You can grow a tree, but it will not be a Granny Smith. Apples do not come true from seed — every pip is a cross between the mother apple and whatever pollinated its blossom, so the seedling is a brand-new and usually unremarkable variety.

Every Granny Smith on earth is a graft descended from Maria Ann Smith's original seedling in New South Wales. Which is, of course, exactly how that tree came about in the first place — from a discarded pip that nobody planted deliberately.

No — we are a fruit farm, not a nursery. We ship apples, not trees. For trees, go to a dedicated fruit-tree nursery and tell them your USDA zone and your first-frost date so they can advise on whether the season is long enough.

What we can do is send you the fruit. See Ready to Ship for what is leaving the farm now, or the listings above for Granny Smith specifically.

Near opposites, and both excellent at what they do. Honeycrisp is sweet-tart with explosive juiciness and large cells that burst when bitten — a fresh-eating apple above all. Granny Smith is sharply acidic, dense, drier and structural — a cooking apple above all.

In a pie they behave quite differently: Honeycrisp softens and gives up juice, Granny Smith holds its slices. For snacking most people prefer Honeycrisp; for baking, Granny Smith wins comfortably.

They sit at opposite ends of the same scale, so the answer is what you are doing with them. Fuji is the sweetest widely grown apple; Granny Smith is the sharpest. Both are very firm and both store for months.

For snacking, lunchboxes and sweet sauce, Fuji. For pie, tart, caramel apples and anything savory, Granny Smith. In a pie they are the classic pairing rather than rivals — two parts Granny Smith to one part Fuji is an excellent filling.

Bramley is the British cooking apple and it goes further in the same direction: larger, greener, even more acidic, and it collapses completely into a fluffy puree when cooked. That collapse is the point in a British apple crumble.

Granny Smith holds its shape, which is what an American pie wants. Swapping one for the other changes the dish: Bramley in a pie gives you sauce under a crust, Granny Smith in a crumble stays in pieces.

For the same firm, tart behaviour in baking: Braeburn, Stayman, Northern Spy, Pink Lady®, Rhode Island Greening or Bramley. Northern Spy and Stayman are the closest matches for a pie.

For a green apple that looks similar but behaves differently, Mutsu is much sweeter and softer. If the recipe specifically wants sharpness, adding lemon juice to a firm sweet apple gets you closer than substituting a soft tart one.

Almost everything except that both can look green. Golden Delicious is honey-sweet, floral, very low in acid and tender-crisp; Granny Smith is sharply acidic, hard and dense.

They are confused because an early-picked Golden Delicious is green rather than gold. One bite settles it. In baking they are complements rather than substitutes — a great many pies use both.

Among widely sold varieties, Granny Smith is the benchmark, and Bramley is sharper still where you can find it. Behind them come Northern Spy, Stayman, Rhode Island Greening, Newtown Pippin and Braeburn.

True cider and crab apples go far beyond any of these, but they are not eating apples. Among fruit you will actually find in a store, Granny Smith is as tart as it gets.

Three things, all unusual. It carries no red pigment at all, so it stays grass-green where every other common variety colours up. It has markedly higher malic acid than any other widely sold apple. And it keeps for three to four months domestically and past six commercially.

Those combine into a genuinely distinct role: the apple that holds its shape, holds its acidity and holds its texture. It is why Granny Smith is the reference point recipes cite by name rather than by description.

Maria Ann Smith (about 1799–1870), an English-born orchardist who emigrated from Sussex to New South Wales, Australia in 1838 and farmed at Eastwood, then on the outskirts of Sydney. She was known locally as Granny Smith.

Around 1868 she found a chance seedling growing by a creek on her property, reportedly from the discarded remains of French crab apples from Tasmania. She recognised the fruit was worth keeping and propagated it. She died in 1870, long before the apple carrying her name became one of the most planted on earth.

Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia, around 1868 — a chance seedling found by Maria Ann Smith on her orchard property near Sydney. It is one of the few globally dominant apples that came from the Southern Hemisphere.

It was exhibited locally in the 1890s, recognised for its exceptional keeping quality, and planted commercially across Australia from about 1895. Export shipping carried it to Britain in the 1930s and to the United States after the Second World War.

Because Maria Ann Smith was known in her district as Granny Smith, and the apple she found and propagated was simply called by her name — "Granny Smith's seedling" at first.

There is no marketing story behind it and no committee. It is one of the very few world-famous apples named directly, and informally, after the person who found it.

Not formally recorded, because it was a chance seedling rather than a deliberate cross. The long-standing account is that it grew from the remains of French crab apples brought from Tasmania and discarded near a creek on Maria Ann Smith's property.

A cross between Malus sylvestris, the European wild crab apple, and a domestic apple is the usual scholarly guess — which would explain both the intense acidity and the exceptional keeping quality. It has never been confirmed.

Commercially, after the Second World War, with serious United States plantings from the 1960s and 1970s onward — roughly a century after the original seedling was found.

It arrived at exactly the right moment. American shoppers were tiring of soft, mealy Red Delicious, and a hard, sharp, bright-green apple that kept for months was the clearest possible alternative. It has been a top-selling variety here ever since.

The Beatles' Apple Corps used a green apple as its logo from 1968, and it is generally taken to be a Granny Smith. Apple Records pressings famously showed a whole green apple on the A-side and a halved one on the B-side.

That logo led to a long-running trademark dispute with Apple Computer that ran, on and off, from 1978 into the 2000s — an unusually consequential afterlife for a chance seedling from a creek bank in New South Wales.

Yes — the Granny Smith Festival has been held in Eastwood, New South Wales since 1985, in the suburb where Maria Ann Smith found the original tree. It draws crowds in the tens of thousands each October.

A memorial marks the approximate site of the original seedling. Few apple varieties can point to the actual creek bank they came from.

Right here — the product listings above this guide show exactly what is available and shipping from our farm today, with current sizes and packaging.

Granny Smith is one of the last varieties we pick, so if nothing is listed, the new crop is still on the tree. Harvest Times shows where the season stands and Ready to Ship lists everything leaving the farm now.

Because Granny Smith is a very late apple.

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

Gift boxes are packed for presentation and give each apple more protection, which matters for a long shipment or a gift. Bulk-style cases cost less per apple and give you quantity, with a slightly higher chance of bruising in transit.

If you are baking through the season, take the case. If it is going to someone as a gift, take the box. Our shipping information covers packing and delivery timing.

Because fruit grows to the size the season and the tree give it, and we pack by apple count rather than by forcing everything to one size. A 72-count case holds larger apples than a 125-count case of the same weight.

Size has no bearing on flavour. If you are baking, larger apples mean less peeling for the same volume of filling — about 8 medium Granny Smith to a 9-inch pie.