The Reason Why I’ll Only Be Using the “Brown Stem” Rule to Pick Out the Sweetest Apples (Farmers Swear By It!)

We’re officially in apple season, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Apple orchards! Warm apple pie! Sweet caramel apples! While you can find iconic fruit year-round, this is when apples are at their best. So why settle for anything less than a stellar apple? 

In my own personal quest to seek firmer, sweeter, juicier, and just all-over better apples, I called my family friend and farmer extraordinaire, Kim. Kim has been farming for the past 40 or so years, maintaining her family’s farm throughout her life and growing food for her and said family. She’s my speed-dial go-to for all things farming and getting the most out of produce, so I knew she’d have all of the deets on picking the best apples. 

Her tried-and-true secret? It’s all about the color of the stem. 

Apple lovers are probably already wary of mushy spots, excess bruising, and even liquid oozing out of the sides — as they should be. “The key to getting a consistently good apple is picking one with its brown stem still intact,” Kim says. Alfonso, a commercial farmer based in Los Angeles, also swears by this simple yet brilliant rule to pick the best apples, as well as peaches and avocados. 

No more grabbing and squeezing every apple to find the best one. Instead, just take a quick glance at the top to check for that brown (not green!), intact stem. “Green stems mean that the fruit isn’t fully mature, meaning it’s not at its most sweet. Brown stems indicate a mature fruit, therefore a sweet, ready-to-enjoy apple,” Kim adds.

Not only does this rule ensure that your apple is ready for harvest (therefore sweet and juicy), it means that its shelf life will be extended, too. “Stems preserve the fruit, so if an apple loses it, the flesh is exposed to oxygen and bacteria that make it decay faster,” she explains.

With this rule in mind, and a hankering for apples, I rushed to my local grocery store to try it for myself.

I beelined straight toward the Cortland apples (which are fresh in-season) and examined a slew of apple stems. I noticed a rough mixture of green and brown stems — about half and half — and snagged one of each to really get a side-by-side comparison.

I washed the two apples and bit into the one with the green stem first. My initial reaction: slightly sweet, mostly tart. With this as the baseline, I took an equally large bite out of the second, brown-stemmed apple to find it to be mostly sweet, slightly tart. IT WORKS! 

Who knew something so simple could be so fruitful?! While this experiment was only done with two apples of the same variety, the results were staggering enough that I’ll be keeping this trick in my front pocket for the rest of apple season. 

Do you have a foolproof tip for picking out produce? Tell us about it in the comments below.