Pick the right apples. Pick unblemished, unbruised, ripe apples from a preferred storage apple (see the list above). Bruised or cut apples will go bad quite quickly and can easily ruin an entire batch (hence the phrase “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch”). Apples with stems tend to store a touch longer than ones without, so if you can pick apples with the stems on, go for it. 

Protect each apple. For long term storage, it’s important that the apples don’t touch each other. Wrap each apple individually in newspaper or plain newsprint. If you choose to use recycled newspaper, make sure you double-check with the newspaper about what kinds of inks are used. The vast majority of newspapers nowadays print using soy-based inks, but some still use inks that are heavy with toxic metals and toxic chemicals—obviously not something you want up against your food for months.

Pack the apples. Gently layer the wrapped apples in a small to medium size cardboard or wooden box. Treat the apples gently—don’t shove them in there, or you might bruise them. You might be tempted to pack your apples in large boxes, but you want to be checking your apples regularly for any that are starting to go off, and that’s hard to do when you have bushels packed into one huge box. It’s better to use multiple small boxes than one big box.  

Store the apple boxes. Place your apple boxes in a cool, humid spot—the basement, garage, or cool room. Make sure to check your apples regularly for signs of rotting, and discard or use up any apples that seem to be going off.

Use your apples. Don’t let “out of sight, out of mind” make you forget about your apples! I like to set a reminder on my phone for once a week to go “shopping” for this week’s batch of apples. I head to our basement, check the apple store for any bad apples, and then collect how many apples we’ll need to get through the week. And then I move them into our upstairs fridge for easy eating during the week.