Early season cookers - any good?

[Jambo]

Thanks to Bertha, I have been offered a load of windblown apples already, at least two months earlier than they would normally be considered ready. They are cookers, so they'll never be sweet, but is there even enough sugar in them at this time of year to make cider?

Interested to hear thoughts/experiences.

[Mr. Dripping]

If you have a refractometer; you could press a couple and test the juice.

[subfaction]

Same here, my better half has already started on the apple sauce and pies. Going to borrow a juicer in a month or so and see what cider results i can get from our heavily loaded cooking apple tree, if that works well, I might be going down the full blown press route!

[steambrew]

I have just come back from my small orchard (19) trees and the floor is covered with apples cookers eaters some cider etc in 40 years I have never seen so many as this. So it looks like we will have to make some form of cider using sugar , tannin as required to make it drinkable sugar in apples down to the lowest 1035 it needs to be at least 1055 or it's just not worth the bother