I like northern spy... but I've used granny smith successfully too. Honeycrisp is too soft IMO, but the GS should have held up.......

Alexa

Jonathin or granny smith

Northern Spy or Cortland apples are my favorite.

I use Winesap if I can find them. They have a great flavor and stay firm. But they are an old type and very hard to come by, but well worth the search.

My first choice for pies or apple crisp would be Ida Reds.

Definitely Winesap. Honeycrisp are not a soft apple, but they do not hold their shape. I made the best apple pie ever last week using winesap apples and AnnT's sour cream pie dough recipe. It made wonderful crisp also.
I have access here to most any kind of apple, so winesap is my choice for pies, but we also like its tart crispness just for eating also.
Sherry

I use Granny Smith, and Cortlands when I can get them. Empire is OK too, it is just about my favorite all around apple. Golden delicious will do in a pinch. A mix of any of the mentioned varieties is fun. I can't get Winesap, sadly. But Honeycrisp are strictly for eating raw. They are heavan for eating out of hand but just about useless for anything else, except maybe a fruit salad you were going to eat right away, lol! They do not hold their taste or texture and are awful cooked in any way.

Alton Brown used a mix of apples that included Honeycrisp in his pie. I haven't tried this one yet, but plan to soon. The idea is to mix tart and sweet with soft and crispy all in the same pie.

Here is a link that might be useful: AB Apple Pie

Alton is full of baloney on this one! If you want to add a "soft" apple into the mix, use a Mcintosh! or a Johnathan. At least they have some flavor. Don't get me wrong, I love Honeycrisp for eating, but I made the mistake of thinking that flavor would translate well into applesauce. I tried them and had to throw it out it was so watery and tasteless. Macs are good in pies if you don't mind their texture. I think the Honeycrisp growers paid him off, lol. Or his staff cooked up the recipe without doing their research.

Twenty Ounce--I think they are also called Pippin. They are quite sweet so I reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE who tastes my apple pie raves about the flavor. Thy aren't a pretty apple and don't keep well for long periods so I make lots of apple pies in the early Fall. I have tried other apples when I can no longer find Twenty Ounce in the supermarkets but I have never found anything I like more.
Nancy

I usually use Golden Delicious and a few Granny Smiths.
Cheap bag apples.

Glad I read this post! Our community is having a fall festival/canned food drive for the local fire department. There will also be a decorated pumpkin contest, a quilt contest and a homemade dessert contest.

I am thinking about entering the dessert contest, already know what I'm going to make but the apples I bought for it are honeycrisp! I was going to make a trial dessert first, so I probably would have nixed the honeycrisp variety, but after reading this I won't even bother with them.

Guess I'll go to the local orchard and see what variety they recommend.

Di

Some of the best mentioned here (Northern Spy fan here) are almost impossible to come by anymore. Never seen a Pippin anywhere before. In the grocery store I do see Ida Reds, and of course Granny Smiths. I've seen some people use or mix with Gala's and have mixed them in to pretty good effect.
Part depends on what your view of good apple pie is I guess.
I don't like sliced thin flat apples apple pie, I like a mix of chunk sizes. I don't want it too firm too runny too wet or too dry:) A neighbor made a sliced apple apple pie with Ida Reds? Rome? One of those two and I didn't like it.

So I usually mix a couple of apple types and add in one McIntosh (will try to remember Jonathan) to get a little bit of "sauce"

All in all, apple pie is kind of like pizza, stew, etc.
However many people you ask,
is how many different recipes you will get.

I've been baking apple pies since I was about 11.
Over the years I've tried all kinds.

"Way back when", when I lived in "Yankee Land",
apples of many varieties were easily available.
I used mostly Rome, MacIntosh, Jonathan, Granny Smith, or
Golden Delicious for pie.
Here, the variety is much smaller, and finding a really good apple is cause for celebration.

About 20 or so years ago I discovered that using a mix of varieties makes for a really good pie.

My favorite is Braeburn, Macintosh and Granny Smith.

Honeycrisp were available here for the first time last year.
I found them very over rated and over priced.
They are nothing special at all.

This year I found some Cortland for the first time.
Judging from the comments here,
these must have been last years crop.
VERY mealy.
I tried some Galas in apple fritters yesterday,
Found them to be flavorless, so wouldn't use them in a pie, either.

I have always thickened fruit pies with tapicoa.
Regular tapioca, not the flour.

And we like a goodly amount of cinnamon in apple pie, too.
Alton Brown's recipe sounds very interesting,
But I'm not sure I can bring myself to try it.
There is no cinnamon!

Rusty

I used to use winesap, but I haven't seen them lately. Now that I have an apple tree, I use what it makes, which are Fiji, and they work very well. They are very crisp and hold their shape well and are a bit tart, which I like. I think they are much better for cooking than for eating raw, and I use them when I make apple pancakes.

Lars

LOL, that's good to know lpinkmountain. I won't bother with the Honeycrisp then. The general idea of mixing different apple types makes sense so I'll do my own research.

Thanks.

My favorite is winesaps.

In order to keep your apple pie from turning into an apple sauce pie, cut your apples and then sugar them well, mix well, and leave them sit for about 45 minutes to an hour.

The sugar pulls water out of the apples, and it's the water content in the apples that makes them turn to mush.

After an hour or so you'll have a fair amount of liquid in the bowl.

You can either remove part of it and use it in applesauce, make a glaze for your pie with it, or you can cook it down and add it back into the pie.

The apples, deprived of some of their liquid, are far more likely to hold their shape during cooking. That's how the cans of apple pie filling have slices of apple in them.

Mutsu. I've never seen them sold "commercially" in grocery stores but if you find an orchard that grows them you've found apple nirvana. They are the best apple hands down for anything and everything. We'er fortunate enough to have a few local orchards that grow them. They're very large and aren't a pretty sight, but oh my, you will swoon when you taste a pie made with these gems.

It's hard to recommend the "best" pie apple since there are many styles of apple pie and many tastes. But in general, I have just found honeycrisp to be a fabulous fresh eating apples that doesn't have much taste AT ALL in cooking applications. The texture issue is another story, some like more firm apples and some softer, some like tart, others do not. I have that problem when I make applesauce, my dad loves my applesauce (made with citrus and spices) but my mom doesn't like it, says it is "too tart" and "spicey." Also, I like mine chunky but classic applesauce is run thru a food mill so it is "saucey". So same goes for pie, lots of styles out there. It's fun to experiment with varieties though, IMHO. Lots of wonderful selections here, if you can find them.

It is such a tragedy what happened in my MI hometown, in one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. There used to be about three or four orchards just outside of town and I grew up on fresh apples of a plethora of varieties. We used to bring bushels of apples and fresh cider to friends in the city when we visited. All the orchards are closed now and my parents have to go to the next county to get locally grown apples. And the selection in the grocery store is understandably limited. I hope more consumers start figuring out that we are not always well served by a "global" economy. A low price is not the only food value.

I went apple picking on Saturday in Ct. Tasted about 6 different kinds (also made a contribution to the "sinbin"). My two favorites are Braeburn and Stayman, with the Stayman having a slight edge. I made apple crisp today with the braeburn. They held their shape and had a wonderful tart edge (but not like a Granny Smith). The stayman are wonderful too. Will probably just enjoy those out of hand.
Jo