Contrary to what you might think, you want to use sweet apples for making apple butter, unlike baking, where you use more tart apples like Granny Smith. For apple butter, I like to use Gala, Honey Crisp (favorite), Macintosh, or Fuji. Red or Golden Delicious apples are sweet and flavorful as well - almost like honey, but I have noticed that they are a little juicier, so if you use these varieties, you might need to cook your apples longer to get them to fully thicken up into butter.