Important: Safety Warning
This page recommends preserving food with chemicals such as salicylic acid, borax, or formaldehyde. These substances are toxic when eaten, and their use in food is now prohibited.
In addition, this page describes additives or treatments for food or drink that are now known to be toxic and are prohibited in food today.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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To Bottle Cider
Preparatory to bottling cider it should be examined to see the proper fermentation in these close vessels, which may be best effected in a temperature of from 40° to 55° Fahr., and which may be known by its appearing tolerably clear, and having a vinous sharpness upon the tongue, any further fermentation must be stopped by racking off the pure part into open vessels, exposed for a day or two in a cool situation. After whether it is clear and sparkling; if not, it this the liquor must again be put into casks should be clarified again, and left for two and kept in a cool place during winter. The weeks. The night before it is intended to be proper time for racking may always be known put into bottles, the bung should be left out by the brightness of the liquor, the discharge of the cask, and left so until the next day, of the fixed air, and the appearance of a thick when it may be bottled, but not corked down antil the day after, as, if this be done at once, 50 pounds; alum, 4 ounces; ginger, 5 ounces; many of the bottles will burst by keeping.
The best corks and champagne bottles should be used, and it is usual to wire and cover the corks with tin-foil, after the manner of champagne. A few bottles may be kept in a warm place to ripen, or a small piece of lump sugar may be put into each bottle before corking, if wanted for immediate use, or for consumption during the cooler portion of the year; but for warm weather and for long keeping this is inadmissable. The bottled stock should be stored in a cool cellar, where the quality will be greatly improved by age. cloves, 5 ounces; bitter almonds, 6 ounces.
Boil the last 4 ingredients in 2 gallons of the water for 2 hours, strain, and add this decoction to the other water. Burnt sugar may be added, to color, if wished. From 3 to 4 gallons of whiskey, if mixed with it, will give more body. It is generally known, we suppose, that bisulphite of lime may be advantageously employed in fresh cider to stop its conversion to vinegar. (See No. 835.)