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To Preserve Cider

Strictly speaking, we suppose the sweet juice of the apple is not cider, any more than the sweet bung it up tight. The most perfect plan for juice of the grape is wine. It is converted excluding all action of the air from the surthe air from the surinto cider by fermentation. Those who pre- face of the cider, and preserving it sweet, is fer sweet cider resort to various methods for the addition of a tumbler of sweet oil before arresting this process, such as putting a hand- finally closing the bung-hole. It is not an ful of powdered clay into each barrel, or 2 or easy matter to keep cider sweet and pure for 3 pounds of well burned charcoal. Others any length of time, especially if the weather add a little mustard seed, about a gill of seed is warm. If the cider is not made until just to each barrel. Sometimes a few gallons of before winter sets in, and can afterwards be cider are placed in the barrel, and then a rag kept at or near the freezing point, it will re- , it will redipped in brimstone is attached to a long ta- main sweet and excellent . pering bung; this is ignited and the bung 836. Rules for Making Good Pure loosely inserted. After the brimstone is con- Cider. Always choose perfectly ripe and sumed, the barrel is rolled until the cider has sound fruit. absorbed the sulphurous acid gas. The barrel Pick the apples from the tree by hand. is then filled up with cider. The sulphurous Apples that have been on the ground any acid gas acting on the albuminous matter in length of time contract an earthy flavor, the cider arrests fermentation. The objection which will always be found in the cider. to this method is that, if too much gas is ab- After sweating, and before being ground, being ground, sorbed, it may prove unpleasant, if not inju- wipe them dry, and if any are found bruised rious. To obviate this, sulphite of lime is or rotten, put them in a heap by themselves, now used, which has the property of checking fermentation, making the cider perfectly clear, and imparting an agreeable taste. We have tasted cider preserved in this way that was excellent, and we have also tasted some that was execrable; but this may have been more the fault of the material than of the method. from which to make an inferior cider for vinegar.

As fast as the apples are ground, the pomace should be placed in a previously prepared open vat, of suitable size, and with a false bottom, strainer, or clean straw aboutit. Letthepomace remain about one day, then draw off, return When the cider in the barrel is in a lively fer- the first, and continue to do so until it runs mentation, add as much white sugar as will clear. Let the juice percolate or filter for be equal to or pound to each gallon of one or more days. The cider thus extracted cider (according as the apples are sweet or will compare closely with any clear, rich sour), let the fermentation proceed until the syrup, and is alone deserving the name of liquid has the taste to suit, then add + ounce temperance cider, and may be drank, or used of sulphite (not sulphate) of lime to each for many purposes, as a choice and superior article. In this way, about one-third of the cider will separate; the balance may then be expressed by the use of the press.

To press out the juice, use a clean strainer cloth inside the curb, with some clean straw intermixed in thin layers with the pomace, and apply the power moderately.

As the cider runs from the vat or press, place it in a clean, sweet cask or open tub, gallon of cider; shake well, and let it stand 3 days, and bottle for use. The sulphite should first be dissolved in a quart or so of cider before introducing it into the barrel of cider.

Agitate briskly and thoroughly for a few moments, and then let the cider settle. The fermentation will cease at once. When, after a few days, the cider has become clear, draw off and bottle carefully, or remove the sediment and return to the original vessel. If which should be closely watched, and as soon loosely corked, or kept in a barrel on draught, as the little bubbles commence to rise at the it will retain its taste as a still cider. If pre-bung-hole or top, it should be racked off by a served in bottles carefully corked, which is spigot or faucet placed about 2 inches from better, it will become a sparkling cider, and may be kept indefinitely long. (See Nos. 762 &c.) Some think that cider, when treated by this method, is liable to induce cramps and loss of appetite, but we have never experienced temperature of the apartment where the any such unpleasant results from its use. cider is kept; in most cases, during the first 3 Another plan, which, however, we have not or 4 days. If the fermentation begins early tried, but is strongly recommended, is to mix and proceeds rapidly, the liquor must be 1 pint of hard-wood ashes (hickory is best) racked or drawn off and put into fresh casks and 1 pint fresh slaked lime with 1 quart of in 1 or 2 days; but if this does not take place new milk; this mixture is to be stirred into at an early period, but proceeds slowly, three each open barrel of cider; after remaining or four days may elapse before it is racked. In quiet for about 10 hours the pomace will rise to the surface, and may be skimmed off; the clear cider can be drawn off by means of a faucet inserted near the bottom of the barrel; it is advisable to strain it as it is drawn off, to the bottom, so that the lees or sediment may be left quietly behind.

The vinous fermentation will commence sooner or later, depending chiefly upon the general, it is necessary to rack the liquor at least twice. If, notwithstanding, the fermentation continues briskly, the racking must be repeated, otherwise the vinous fermentation, by proceeding too far, may terminate in acetous separate any hardened pomace that may re- fermentation, when vinegar will be the result. main in it. (See Nos. 852 and 853.) What- In racking off the liquor, it is necessary to ever method be adopted, the cider must be keep it free from sediment, and the scum or drawn off into very clean, sweet casks, and yeast produced by the fermentation. When closely watched. The moment white bubbles the fermentation is completely at an end, fill are perceived rising at the bung-hole, rack it up the cask with cider in all respects like that again. When the fermentation is completely contained in it, and bung it up tight, previous bung it up tight, previcus at an end, fill up the cask with cider in all to which a tumbler of sweet oil may be respects like that already contained in it, and poured into the bung-hole, which will exclude the oxygen and prevent the oxidation of the crust formed of fragments of the reduced surface of the wine. pulp. The liquor should always be racked

Sound, well made cider, that has been pro- off anew, as often as a hissing noise is heard, duced as above directed, and without any or as it extinguishes a lighted match held to foreign mixtures, is a pleasant, cooling and the bung-hole. When a favorable vinous wholesome beverage ; while, on the contrary, fermentation has been obtained, nothing more the acids and drugs added to already impure is required than to fill up the vessels every liquor, retard fermentation, thus adding poison two or three weeks, to supply the waste by to poison, producing colic, and not unfrequently fermentation. By the beginning of March incurable obstructions.