Part 2
Always choose perfectly ripe and sound fruit. Pick the apples by hand. (An active boy with the bag slung over his shoulder will soon clear a tree. Apples that have lain any time on the soil contract an earthy taste, which will always be found in the cider.)
After sweating, and before being ground, wipe them dry, and if any are found bruised or rotten, put them in a heap by themselves, for an inferior cider to make vinegar.
Always use hair cloths, instead of straw, to place between the layers of pomace. The straw when heated, gives a disagreeable taste to the cider.
As the cider runs from the press, let it pass through a hair sieve into a large open vessel that will hold as much juice as can be expressed in one day. In a day, or sometimes less, the pomace will rise to the top, and in a short time grow very thick. When little white bubbles break through it, draw off the liquor by a spigot, placed about three inches from the bottom, so that the lees may be left quietly behind.
The cider must be drawn off into very clean, sweet casks and closely watched. The moment the white bubbles before mentioned are perceived rising at the bung-hole, rack it again. When the fermentation is completely at an end, fill up the cask with cider, in all respects like that already contained in it, and bung it up tight, previous to which a tumbler of sweet oil may be poured into the bung-hole.
After being made and barrelled it should be allowed to ferment until it acquires the desired flavor, for perfectly sweet cider is not desirable. In the meantime clean barrels for its reception should be prepared thus: Some clean strips of rag are dipped into melted sulphur, lighted and hung in the bung-hole, and the bung laid loosely on the end of the rag. This is to allow the sulphur vapor to well fill the barrel. Tie up a half-pint of mustard-seed in a coarse muslin rag and put it into the barrel, then put your cider in. Now add the isinglass, which “fines” the cider but does not help to keep it sweet. This is the old-fashioned way, and will keep cider in the same condition as it went into the barrel, if kept in a cool place, for a year. The sulphur vapor checks the fermentation, and the sulphur in the mustard-seed keeps it checked. We hear that professional cider dealers are now using the bisulphite of lime instead of the mustard-seed and the sulphur vapor. This bisulphite of lime is the same as the “preserving powder.” It is only another form of using the sulphur, but it is more convenient and perhaps more effectual. Another method is to add sugar, one and a half pounds sugar to a gallon of the cider, and let it ferment. This makes a fermented, clear, good cider, but sweet. It lasts sweet about six months, if kept in a cool situation.
Preparatory to bottling cider it should be examined, to see whether it be clear and sparkling. If not, it should be clarified in a similar way to beer, and left for a fortnight. The night before it is intended to put it into bottles, the bung should be taken out of the cask, and left so until the next day, when it may be bottled, but not corked down until the day after, as, if this be done at once, 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 tinfoil, 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 the cider be wanted for immediate use, or for consumption during the cooler portion of the year, but for warm weather and for long keeping this is inadmissible. The bottled stock should be stored in a cool cellar, when the quality will be greatly improved by age.
TO CAN CIDER
Cider, if taken when first made, brought to the boiling heat, and canned, precisely as fruit is canned, will keep from year to year without any change of taste. Canned up this way in the fall, it may be kept a half-dozen years or longer, as good as when first made. It is better that the cider be settled and poured off from the dregs, and when brought to boiling heat, the scum that gathers on the surface taken off; but the only precaution necessary to preservation of the cider is the sealing of it air tight when boiling hot. The juice of other fruit can, no doubt, be preserved in the same way. To all tastes not already corrupted by strong drinks, these unfermented juices are very delicious. The juice of the grape is better than wine a century old, and more healthy. Churches believing in literal eating and drinking at the Lord’s supper could in this way avoid the poisonous fermented spirits and drink the pure unfermented juice of the grape, as was doubtless done by the primitive Christians.
BOILING CIDER
To prepare cider for boiling, the first process is to filter it immediately on coming from the press. This is easiest done by placing some sticks crosswise in the bottom of a barrel,—a flour barrel with a single head is the best,—wherein an inch hole has been bored, and covering these sticks with say four inches of clean rye or wheat straw, and then filling the barrel to within a foot of the top with clean sand or coal dust,—sand is the best. Pour the cider as it comes from the press into the top of this barrel, drawing it off as soon as it comes out at the bottom into air-tight casks, and let it stand in the cellar until March. Then draw it out with as little exposure to the air as possible, put it into bottles that can be tightly and securely corked, and in two months it will be fit for use.
TO CLEAR CIDER
To clear and improve cider generally take two quarts of ground horseradish and one pound of thick gray filtering paper to the barrel, and either shake or stir until the paper has separated into small shreds, and let it stand for twenty-four hours, when the cider may be drawn off by means of a siphon or a stop cock. Instead of paper, a preparation of wool may be taken, which is to be had in the market, and which is preferable to paper, as it has simply to be washed with water, when it may be used again.
CIDER, TO PRESERVE AND KEEP SWEET
1. To one barrel of cider, put in one pound of mustard-seed, two pounds of raisins, one-quarter pound of the sticks (bark) of cinnamon. 2. When the cider in the barrel is in a lively fermentation, add as much white sugar as will be equal to one-quarter or three-quarters of a pound to each gallon of cider (according as the apples are sweet or sour); let the fermentation proceed until the liquid has the taste to suit, then add one-quarter of an ounce of sulphite (not sulphate) of lime to each gallon of cider, shake well, and let it stand three 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. 3. When fermentation commences in one barrel, draw off the liquor into another one, straining through a flannel cloth. Put into the cider three-quarters of an ounce of the oil of sassafras, and the same of the oil of wintergreen, well shaken up in a pint of alcohol. But one difficulty is said to pertain to this preparation of cider. It is so palatable that people won’t keep it long.
CIDER CHAMPAGNE
Five gallons good cider, one quart spirit, one and one-quarter pounds honey or sugar. Mix, and let them rest for a fortnight, then fine with one gill of skimmed milk. This, put up in champagne bottles, silvered, and labelled, has often been sold for champagne. It opens very sparkling.
CHERRY CIDER
Seven gallons of apple cider, two quarts of dried black cherries, one pint of dried blueberries, one-half pint of elderberries, eighteen pounds of brown sugar.
DEVONSHIRE CIDER
The apples, after being plucked, are left in heaps in the orchard for some time, to complete their ripening, and render them more saccharine. They are then crushed between grooved cylinders, surmounted by a hopper, or in a circular trough, by two vertical edge-wheels of wood moved by a horse; after passing through which, they are received into large tubs or crocks, and are then called pomace. They are afterwards laid on the vat in alternate layers of the pomace and clean straw, called reeds. They are then pressed, a little water being occasionally added. The juice passes through a hair sieve, or similar strainer, and is received in a large vessel, whence it is run into casks or open vats, where everything held in mechanical suspension is deposited. The fermentation is often slow of being developed; though the juice be set in November or December, the working sometimes hardly commences till March. Till this time the cider is sweet; it now becomes pungent and vinous, and is ready to be racked for use. If the fermentation continue, it is usual to rack it again into a clean cask that has been well sulphured out, and to leave behind the head and sediment; or two or three cans of cider are put into a clean cask, and a match of brimstone burned in it. It is then agitated, by which the fermentation of that quantity is completely stopped. The cask is then nearly filled, the fermentation of the whole is checked, the process of racking is repeated until it becomes so, and is continued from time to time till the cider is in a quiet state and fit for drinking.
FRENCH CIDER
After the fruit is mashed in a mill, between iron cylinders, it is allowed to remain in a large tun or tub for fourteen or fifteen hours, before pressing. The juice is placed in casks, which are kept quite full, and so placed under gawntrees, or stillions, that small tubs may be put under them, to receive the matter that works over. At the end of three or four days for sweet cider, and nine or ten days for strong cider, it is racked into sulphured casks, and then stored in a cool place.
WESTERN CIDER
To one pound of sugar, add one-half ounce of tartaric acid, two tablespoonfuls of good yeast. Dissolve the sugar in one quart of warm water; put all in a gallon jug, shake it well, fill the jug with pure cold water, let it stand uncorked twelve hours, and it is fit for use.
CIDER WITHOUT APPLES
To each gallon of cold water, put one pound common sugar, one-half ounce tartaric acid, one tablespoonful of yeast. Shake well, make in the evening, and it will be fit for use next day. Make in a keg a few gallons at a time, leaving a few quarts to make into next time, not using yeast again until keg needs rinsing. If it gets a little sour, make a little more into it, or put as much water with it as there is cider, and put it with the vinegar. If it is desired to bottle this cider by manufacturers of small drinks, you will proceed as follows: five gallons hot water, thirty pounds brown sugar, three-quarters pound tartaric acid, twenty-five gallons cold water, three pints of hops or brewers’ yeast worked into paste with three-quarters pound flour, and one pint water will be required in making this paste. Put all together in a barrel, which it will fill, and let it work twenty-four hours, the yeast running out at a bung all the time, by putting in a little occasionally to keep it full. Then bottle, putting in two or three broken raisins to each bottle, and it will nearly equal champagne.
CIDER WINE
Let the new cider from sour apples (ripe, sound fruit preferred) ferment from one to three weeks, as the weather is warm or cool. When it has attained to a lively fermentation, add to each gallon, according to its acidity, from one-half pound to two pounds of white crushed sugar, and let the whole ferment until it possesses precisely the taste which it is desired should be permanent. In this condition pour out one quart of the cider, and add for each gallon of cider one-quarter ounce of sulphite of lime, not sulphate. Stir the powder and cider until intimately mixed, and return the emulsion to the fermenting liquid. Agitate briskly and thoroughly for a few moments, and then let the cider settle. Fermentation will cease at once. When, after a few days, the cider has become clear, draw off carefully, to avoid the sediment, and bottle. If loosely corked, which is better, it will become a sparkling cider wine, and may be kept indefinitely long.
TO MAKE CLARY WINE
Take twelve pounds of Malaga raisins, pick them and chop them very small, put them in a tub, and to each pound one-half pint of water. Let them steep ten or eleven days, stirring it twice every day; you must keep it covered close all the while. Then strain it off, and put it into a vessel, and about one-quarter peck of the tops of clary, when it is in blossom; stop it close for six weeks, and then bottle it off. In two or three months it is fit to drink. It is apt to have a great sediment at bottom; therefore it is best to draw it off by plugs, or tap it pretty high.
TO MAKE FINE CLARY WINE
To five gallons of water put twelve and one-half pounds of sugar, and the whites of six eggs well beaten. Set it over the fire, and let it boil gently near an hour; skim it clean and put it in a tub, and when it is near cold, then put into the vessel you keep it in about half a strike of clary in the blossom, stripped from the stalks, flowers and little leaves together, and one pint of new ale-yeast. Then put in the liquor, and stir it two or three times a day for three days; when it has done working, stop it up, and bottle it at three or four months old, if it is clear.
CLOVER WINE
Three quarts blossoms, four quarts boiling water; let stand three days. Drain, and to the flower heads add three more quarts of water and the peel of one lemon. Boil fifteen minutes, drain, and add to other juice. To every quart, add one pound of sugar; ferment with one cup of yeast. Keep in warm room three weeks, then bottle.
TO MAKE COCK ALE
Take five gallons of ale, and a large cock, the older the better. Parboil the cock, flay him, and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken (you must craw and gut him when you flay him), then put the cock into one quart of sack, and put to it one and one-half pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves. Put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel. In a week or nine days’ time bottle it up; fill the bottle but just above the neck, and give it the same time to ripen as other ale.
TO MAKE COWSLIP WINE
To three gallons of water put seven pounds of sugar; stir it well together, and beat the whites of ten eggs very well, and mix with the liquor, and make it boil as fast as possible. Skim it well, and let it continue boiling two hours; then strain it through a hair sieve, and set it a cooling, and when it is cold as wort should be, put a small quantity of yeast to it on a toast, or in a dish. Let it stand all night working; then bruise one-half peck of cowslips, put them into your vessel, and your liquor upon them, adding three ounces of syrup of lemons. Cut a turf of grass and lay on the bung; let it stand a fortnight, and then bottle it. Put your tap into your vessel before you put your wine in, that you may not shake it.
COWSLIP OR CLARY WINE, NO. 2
The best method of making these wines is to put in the pips dry, when the fermentation of the wine has subsided. This method is preferred for two reasons: first, it may be performed at any time of the year when lemons are cheapest, and when other wine is making; second, all waste of the pips is avoided. Being light, they are sure to work over if put in the cask while the wine is in a state of fermentation. Boil fourteen pounds of good moist sugar with five gallons of water, and one ounce of hops. Shave thin the rinds of eight lemons or Seville oranges, or part of each; they must be put in the boil the last quarter of an hour, or the boiling liquor poured over them. Squeeze the juice to be added when cool, and rinse the pulp in the hot liquor, and keep it filled up, either with wine or new beer, as long as it works over; then paste brown paper, and leave it for four, six, or eight months. The quantity of flowers is one quart of flowers to each gallon of wine. Let them be gathered on a fine, dry day, and carefully picked from every bit of stalk and green. Spread them thinly on trays, sheets, or papers, and turn them often. When thoroughly dry put them in paper bags, until the wine is ready to receive them. Put them in at the bung-hole; stir them down two or three times a day, till all the cowslips have sunk; at the same time add isinglass. Then paste over again with paper. In six months the wine will be fit to bottle, but will be improved by keeping longer in the cask. The pips shrink into a very small compass in drying; the quantity allowed is of fresh-gathered flowers. Observe, also, that wine well boiled, and refined with hops and isinglass, is just as good used from the cask as if bottled, which is a great saving of time and hazard. Wine made on the above principles has been often praised by connoisseurs, and supposed to have been bottled half a day.
CURRANT SHRUB
Take white currants when quite ripe, pick them off the stalks, and bruise them. Strain out the juice through a cloth, and to two quarts of the juice put two pounds of loaf sugar; when it is dissolved, add one gallon of rum, then strain through a flannel bag that will keep in the jelly, and it will run off clear. Then bottle for use.
CURRANT WINE
Take four gallons of currants, not too ripe, and strip them into an earthen stein that has a cover to it. Then take two and one-half gallons of water and five and one-half pounds of double refined sugar; boil the sugar and water together, skim it, and pour it boiling hot on the currants, letting it stand forty-eight hours; then strain it through a flannel bag into the stein again, let it stand a fortnight to settle, and bottle it out.
CURRANT WINE, NO. 2
The currants should be fully ripe when picked. Put them into a large tub, in which they should remain a day or two, then crush with the hands, unless you have a small patent wine-press, in which they should not be pressed too much, or the stems will be bruised, and impart a disagreeable taste to the juice. If the hands are used, put the crushed fruit, after the juice has been poured off, in a cloth or sack and press out the remaining juice. Put the juice back into the tub after cleansing it, where it should remain about three days, until the first stages of fermentation are over, and remove once or twice a day the scum copiously arising to the top. Then put the juice in a vessel—a demijohn, keg, or barrel,—of a size to suit the quantity made, and to each quart of juice add three pounds of the best yellow sugar, and soft water sufficient to make a gallon. Thus, ten quarts of juice and thirty pounds of sugar will give you ten gallons of wine, and so on in proportion. Those who do not like sweet wine can reduce the quantity of sugar to two and one-half, or who wish it very sweet, raise to three and one-half pounds per gallon. The vessel must be full, and the bung or stopper left off until fermentation ceases, which will be in twelve or fifteen days. Meanwhile, the cask must be filled up daily with currant juice left over, as fermentation throws out the impure matter. When fermentation ceases, rack the wine off carefully, either from the spigot or by a siphon, and keep running all the time. Cleanse the cask thoroughly with boiling water, then return the wine, bung up tightly, and let it stand four or five months, when it will be fit to drip, and can be bottled if desired. All the vessels, casks, etc., should be perfectly sweet, and the whole operation should be done with an eye to cleanliness. In such event, every drop of brandy or other spirituous liquors added will detract from the flavor of the wine, and will not in the least degree increase its keeping qualities. Currant wine made in this way will keep for an age.
CURRANT WINE, NO. 3
To every pailful of currants, on the stem, put one pailful of water; mash and strain. To each gallon of the mixture of juice and water add three and one-quarter pounds of sugar. Mix well and put into your cask, which should be placed in the cellar, on the tilt, that it may be racked off in October, without stirring up the sediment. Two bushels of currants will make one barrel of wine. Four gallons of the mixture of juice and water will, after thirteen pounds of sugar are added, make five gallons of wine. The barrel should be filled within three inches of the bung, which must be made air tight by placing wet clay over it after it is driven in.
2. Pick your currants when ripe on a fair day, crush them well, and to every gallon of juice add two gallons of water and three pounds of sugar; if you wish it sweeter, add another one-half pound of sugar. Mix all together in some large vessel, then dip out into earthen jars. Let it stand to ferment in some cool place, skimming it every other morning. In about ten days it will be ready to strain off; bottle and seal, or put in a cask and cork tight. The longer you keep it the better it will be.
CURRANT WINE, NO. 4