836. Rules for Making Good Pure Cider

836. Rules for Making Good Pure Cider. Always choose perfectly ripe and sound fruit.

Pick the apples from the tree by hand. Apples that have been on the ground any length of time contract an earthy flavor, 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, 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 about it. Let the pomace remain about one day, then draw off, return the first, and continue to do so until it runs clear. Let the juice percolate or filter for one or more days. The cider thus extracted will compare closely with any clear, rich syrup, and is alone deserving the name of temperance cider, and may be drank, or used 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, which should bo closely watched, and as soon as the little bubbles commence to rise at the bung-hole or top, it should be racked off by a spigot or faucet placed about 2 inches from 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 temperature of the apartment where the cider is kept; in most cases, during the first 3 or 4 days. If the fermentation begins early and proceeds rapidly, the liquor must be racked or drawn off and put into fresh casks in 1 or 2 days; but if this does not take place at an early period, but proceeds slowly, three or four days may elapse before it is racked. In 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 fermentation, when vinegar will be the result. In racking off the liquor, it is necessary to keep it free from sediment, and the scum or yeast produced by the fermentation. "When the fermentation is completely at an end, fill up the cask with cider in all respects like that contained in it, and bung it up tight, previous to which a tumbler of sweet oil may bo poured into the bung-hole, which will exclude the oxygen and prevent the oxidation of the surface of the wine.

Sound, well made cider, that has been produced as above directed, and without any foreign mixtures, is a pleasant, cooling and wholesome beverage; while, on the contrary, the acids and drugs added to already impure liquor, retard fermentation, thus adding poison to poison, producing colic, and not unfrequently incurable obstructions.