837. To Make Good Fermented Cider

837.    To Make Good Fermented Cider. To make good fermented cider that will keep a year or more without turning too sour to be used for anything but vinegar, is not a difficult matter. The first thing is to exclude all decayed fruit, but it should be quite ripe. Not a drop of water should be used in the process of manufacture. The sweeter the juice, the stronger the cider, and the better it will keep. Put the ban-el immediately in a cool cellar - the cooler the better. The fermentation may go on slowly or rapidly, practice differing in this respect. In the former case the liquid is treated in all respects like wine. The cask has a bung in which is fixed, air-tight, a tin tube bent at right angles, or a piece of india-rubber tube. The free end of the tube in either case dips into a vessel of water. This arrangement allows the gases liberated in fermentation to pass out, and the end of the tube being covered with water, air cannot pass in. The bubbling of the gas through the water shows how the fermentation is progressing. "When this has ceased, the cider is racked off into clean casks, which are to be full and bunged tightly. Much of the excellence of cider depends upon the temperature at which the fermentation is conducted; a point utterly overlooked by the manufacturers of this liquor. Instead of the apple juice, as soon as it is expressed from the fruit, being placed in a cool situation, where the temperature should not exceed 50° or 52° Fahr., it is frequently left exposed to the full heat of autumn. In this way much of the alcohol formed by the decomposition of the sugar is converted into vinegar, by the absorption of atmospheric oxygen, and thus the liquor acquires that peculiar and unwholesome acidity known as "hardness" or "roughness." When, on the contrary, the fermentation is conducted at a low temperature, nearly the whole of the sugar is converted into alcohol, and this remains in the liquor, instead of undergoing the process of acetification.

838. To Make Fine Cider by Another Process

838.    To Make Fine Cider by Another Process. After obtaining the juice as already directed (see No. 836 (Rules for Making Good Pure Cider)), strain it through a coarse hair-sieve into open vats or close casks. "When the liquor has undergone 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 this the liquor must again be put into casks and kept in a cool place during winter. The proper time for racking may always be known by the brightness of the liquor, the discharge of the fixed air, and the appearance of a thick crust formed of fragments of the reduced pulp. The liquor should always be racked off anew, as often as a hissing noise is heard, or as it extinguishes a lighted match held to the bung-hole. "When a favorable vinous fermentation has been obtained, nothing more is required than to fill up the vessels every two or three weeks, to supply the waste by fermentation. By the beginning of March the liquor will be bright and pure, and fit for final racking, which should be done in fair weather. "When the bottles are filled, they should be set by, uncorked, till morning, when the corks must be driven in tightly, secured by wire or twine and melted resin, or any similar substance.