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On the Management of Cider

CIDER should be stored in a cool place, and should not be drank before it becomes sufficiently matured. To improve the flavor of a hogshead of cider, 1½ gals. of good brandy or rum are frequently added, with 2 oz. powdered catechu (dissolved in water), 7 lbs. good moist sugar or honey, oz. each, bitter almonds and cloves, and 4 oz. mustard seed. These must be well stirred in, and occasionally stirred up for a fortnight, after which it must be allowed to repose for three or four months, when it will usually be found as bright as wine. Should this not be the case, it must be fined with a pint of isinglass finings, or a dozen of eggs, and in two weeks more it will be fit for use. If the cider be preferred pale, omit the catechu, and instead of the isinglass fine with one quart of skimmed milk. If wanted of a light reddish or rose tint, use oz. of cochineal, and omit the catechu. Preparatory to bottling cider, it should be examined to see whether it is clear and sparkling; if not, it should be clarified again, and left for two weeks. The night before it is intended to be put into bottles, the bung should be left 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 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 inadmissible. The bottled stock should be stored in a cool cellar, where the quality will be greatly improved by age. Cider for bottling should be of good quality, and at least twelve months old.

The above is considered the best way of managing cider; but there is another method esteemed by many, which we also give as follows. It is in use in Eng land:

The cider is placed in a situation where the temperature does not exceed 45°, which retards the fermentation through November and December. It is generally put into a well sulphured cask, with 3 or 4 oz. mustard seed and 1 lb. cloves added, both well bruised. In this way the fermentation is retarded till March, when it becomes pungent and vinous. Should fermentation at any time appear to be taking place, the cider should be racked, and one gallon of spirits added. This should be repeated as often as fermentation is perceptible. In nine months it will usually be in condition for bottling or drinking; if it continues thick, use some isinglass finings; and if at any time it ferments and threatens acidity, the cure is to rack it, and leave the head and sediment behind.

To Improve New Cider.

When the cask is deposited where you intend it to remain, start the bung, and put into the liquor 8 ounces of stone brimstone; then stop it up for a week. Tincture a gallon of French brandy highly with cochineal, pour it into the cider, stir well, and in twenty-four hours afterwards add a pound of alum and four pounds of sugar-candy, both beaten fine, and mixed well. Stop it up securely, and in three months bottle it, using the best corks; wire and seal. These quantities are calculated for a hogshead, and will not only greatly improve the the flavor and color of the liquor, but adapt it for keeping a long time. To Fine Cider.

Cider should be fined with isinglass the same as white wines and malt liquors. (See page 170.) Concluding Remarks.

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. nstead 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° Fah., 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. The acetous fermentation, by which alcohol is converted into vinegar, proceeds most rapidly at a temperature of about 90° Fah., and at lower temperatures, the action becomes gradually slower, until at 46° to 50° Fah., no such change takes place. It is therefore evident, that if the saccharine juice of apples, or any other fruit, is made to undergo the vinous fermentation in a cool situation, less of the spirit resulting from the transformation of the sugar will be converted into acetic acid, and, consequently, more will be retained in an unaltered state in the liquor to improve its quality, and, by its conservative and chemical action, to preserve it from future change. This is the principal cause, other circumstances being alike, of the difference in the quality of the cider made by persons living in the same district. The one has probably a cooler barn and cellar than the other to store his liquor in, and is more careful to keep the pulp and juice cool during the early part of the process.