Food

1860

Ciders

Apple Cider, to keep sweet without expense.- When your cider
has worked so as to have let the pomace sink, or just to suit your
taste, rack it off and rinse the barrel; (unless you have plenty of
barrels,) and return 3 gallons of the cider into the barrel. Now
take a strip of cotton cloth 2 by 6 inches, which has been dipped
in melted sulphur and dried, fire one end of this strip and introduce it into the bung-hole, and hold it by means of the bung giving it air sufficient to let it burn, keeping the smoke in as it burns, when you will push the bung in tight and shake the barrel until the sulphur gas is absorbed into the cider; then return the balance of the cider into the barrel free from sediment, shake all together, and it is complete for any length of time.

Three or four days will be found sufficiently long for cider to settle and become clear then draw off and sulphur the barrel and you are
safe, if the cider was not made too near a well, or running stream
of water; but it is found that if made too near these, the cider does not keep. Judge ye why!

In some parts of England, by using only ripe sound apples, letting it work clear, racking off about twice, bottling, &c. c., cider is kept from 20 to 30 years. When cider is drawn off and bottled, it should not be corked until the next day after filling the bottles, or many of them will burst.

I am assured by a gentleman of Bucyrus, O., who has tried it, that to take cider directly from the press, place it in barrels standing on the end with the head out, put 3 pts; of hickory ashes, (the alkalye of the ashes neutralizes much of the acid, and gives it a rich, mellow taste,) mixed in 1 pt. of milk, to each barrel, will cause all the pomace to rise and form a hard crust on the top, and when done sparkling as you draw a glass from a faucet below, that you can draw it off and filter through inch layers of cotton batting and fine charcoal placed in a keg to half fill it only, then barreled and bottled, that it will make a splendid champagne cider, and fit for making wines &c. without further trouble or expense. I am satisfied that it will perform as spoken of.

I think providence would not provide such things for us only for our use, and if used properly and not abused, no harm will arise. I should recommend, however, to put 1 gal. of alcohol to each barrel, in which 1 oz. each, of allspice and cinnamon; 1/2 oz. each, of cloves and nutmegs had been standing while the cider was undergoing the above preparation, to be strained when added.

Cider, to Prepare for Medicine.-To each barrel of cider just pressed from ripe, sour apples, not watered, take mustard seed, 1Ib.; isinglass, 1 oz.; alum pulverized, 1 oz.; put all into the barrel, leave the bung out, and shake or stir once a day for 4 days, then take new milk, 1 qt. and half a dozen eggs, beat well together and put them into the cider and stir or shake well again, as before, for 2 days, let settle now for 24 or 36 hours and draw off into clean barrels, sulphured as mentioned in the recipe " forkeeping cider sweet," bung it or bottle it up, and the older it
gets the more it will be like splendid wine.