428 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 



ICUAP. IV. 



air-tight, because the cider M'ill not run from tlie tap if there is no air to 

 press it out. If ciJer is exjiosed hmg to air, it will become vinegar. In 

 fact, the way to make vinegar of cider is to expose it to the air as much as 

 possible. To prevent the cider on tap from becoming acid, it is recom- 

 mended, as soon as one or two gallons arc drawn out, to pour in the bung-hole 

 about half a pint of clear sperm oil, or sweet oil if it is preferred. It should 

 be warm when poured in, and it will spread in a thin coat over the surface, 

 and keep spreading as the cider is drawn down, and thus exclude the air, 

 without giving any taste of oil to the cider. 



This jilan of preserving cider is worthy of further attention. "\Ye have 

 faith in it from knowing that oil-casks arc the best we know of for storing 

 eider, imparting no flavor, and keeping it sound as bottled cider for years. 

 Sperm-oil casks are more valuable for cider-casks than for any other j^urpose. 



479. Filtering €i<leri — Cider is very much improved by filtering. This 

 should be done when the first fermentation is over, by racking it off into 

 clean barrels. A good plan for a filter is the following : 



"Take a square or round wooden box, made of inch pine plank, three 

 feet in diameter, and one foot four inches deep. Make it with a bottom 

 perforated with numerous one-quarter-inch augur holes, over which should 

 be laid coarse hemp bagging. Now fill in the box for eight inches with 

 pieces of charcoal — animal charcoal is the liest — about nut size, and on the 

 top of this place a four-inch layer of clean washed sand, and cover all with 

 coarse hemp bagging, and you have a cheaj) and good filter. Any num- 

 ber of such filters may be used, according to the quantity of cider to 

 be o])erated upon, and the cloth can be frequently washed witliout dis- 

 turbing the sand and charcoal. Before any cider is filtered through, pass 

 a stream of clear water into the filter for fifteen minutes, so as to remove 

 any fine, loose particles of charcoal that otherwise would be mixed with 

 the cider." 



4S0. Aerifying Cider. — If cider, when it first comes from the press, could 

 be filtered, and the clear liquid allowed to fall from an upper story in a thin 

 stream into a large tub in the story below, or, if feasible, to continue falling 

 from one to another through several stories of a building, it would become 

 greatly improved, and we are assured by one who has tried it, that it may 

 be bottled at once without any further fermentation, and it will remain in 

 its sweet or slightly acidulated state, and when at a year old it is uncorked 

 it will sparkle like champagne wine. 



The grand secret of having a cider equal to pure wine is in checking any 

 further fermentation. If the cider is left to itself, the acetous fermentation 

 follows — the sedimentary matter at the bottom of the cask rises, and the 

 liquid becomes muddy — this, acting as yeast, produces a second and more 

 violent fermentation, resulting generally in haVd cider. 



By straining out the crude and useless matter from the liquor, the liability 

 to excessive fermentation is greatly lessened, and so it is by fumigating 

 casks with burning sulphur as well as aerifying. Kemember, however, that 



