152 CIDER. 



warn you not to attempt fining it after the 20th of 

 March, unless your cellar be uncommonly secured 

 from air. For the spring will as certainly produce a 

 motion in your cider, as blossoms on the trees; at 

 which time glutinous finings, retaining the air produc- 

 ed or separated by this new fermentation, will be ei- 

 ther retained from falling down in the cask, or borne 

 to the surface of the liquor. Three staples of isin- 

 glass, dissolved in cider, is sufficient for a hogshead. 

 It should be pulled into small pieces, and covered with 

 cider in an earthern vessel, adding a quart of cider 

 to it every six hours, till it is dissolved ; stirring it 

 frequently. When dissolved, which will be in two 

 or three days, strain it through a coarse cloth ; add a 

 gallon or two of cider,and pour it into the cask,stirring 

 the whole together with a stick. Leave the bung 

 out ; it will generally fine in four or five days. It 

 roust not remain above ten or twelve days at most on 

 the finings; if you do not bottle it, it must be racked 

 again into other casks. 



If cider is to be kept in casks after May, early in 

 the spring cover the bungs with rosin, or cement of 

 some kind : to do this, open a spile hole while the 

 cement is laid on ; otherwise no art can cover the 

 bung effectually : the air frm within will force up 

 the cement through the smallest passage, and disap- 

 point a thousand attempts to fill it up : when cover- 

 ed, and the cement cooled, make the cask tight by 

 driving an oaken spile into the hole. Inferiour 

 cider, for the harvest field, is kept by adding a gallon 

 of cider brandy to a barrel. The method I have di- 

 rected above, produces a fine sweet cider, retaining 

 the taste of the apple. More frequent racking weak- 

 ens the body and preserves the sweetness ; fewer 

 packings, and laying long on the lees, renders it 

 harsher and more heady. If cider be well fermented 

 in due /iwe, you may freeze it down to any strength ; 



