Manufacture and Preservation of Cider and Perry. 87 
The vinous fermentation generally occupies a week or nine 
days, and sometimes even longer ; but as soon as the must drops 
from the lmnghole to the bottom, which will be in a day or so 
after it has finished throwing up, the liquor should be immediately 
racked into a fresh cask. 
I should strongly recommend that the juice be strained into 
vats holding from one to three hundred gallons, and left there to 
ferment ; for the ferment generally separates better there than in 
the cask; and the cider can be drawn off without disturbing the 
sediment at the bottom, or the scum and must floating on the 
top. 
When this system is pursued it is very essential to remove the 
scum from the top ; and great care should be taken that this is 
perfectly done, for on this depends much of the after-trouble. 
This scum contains an active ferment which is very liable 
to get mixed with the liquor on tunning it into the cask, and 
this is certain to cause trouble : the same may be said of the 
"settlings." In all cases, before using a cask, it should be 
well washed, and, if not sweet, should have the head taken 
out, be well scrubbed, and put to dry. When a cask is wanted, 
it is desirable, before using it, to take a brimstone* match, or 
piece of brown paper on which some melted brimstone has 
been run ; this, after being lighted, should be suspended by a 
piece of wire inside the cask, and the bung inserted. As soon 
as the oxygen of the air is exhausted it will go out ; the remains 
of the match may then be removed, and the cask filled. This 
will take away any smell or unsweetness which the washing failed 
to remove, unless the wood be thoroughly saturated with bad gases, 
in which case nothing will thoroughly cleanse it, and the best 
way will be to direct the cooper to shave or pare the whole of the 
inside of the cask, and then let some freshly-ground must stand 
in it for a week or so, changing it every day. Too much care 
cannot be taken to have a clean cask, some hundreds of vessels of 
prime cider being annually spoilt from neglect in this respect. 
The liquor having now got over the vinous fermentation, and 
become clear, should be kept from the air as much as possible. 
The best means of accomplishing this is to place a bung in 
the cask, and, having bored a hole in it, fix a small tin tube 
with the longer end through the bung, and the shorter end 
inserted into a. small tin can filled with water ; the tube will 
allow the carbonic acid to escape, and will save your cask. Many 
persons recommend bunging the cider up at once ; but in so 
doing you endanger your casks and the liquor. The accumula- 
tion of carbonic-acid gas consequent upon rapid fermentation 
would burst the cask, unless it should happen to be very strong ; 
but the use of the tube, whilst it allows the gas to escape, pre- 
