PRACTICE OF FERMENTATION : IN AMERICA AND FRANCE. 
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isinglass should be allowed to dissolve gradually in some of the liquor without the application 
of heat; and this will require a period of two or three days to take effect properly. In January or 
February the bungs may be tightly driven into the barrels, and they may remain until the liquor 
is required to be racked in the spring months into purchasers’ casks. 
The process of fermentation should have been conducted thus far at a temperature as uniform 
as possible. It should never exceed 70 degrees, and it should never be below 50 degrees. After 
racking it becomes very advantageous to keep it below 40 degrees. The barrels into which the liquor 
has been racked should therefore be placed in a cold cellar, and kept at a temperature as low and as 
even as possible. 
Although active fermentation may be said to cease when the hissing noise is no longer 
perceptible, yet it still continues to go on quietly, for the quantity of Alcohol slowly increases, and the 
Sugar decreases in proportion ; whilst at the same time the liquor becomes more clear, and requires 
a higher aroma as well as additional strength. 
When the fruit has been well ripened on the trees and well mellowed in the heaps, there is 
generally but little difficulty in managing the fermentation, and still less fear of the liquor not 
lining properly. 
The American method of fermentation, as described by Downing, consists in placing the 
newly filled casks with the bungs out either in a cool cellar or in the open air and as the scum works 
out the barrel is kept filled every day with some of the same must, kept for this purpose. In two 
or three days the rising will cease and then the first fermentation is over, the bung is now 
closed and in two or three days driven in firmly, leaving a small vent hole open which is also to 
be stopped in a few days. The clear liquor is now racked off by syphon into a clean cask, and 
if in a few days it is found to remain quiet, a gill of finely powdered charcoal is added to each barrel, 
when it is closed and left until spring. In March they rack again and if the cider is not quite bright 
three quarters of an ounce of dissolved isinglass is then added to each barrel. In a few days it will 
be fit for bottling, and this may be done at any time up to the end of May. 
The French method of fermentation is as follows. They remove the must at once from the 
press into large oak casks well cleaned and prepared for it. They are filled to within 3 or 4 inches 
of the brim, and placed in rows in a cellar with a minimum temperature of 12 0 centigrade, or 53 0 
Fahrenheit; and if fermentation is slow they increase it to 25 0 centigrade, or 77 0 of Fahrenheit, by 
moveable stoves. When the active effervesence begins to subside, and the cider, to use a technical 
phrase, is between the two lees, the density of the fluid will be found to have decreased from 1067 to 
1035. This is the proper time to rack it, which they do into casks which have been well cleaned 
and are quite free from any bad smell or taste. The oxygen of the air is exhausted by burning a 
little spirit in the cask, or if its condition is in the least doubtful, it is sulphured. Sometimes a small 
portion of Alcohol is now added to each cask, and almost invariably, they also add eight ounces of 
Catechu previously dissolved in cold water to every hundred gallons of cider, and then fill up and 
slightly bung the casks. When the density'of the liquor is reduced to 1022, the bungs are to be 
tightly closed. An ullage of one or two inches being allowed to each cask. 
In Jersey and the Channel Islands the active fermentation is permitted to take place in open 
vessels, covered only by cloths, the scum or upper lees being skimmed off as it forms. As soon as 
the liquor becomes clear and the fermentation subsides it is racked into sulphured casks, and this 
process is repeated some three or four times. 
