8 
The Colorado Experiment Station 
it is the presence of acid rather than the absence of sugar that 
makes an apple taste sour. As a matter of fact, some of our very 
sourest sorts contain as much and more sugar than the sweetest 
sweet apples. Cider for vinegar should not contain less than 8.5 
per cent, of sugar. 
Storage of the Cider. 
The most satisfactory containers for both cider and vinegar are 
whisky and brandy barrels. Molasses barrels and old vinegar barrels 
should be used only when no others are available, and then not 
until they have been very carefully and thoroughly cleaned. Too 
much stress cannot be laid upon the necessity of scalding old vin¬ 
egar barrels with either live steam or boiling water to remove the 
last trace of the old vinegar. There is, perhaps, no one factor 
which is responsible for more failures in farm vinegar making 
than the time-honored but pernicious custom of using old vinegar 
barrels for sweet cider without even rinsing out the dregs of former 
years. Mere rinsing is not sufficient. They must be scalded to 
make them fit for use. If this is not done in such a manner as to 
kill all of the organisms in the barrel, the probability is that the 
sweet cider which is put in them subsequently will never make 
vinegar. The reason for this will be given a little later. In a re¬ 
cent number of a certain farm journal, the following is given under 
directions for making apple vinegar: 
“Get a barrel in which good vinegar has been made and use 
it, or get some of the scum off of the top of good vinegar and 
rinse out the new barrels with this as soon as they cool after 
having been thoroughly washed out with boiling water. Put fresh 
cider into these barrels.” 
No procedure more absurd and dangerous to the success of 
apple vinegar could possibly be undertaken than is contained in 
this recommendation. In fact, it would be difficult to find a better 
recipe for vinegar failures than this. Never, under any considera¬ 
tion, put either “mother” or old vinegar into sweet cider. It is 
never safe to use metallic containers for holding cider even for an 
interval of a few hours, since the acid of the juice attacks the 
metal, dissolving a portion of it. Such cider, because of the metal 
in solution, might produce metallic poisoning in the person drink¬ 
ing it. 
The sweet cider as it comes from the press may either be 
placed at once in barrels, which should not be filled more than 
two-thirds to three-fourths full, or if one has suitable wooden tubs 
or vats in a clean, cool place, it may be stored there for twelve to 
