THE processes of cider-making are discussed and explained by the present writer in Thomas’s “Book of the Apple,” one of the volumes in the series of “Handbooks of Practical Gardening.” The following short summary must here suffice. The apples, properly selected and properly ripened by being thinly piled on boards or straw in an airy, sunny place, should be torn and crushed in a cider mill, and the juice pressed out by means of a screw-press. This crude juice should then be carefully strained through a fine-meshed filter, in order to remove any cellular tissue or other matter in suspension. The expressed apple juice, having been freed by filtration from undissolved solids, is next to be subjected to the process of fermentation, that is, the conversion of its sugar into alcohol. For this purpose, it should be exposed to the air in large open vats, or in casks with the bung-hole left open. All the apple juice that is to be fermented in one vat or cask should be placed in it within twelve hours from the time of placing any therein. The specific gravity should be taken daily by means of a brewer’s hydrometer, about six-sevenths of the total solids consisting of sugar. Approximately, the sugar gives about half its weight of alcohol, and it has been found that each decrease of one-hundredth in the specific gravity of the fluid during fermentation corresponds to the conversion of two per cent. of sugar into one per cent. of alcohol. The scum which rises to the surface of the liquid must be skimmed off two or three times daily, and, as soon as this frothy crust ceases to rise, the cider still in process of active fermentation is to be drawn off with great care by means of a rubber syphon or pump and hose into perfectly clean casks. It is well to rinse out the casks with water of about the same temperature as that of the cider which is to fill them, as a sudden drop of heat is very injurious. The casks of cider should be kept at a steady temperature of about 50° F.

If the open vat system of “purging” is unavailable, then the cider is to be placed in casks with the bung-holes left open, the cask being kept full to the brim by frequent additions of clear old cider. The scum in this case overflows at the bung-holes until the purging process is complete. Subsequently the cork is to be inserted, a bent glass tube being passed through its centre, ending outwardly in a basin of water. The excess of carbonic acid gas is thus enabled to escape. As soon as the conversion of sugar into alcohol is almost complete, the cider should be carefully filtered at a low temperature by means of a Filtre Rapide or other suitable strainer (which must not consist of charcoal, sand, or clay), and stored in clean air-tight casks in a cool place, being previously pasteurized if the process be thought desirable or worth while. The cider must then be left for a time in order to ripen, that is, to develop bouquet and vinosity. If intended for bottling, that process may be performed in the following spring, or preferably in the following autumn. All antiseptics, preservatives, and artificial flavouring agents should be avoided as suggestions of the devil. Scrupulous cleanliness of fruit, filters, presses, mills, vats and casks should make the two first-named possible additions unnecessary, and careful selection of fruit should make the idea of artificial flavouring an obvious absurdity.