Cassell's dictionary of cookery

the juice forced out by a gradual and steadily- urged action of the screw. In this way the juice may be drawn out perfectly transparent ; but if the screw be urged suddenly, or by starts, the juice wiU be muddy, and the quantity of lees will occasion some loss of cider. Jt will be found also that when the pressing board can be forced no tighter, by leaving it un- touched for a few minutes it will be easy to foice it a httle more, and by repeating this process a much greater product of juice may be obtained than if force enough had been applied at first to endanger the press. Having procured the necessary quantity of juice, the next step is its fermentation. A very convenient fermenting apparatus is a cask which has no bung-hole, or has it well stopped up. This cask is set standing on either of its ends ; a cock is fixed in one of the staves, about an inch above the bottom chimb; so that in di-awing off the liquid the sediment cannot also run. In the centre of the top of the cask, that is, in the centre of its other end, a hole is to be bored, of such size as will admit a large bottle- cork. The cask set on end should be filled with apple-juice through the cork-hole at the top, and it may be left to ferment at the natural temperature of the au- should it be not under 6^ in the shade. If the air be lower than that degree, the cask must be placed near the fire. In some hours (many will elajise if the month be November, and especially if it be cold for the season) the fermentation commences, the head of yeast rises up thi'ough the cork-hole, is retained bj^ the chimb, falls back into liquor for the most part, and runs back into the cask, lea\- ing the true yeast on the top outside. This ar- rangement succeeds better in the beginning' of September; but if the season be much mure advanced, it will be better not to fill up the cask entu'ely. In this way the yeast will nut be thi-own out of the liquor, in which, at this cool season, its presence is so necessary to continue the languid fermentation that alone can be expected when the quantity is small. If there were some hundred gallons in one body under fermentation, the case would be different, and it might be an object to remove some of the yeast, so as to restrain an inordinate action. In cider-making, any degree of fermentation that does more than generate a due quantity of carbonic acid to impregnate . the liquid for the purpose of taste is injurious. It need not possess any intoxicating quality ; an agreeable taste is the only quality to be expected from it ; and this will be attained by fermenting until the excessive sweetness of the apple is removed, and is replaced by the sharpness of the carbonic acid, which just at that period wiU have been generated in sufficient quantity. The pleasing sourness of the maUc acid will remain un- altered; and if the cider, when finished, comprises the three qualities of sweetness, sharpness, and acidity, without a predominance of any of them, the fermentation may be con- sidered to have been of the most successful kind. The criteria by which the liquor may be known to be sufficiently fermented are easily understood. In a large vessel not full a burn- ing candle may be let down; if t burn there, the fermentation is over. As s' w the cider PER ( 5^0 ) PET