The Cyder-Makers Instructor, Sweet-Makers Assistant, and Victuallers and Housekeepers Director | Page 2

they lose their strength and flavour. Take a bottle of wine, draw the cork, and let it stand exposed to the open air for twenty-four hours only, and you will then find it dead, flat, and insipid; for the spirit is volatile, and has been carried off by the air, and what remains is the gross, elementary part chiefly. A cyder-cask should never be kept open more than fourteen or fifteen days, that is, 'till the ferment is stopt; but so contrary is the practice, that I have known them very commonly kept open three or four months. It hath been objected to me by cyder and sweet-makers, that stopping up the cask so soon will endanger the head being blown out or bursted; but their fears are groundless, provided the ferment is stopt. The bottoms are quite confined, and it is impossible they should rise, unless a forcing be added to raise them.
The best time for bottling your cyder, is in the winter, or cool weather, when it is down, otherwise you will hazard breaking most of the bottles. The best method of keeping it, is to put it up in dry saw-dust, which will keep it in a due temperature of heat, without the colour's subsiding, unless you have laid a high colour on it, which, by long keeping, will subside in the same manner port-wine doth in bottles. For 'tis impossible to set a colour on cyder so strong, as to have it stand the bottle more than twelve or eighteen months, at farthest. The natural colour will change but little in a much longer time.
What I have said of the sweet-making-business, (which I have been constantly concerned in for more than twenty years) is principally relating to fermentation; for it is in all kinds of made-wines the chief thing to be observed. I shall just take notice here of one or two things, by way of caution.
If your fruit be candied, the best way to clean them is by bagging, and then you may easily take the stems from them.
It is very seldom that the fruit is all of the same goodness, I would therefore recommend, that the best fruit be made separate from the ordinary, it being easy, and much more prudent, to mix the liquors to your palate, than to run the hazard of making the good fruit with the bad, a small quantity of which will sometimes spoil the flavour of the liquor, and turn it acid.
As to the method of brewing malt-liquors, I shall only here observe, that the practice of boiling the wort so long as is often done, is very injudicious. Five minutes is long enough: a longer time serves only to evaporate the spirit, without having any good effect.
Under the head of malt-liquor, I have confined myself to giving proper instructions for curing their disorders, such as fining 'em, _&c._ which must be of great use to victuallers as well as private families, who, by reason of the badness of malt, mismanagement, bad weather, or other accidents, have frequently quantities by them, which for want of knowing how to cure, lie useless, and are sometimes thrown away.
In the course of these receipts, I have endeavoured to lay down every thing as plain as possible, preferring, in these cases, plainness to elegance, even tho' I were capable of it, which indeed I have no pretensions to.
Before I take leave of my reader, I must admonish him, that if my directions are not observed punctually, I will not be answerable for his success; for he may be assured, in matters of this kind, a great deal depends upon what many people think trifling, and of no consequence whether done or not. But on the other hand, if he will take care to observe them exactly, I am sure they will fully answer his expectations. So shall he not repent laying out his money on this little_, but not the least _valuable, book; nor will my reputation suffer in having penn'd it for his use; which is the earnest wish of
His humble Servant,
T.C.
The Cyder-Maker's Instructor.
Let your fruit be as near the same ripeness as possible, otherwise the juice will not agree in fermenting. When they are properly sweated, grind and press them; and as soon as you have filled a cask, if a hogshead, which is one hundred and ten gallons, ferment it as follows; and if less, proportion the ingredients to your quantity.
A FERMENT for CYDER.
To one hogshead of cyder, take three pints of solid yest, the mildest you can get; if rough, wash it in warm water, and let it stand 'till it is cold. Pour the water from it, and put it in a pail or can; put to it as much jalap as will lay on a six-pence,