The Cyder-Makers Instructor, Sweet-Makers Assistant, and Victuallers and Housekeepers Director | Page 3

beat them well together with a whisk, then apply some of the cyder to it by degrees 'till your can is full. Put it all to the cyder, and stir it well together. When the ferment comes on, you must clean the bung-holes every morning with your finger, and keep filling the vessel up. The ferment for the first five or six days will be black and stiff; let it stand till it ferments white and kind, which it will do in fourteen or fifteen days; at that time stop the ferment, otherwise it will impair its strength.
To stop the FERMENT.
In stopping this ferment, which is a very strong one, you must first rack it into a clean cask, and when pretty near full, put to it three pounds of course, red, scowering sand, and stir it well together with a strong stick, and fill it within a gallon of being full; let it stand five or six hours, then pour on it as softly as you can a gallon of English spirit, and bung it up close; but leave out the vent-peg a day or two. At that time just put it in the hole and close it by degrees till you have got it close. Let it lay in that state at least a year, and if very strong cyder, such as stire, the longer you keep it the better it will be in the body; and when you pierce it, if not bright, force it in the following manner.
A FORCING for CYDER.
Take a gallon of perry or stale beer, put to it one ounce of isinglass, beat well and cut or pull'd to small pieces; put it to the perry or beer, and let it steep three or four days. Keep whisking it together, or else the glass will stick to the bottom, and have no effect on the liquor. When it comes to a stiff jelly, beat it well in your can with a whisk, and mix some of the cyder with it, 'till you have made the gallon four; then put two pounds of brick rubbings to it, and stir it together with two gallons of cyder more added to it, and apply to the hogshead; stir it well with your paddle, and shive it up close. The next day give it vent, and you will find it fine and bright. If you force perry, cut your isinglass with cyder or stale beer, for no liquor will force its own body.
To cure ACID CYDER.
It is always to be observ'd, that even weak alkali's cure the strongest acid, such, for instance, as calcin'd chalk, calcin'd oyster or scallop-shells, calcin'd egg-shells, alabaster, &c. But if a hogshead can soon be drank, use a stronger alkali, such as salt of tartar, salt of wormwood; but in using them, you must always preserve their colour with lac_, or else the _alkali will turn the liquor black, and keep it foul.
To one hogshead, take two gallons of lac, and put to it one ounce and a half of isinglass beat well and pulled small; boil them together for five or six minutes; drain it, and when a stiff jelly, break it with a whisk, and mix about a gallon of the cyder with it; then put three pounds of calcin'd chalk, and two pounds of calcined oyster-shells to it, whisk it well together with four gallons more of the cyder, and apply it to the hogshead. Stir it well, and it will immediately discharge the acid part out at the bung. Let it stand one hour, then bung it close for five or six days; rack it from the bottom into a clean hogshead, and apply one quart of forcing to it. If you use a strong alkali_, put to the _lac four ounces of salt of tartar, or salt of wormwood; but the former is best, as it hath not the bitter taste in it which the wormwood has.
Note_, Lac _is milk, but the cream must be skimm'd off it for use.
To cure OILY CYDER.
The reason that cyder is sometimes oily, is owing to the fruit not being sorted alike; for the juice of fruit that is not ripe will seldom mix with ripe juice in fermentation. The acid part of one will predominate over the other, and throw the oily particles from it, which separation gives the liquor a disagreeable, foul taste; to remedy which you must treat it in the following manner, which will cause the oily parts to swim at top, and then you may rack the liquor from its bottom and oil.
To a hogshead, take an ounce of salt of tartar, and two ounces of half sweet spirit of nitre, mix them in a gallon of lac, and whisk them well together; apply it to