The pulp of the crushed or ground apples is now placed on a kind of wicker frame, or in hair-cloth or coarse canvas bags, and after being allowed to drain into suitable tubs or receivers, is subjected to powerful pressure, gradually applied, in the cider press. The
liquor which runs off first is the best, and is usually kept separately; whilst that which follows, especially the portion obtained by much pressure, tastes of the pips and skins.
The expressed juice or “must,” obtained as above, is next put into clean casks with large bung-holes, and freely exposed to the air and the shade, where they are placed on “stillions,” with flat tubs under them to catch the waste. They are now constantly attended to and kept quite full, in order that the yeast, as it forms, may froth over and be carried off from the surface of the liquor. After 2 or 3 days for weak cider, and 8 or 10 days for strong cider, or as soon as the sediment has subsided, the liquor is “racked off” into clean casks, which have been (according to the common practice) previously sulphured with a cooper’s match. The casks containing the “racked cider” are then stored in a cellar, shaded barn, or other cool place, where a low and regular temperature can be ensured, and are left to mature or ripen. By the following spring the cider is commonly fit for use, and may be “re-racked” for sale.
The marc, or pressed pulp, is generally again sprinkled with 1⁄3 or 1⁄2 its weight of water, and re-pressed. The resulting liquor, when fermented, forms a weak kind of cider (cider moil, water moil), which is reserved for domestic use in the same way as table-beer. The refuse-pulp (apple-marc, pomace, pommage, apple cheese) is used as food for pigs and store cattle, and is very acceptable to them.
The storing and management of cider are matters of vast importance to the cider farmer, the factor, the wholesale dealer, and the bottler. The principles by which these should be directed are precisely similar to those which are explained under the heads Brewing, Fermentation, and Malt Liquors; and which, indeed, refer, with slight modifications, to all fermented liquors.
Preparatory to bottling cider it should be examined, to see whether it is clear and sparkling. If not so, it should be clarified in a similar way to beer, and left for a fortnight. The night before it is intended to put it into bottles the bung should be taken out of the cask, and left so until the next day, and the filled bottles should not be corked down until the day after; as, if this is done at once, many of the bottles will burst by keeping. The best corks should alone be used. Champagne bottles are the variety generally chosen for cider. It is usual to wire down the corks, and to cover them with tinfoil, after the manner of champagne. A few bottles at a time may be kept in a warm place to ripen. When the cider is wanted for immediate use, or for consumption during the cooler portion of the year, a small piece of lump sugar may be put into each bottle before corking it; or, what is the same thing in effect, the bottles may be corked within 2 or 3 hours after being filled. In summer, and for long keeping, this practice is, however, inadmissible. The bottled stock should be stored in a cool cellar, when the quality will be greatly improved by age. Cider for bottling should be of good quality, sound and piquant, and at least a twelvemonth old. When out of condition it is unfit for bottling.
Qual., &c. Cider, when of good quality, and in good condition, is doubtless a very wholesome liquor. Cider consumers, living in the cider districts, appear to enjoy almost an immunity from cholera, and often from other diseases which are common in other parts of the kingdom. At the same time, however, it is right to mention, that the dry colic or belly-ache (colica pictonum) is far from uncommon in these districts, but is wholly confined to those who drink early, hard, or inferior cider, made from harsh, unripe fruit. We believe that, in most cases, it may be referred to the acid of the common cider having acted on the lead, pewter, or copper of the articles or utensils with which it has come in contact, and of which it has dissolved a very minute portion. The best cider contains from 8% to 10% of absolute alcohol; ordinary cider from 4% to 6%.
Concluding Remarks. Much of the excellence of cider depends upon the temperature at which the fermentation is conducted; a point utterly overlooked by the manufacturers of this liquor. Instead of the apple-juice, as soon as it is expressed from the fruit, being placed in a cool situation, where the temperature should not exceed 50° or 52° Fahr., it is frequently left exposed to the full heat of autumn. In this way much of the alcohol formed by the decomposition of the sugar is converted into vinegar by the absorption of atmospheric oxygen, and thus the liquor acquires that peculiar and unwholesome acidity known in the cider districts by the name of “roughness.” When, on the contrary, the fermentation is conducted at a low temperature, nearly the whole of the sugar is converted into alcohol, and this remains in the liquor, instead of undergoing the process of acetification. The acetous fermentation, by which alcohol is converted into vinegar, proceeds most rapidly at a temperature of about 90° Fahr., and at lower temperatures the action becomes gradually slower, until at 46° to 50° Fahr. no such change takes place. (Liebig.) It is therefore evident that if the saccharine juice of apples, or any other fruit, is made to undergo the vinous fermentation in a cool situation, less of the spirit resulting from the transformation of the sugar will be converted into acetic acid, and, consequently, more will be retained in an unaltered state in the liquor, to improve its quality, and by its conservative and chemical action to preserve it from future change. This is the principal cause, other circumstances being alike, of the difference in the quality of the cider made by
persons living in the same district. The one has probably a cooler barn and cellar than the other to store his liquor in, and is more careful to keep the pulp and juice cool during the early part of the process. In Devonshire the pressing and fermentation are conducted in situations where the temperature varies little from that of the external air, and fluctuates with all its changes; the result is that Devonshire cider, of the best class, will rarely keep more than 4 or 5 years, and seldom improves after the second or third year; whilst the cider of Herefordshire and Worcestershire, where these operations are more carefully attended to, will keep for 20 or 30 years.
When the pressing the apples for the juice is deferred until late in the season, it sometimes happens that the fermentation is sluggish. Though the juice has been set on the old system, in November or December, the working hardly commences until March. At this time the cider is sweet; it now rapidly becomes pungent and vinous, and is soon ready to be racked for use. If the fermentation still continues, it is again racked into a clean cask that has been sulphured; or two or three cans of the cider are put into a cask, and a brimstone-match burned in it. The cask is then agitated, after which it is nearly filled with the cider. By this process the fermentation is checked, and the cider in a short time becomes fine. Great care must be taken that the sulphuring be not overdone, as it is apt to impart a slightly unpleasant flavour to the liquor. If, on the first operation, the fermentation is not checked, the process of ‘racking’ is repeated, until the liquor becomes clear, and is continued from time to time, till the cider is in a quiet state and fit for drinking.