But you have no vinegar yet. You have nothing but "hard" cider which isn't fit for anything. But in the barrel along with the yeast plants are lots of other bacteria, to be seen under the microscope. Among them is a kind that causes alcohol to change to acetic acid. Did you ever pour off the vinegar from a jug and find a mass of jelly-like substance stopping the mouth of the jug? They called it "mother" didn't they? This mother contains great numbers of acetic acid makers and if placed in your barrels will hasten the changes that fit the hard cider for use on the table.
The making of cider vinegar is almost all profit for there is very little outlay for materials and very little work is required. It does take some knowledge of what to do and when. A little study and experience makes success almost certain. A bulletin of the New York State Experiment Station at Geneva gives the following directions, somewhat abbreviated here, for making good cider vinegar at home:
"Use sound ripe apples, picked before they have become dirty or crushed. Observe ordinary precautions to secure cleanliness in grinding and pressing, and use no water. Let the juice stand a few days to settle, then draw off the clear liquid into barrels that have been cleansed and treated with steam or boiling water. Do not fill more than three fourths full. Put a loose plug of cotton into the bung hole. If kept at a temperature of fifty to forty-five degrees Fahr. the alcoholic fermentation will be complete in about six months. This time can be shortened to three months by keeping a temperature of sixty-five to seventy degrees in the storage room and by adding one cake of Fleischmann's compressed yeast dissolved in a little water, to every five gallons of juice. When the cider stops 'working' you will know that the sugar has all been changed to alcohol. The clear liquid should now be drawn off, the barrels rinsed and filled again. To each barrel should now be added from two to four quarts of good vinegar containing some 'mother.' If kept at a temperature of sixty-five to seventy degrees Fahr. the vinegar may be ready for use in six months. If kept very cool it may be two years. When sour enough to be 'just right' the barrels should be filled as full as possible and tightly corked or the sourness may disappear."
MAKING GRAPE JUICE
Any girl with a little experience in canning fruit can make for home use and for sale a harmless and delectable beverage out of the surplus grapes. Every good grape year on the farm there comes the question of what to do with the grapes. A little jelly is made when the grapes are green but most people prefer currant jelly or blackberry or crab apple. Canned grapes are pronounced "no good" by all the family, and grape marmalade is full of "splinters of glass," though how they got there who can say?
The housekeeping magazines give receipts for preserving grapes but cold storage alone gives good results and few farms have cold storage plants. Those grapes hang there by the bushel and try as you may you do not get them all eaten fresh.
Grape juice is not wine. If you should try to make wine you would probably fail. But unfermented grape juice is easier to make than jelly and as it needs no sugar your investment is small. Grape juice has food value, as it contains more solid matter than milk, and is recommended as a drink for children and for invalids. In many European countries "grape cures" have long been popular. In the pure, unadulterated, unfermented juice of the grape we have a palatable, nourishing food and a refreshing drink in one. It is highly recommended as a preventive of some diseases, a cure for others, and as a restorative of general health.
So much for the product. Now how is it made? It is possible to make grape juice from start to finish in the open air. If the grapes grow on an arbour what more delightful occupation can you imagine than spending a day or two converting the perfect fruit into nectar? Idling in a hammock may appeal to some, but a row of shining fruit jars worth seventy-five cents apiece looks better to an enterprising girl than a finished novel.
You will need a table, a rocking chair, a large basket and scissors, granite pans and double boiler, an oil or gasolene stove, clean jelly bag and flannel filter, jars or bottles, corks, rubbers, etc.
When the grapes are just right to eat out of hand they are right for grape juice. Green or over-ripe grapes are not worth working over. Discard all unsound fruit, wash, and crush. Put into a freshly washed bag of coarse, strong muslin, tie securely and twist and squeeze it until the juice is all out. Two people can work to advantage at this job.