The following remedy for ropy cyder must be proportion'd with judgment to the degree of the disorder in the liquor. If the rope be stiff and stringy, you must use a larger quantity of the ingredients.
If a hogshead be quite stiff and stringy, work it at least an hour with your paddle, then put to it six pounds of common allum, ground to a fine powder; work it for half an hour after, and bung it up close. This in a week will cut the rope and bring it to a fine, thin, fluid state. Then rack it into a clean hogshead, and put to it one quart of forcing; stir them well in the hogshead and bung it close up. If but a thin rope, use a less quantity of the allum, and work it the same way.
CYDERS bad flavour'd.
Some cyders in keeping are apt to get reasty, thro' the ill quality of the fruit; and sometimes thro' the badness of the cask will get musty, or fusty.
To remedy these evils, you must throw it in ferment, if its body is strong, with yest and jalap, and let it ferment three or four days; which will throw off the greatest part of the taste; then stop the ferment. If a hogshead, put to it one pound of sweet spirit of nitre, and bung it up close. This will cure the bad flavour if any left, and likewise keep it from growing flat.
To colour CYDER.
In many places, particularly where the soil is light, and the orchard lays rising, the juice of the fruit is nearly white, and tho' the cyder may be strong, it doth not appear to be so, by reason of its colour, which always prejudices the buyer against it.
Many people spoil a great deal of good cyder by boiling and mixing melasses with it, to give it a colour; which not only gives it a bad red colour, but makes it muddy, as well as bad tasted. Others, again, will boil a large quantity of brown sugar and mix with it, which gives it a colour indeed, tho' a light one; when two pounds of good sugar, properly used, is sufficient to colour ten hogsheads, as follows:
Take two pounds of powder sugar, the whiter the sugar the farther it will go, and the better the colour will be. Put it in an iron pot or ladle; set it over the fire, and let it burn 'till it is black and bitter; then put two quarts of boiling hot water to it; keep stirring it about, and boil it a quarter of an hour after you have put the water to it. Take it off the fire, and let it stand 'till it is cold; then bottle it for use.
Half a pint of this will colour a hogshead. Put to each half pint, when you use it, a quarter of an ounce of allum ground, to set the colour.