What has become of our apple vinegar industry, and why have the merchants turned their attention to the distilled article? The answer to this can be had without pursuing an extensive investigation into the economics of the question. It is simply this—the average run of farm vinegar is so inferior to the distilled product that the merchants cannot afford to handle it. The quality is so variable and the strength is so unreliable that the good housewife has learned through the repeated experience of having her pickles spoil not to ask for cider vinegar.
There is no good reason why this condition of affairs should exist which has resulted in placing a boycott on the farm product, but in the light of the facts as they actually exist, is not the consumer justified in taking this stand? There is no doubt that the synthetic article has come to stay, but this does not mean that genuine apple vinegar is a thing of the past. However, until we are able to produce as good or better vinegar on the farm and in the orchard and can guarantee its quality and strength to be reasonably constant, we have no right to ask or to expect the public to buy an inferior product or to help build up the industry by its patronage.
It is just as easy to make high-grade apple vinegar at home when one understands the different operations and principles involved as it is to make good butter or good bread. If the housewife knew as little about making butter and baking bread as the average farmer or orchardist knows about making vinegar, we should all forsake the staff of life and take refuge in the nearest sanitarium.
[Page 5]
Selection of the Apples.
What has been said above concerning second grade fruit for cider and vinegar is not to be construed as meaning rotten, wormy, dirty, or unripe fruit. Nothing is gained by such a practice and often all is lost. In the first place, it is impossible to cover up the flavor of the spoiled apples in the vinegar, and in the second place, when decayed and dirty fruit is employed, it is practically out of the question to control the fermentations in the cider upon which the quality of the finished product depends almost entirely.
There is no reason why apples which have merely been bruised should not be used, and where they are not too badly rotted, the soft portion can be cut out. Children are always glad to have a hand in cider making and this is just where their services will fit in nicely. Remember that many hands make light work and likewise clean, acceptable cider, and you will be surprised to see in how short a time the spoiled parts can be removed from the bushels of otherwise worthless apples.
The importance of washing the apples thoroughly with clean water before they go to the mill to be ground cannot be overestimated. There is bound to be a quantity of soil and dust clinging to the outside, particularly where the orchards lie along a public road and are clean cultivated so that the apples fall on plowed ground. This can be carried out very conveniently in an ordinary washtub, after which the apples should be allowed to drain before they are ground. One is always astonished at the amount of mud in the water after such an operation, even when relatively clean, hand-picked fruit is employed.
Let us see next whether all varieties of apples are equally well suited to cider vinegar making; whether a good cider apple is necessarily a good vinegar apple; and what constituent or constituents of the apple determine its usefulness for these different purposes.
In answer to the first question, it may be said that apples differ very widely in their adaptability to cider and vinegar making; some appear to have been created for this very purpose, while others would not do at all.