ossom, but racking it off just
before that season will prevent its working too much. If it is wanted to
be soon ripe for use, put a quart of good old brandy after it is racked
off, to the barrel, and give it air by leaving the bung quite loose.
This mode of manufacturing wine for domestic use, is convenient and not
expensive to those who have it in their power to manufacture maple
sugar. But the nice housewife or husbandmen of ingenuity, will, I fancy,
devise some more neat mode of compressing the juice from the grape--as
pressing it by the hand, would seem less cleanly, though the
fermentation generally cleanses sufficiently.
_Currant Wine_
Is managed in the same way. The same quantity of sugar is presumed to
answer--The juice is generally well strained thro' cloths, and when well
stirred, &c. with the sugar, and neatly racked off, is put by in a loft
to ripen, in sweet casks.
ART. II.
_Directions for making Cider, British mode._
The apples after being thrown into a heap should always be covered from
the weather. The later the cider is made the better, as the juice is
then more perfectly ripened, and less danger to be feared from
fermentation. Nothing does more harm to cider than a mixture of rotten
apples with the sound. The apples ought to be ground so close as to
break the seeds which gives the liquor an agreeable bitter. The pumice
should be pressed through hair bags, and the juice strained through two
sieves, the uppermost of hair, the lower of muslin. After this the cider
should be put into open casks, when great attention is necessary to
discover the exact time in which the pumice still remaining in the
juice, rises on the top, which happens from the third to the tenth day,
according as the weather is more or less warm. This body does not remain
on top more than two hours; consequently, care should be taken to draw
off the cider before it sinks, which may be done by means of a plug.
When drawn off, the cider is put into casks. Particular attention is
again required to prevent the fermentation, when the least inclination
towards it is discovered. This may be done by a small quantity of cider
spirits, about one gallon to the hogshead. In March the cider should be
again drawn off, when all risque of fermentation ceases. Then it should
be put into good sweet casks, and in three years from that time, it will
be fit for bottling. Old wine casks are to be preferred; those which
contain rum are ruinous to
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