The Practical Distiller by Samuel McHarry (best book recommendations TXT) 📕

think less favourably of than that of dividing them.

During the winter, the north or northwest side of the house should be kept quite close, permitting the house to be lighted from the more temperate southward exposure. To calculate the window sashes to open by hinges, or to be taken entirely out in the summer, at pleasure, is in my mind advisable.

SECTION XII. ARTICLE I. On Wines.

Presuming this work may be rendered more desirable to farmers, from the introduction of some receipts for making domestic wine from the common hedge grapes, or such as are common on fence rows and on high rich grounds, and which are pleasantly flavored after receiving frost, and also for making cider in the best mode for preservation. I have extracted a few from various author's.

Receipt for making Domestic Wine from the Autumn Blue Grape.

About the latter end of September or about the first white frosts, gather the grapes which with us grow along old fences and hedges—pick all the grapes from the stems that are juicy, allowing two bushels thus picked a little heaped, to the barrel. Mash them well between your hands in small parcels, either in earthen pans, or some convenient small vessels—put them when mashed into a tub together, and add a little water so as to soak the pumice.... After stirring them well together, squeeze the pumice out from the liquor with your hands, as clean as you can—then strain the juice through a hair sieve. If the juice seems not all extracted from the pumice at one soaking and squeezing, put water to the pumice and squeeze them over again; take care not to add too much water, lest there should be more than the cask will hold. If after all the ingredients are added, the cask is not full, it may then be filled up with water. To the liquor thus prepared, add two pounds of good, clean, rich low priced brown sugar, per gallon, stirring it in the tub till all the sugar be dissolved; let it remain in the tub, and in a day or two it will ferment, and the scum rise to the top, which must be carefully skimmed off—then put the wine into a clean nice barrel—do not bung it up tight. There is generally a fermentation in it the spring following, when the grape vines are in blossom, 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 cider. Large earthen vessels might be made with or without glazing, which would be preferable to any wooden vessel whatever. When we compare this with the hasty American mode of making cider, it is not to be wondered at that the English cider so infinitely excels ours.

ART. III. The following is a very highly approved American mode of making Cider.

Take care to have every necessary utensil to be made use of in the whole process, perfectly clean and free from every foreign smell. For this purpose, before you begin your work, let your mill, trough and press be made perfectly clean, by thoroughly washing, and if necessary, with scalding water. The casks are another material object, and if musty, or any other bad smell, one end should be taken out, and with shavings burn the inside; then scrub them clean, and put in the head, scald them well afterwards, and drain them perfectly; when dry, bung them tight and keep them in a cool shady place until wanted for use.—The apples should be quite ripe, and all the unripe and rotten ones, leaves, and every other thing that can tend to give the cider any disagreeable taste, carefully separated from them. I have found from careful attention and many experiments, that it is a great advantage to the cider to be separated from the gross parts as soon as possible; for this purpose, I tried several methods: that which I found succeeded the best, I shall now relate, as by following it, I was able to preserve my cider in a sound state, though made in the early part of the season. I took a large pipe, of about 150 gallons, had one of the heads taken out, and on the inside of the other laid on edge, four strips of boards, two inches wide, and on these strips placed a false bottom, filled with gimlet holes, three inches a part. On this false bottom, I put a hair cloth, (old blanket or swingline tow will do) so as to prevent any sand from washing into the space between the true and false bottoms; I procured a quantity of coarse sand, which was carefully washed in repeated waters, until it would not discolor the clean water—then dried the sand, put it in the pipe, on the hair cloth, (coarse blanket or swingline tow,) about 9 inches thick.

Thus having every thing in readiness, I went through the process of making, as quick as possible, by having the apples ground fine early in the morning, putting them in the press as fast as they were ground; and then in sufficient quantities pressed out the juice, and put it over the sand in the cask, (having previously bored a gimlet hole in the side of the cask), between the true and false bottoms, in which I introduced a large goose-quill, stopped with another. The pipe was placed so high, as to admit of a cask under it, to receive the liquor as it ran from the quill, which, if rightly managed, will be perfectly fine, and being put away in a cool cellar, and stopped close, will keep well, and prove of an excellent quality.

This process is easy, and in every person's power to execute, as the liquor, by being cleared, from its gross feculences, will not run into that violent fermentation, so destructive to the fine vinous flavor, which renders good cider so pleasing a drink.

Query. Would not a quart of good apple brandy to each barrel of cider, made in this way, prevent any fermentation?

But it is generally believed that cider is the better for having undergone a fermentation, becoming then more active and light; cider that has undergone condensation, or has been boiled down until strong, has been found to keep sound some length of time, but it is too heavy and destructive to the appetite, cloying the digesting powers.—And by too frequent use, I fancy, will ultimately produce ague and fevers; and I fear, cider made according to the foregoing receipt, would have a similar effect, but in a lesser degree.

I would recommend after a due attention to cleanliness, in the apple mill, trough, press and casks, that the apples be assorted, and having been exposed to the air, under a roof or shed some time, selecting the sound only, that they be ground fine, and let stand soaking in the pumice twelve hours, and then pressed off, through a clean rye straw cheese (being the most common and convenient in the country,) and when flowing from the press, a vessel should be provided, with the bottom full of gimlet holes, in the style of a riddle, on which lay a coarse cloth, then a layer of clean sand, over which a parcel of coarse rye straw, and suffer it to filter thro' this vessel into the large receiving tub; the rye straw will intercept the coarser pieces of pumice, and may be changed frequently—This mode will rid the liquor of all the coarser pieces of pumice—then I would recommend that the cider should be placed in open hogsheads, such as are used for mashing grain in distilleries; those being raised about two feet and an half high on logs or a scaffolding, under a shade or covering—a spile hole bored near the bottom of each, so as to admit a barrel to stand under the spile—in this state, I would recommend it to stand until it undergoes a fermentation, carefully watching the top, and when the pumice is found to have risen, to skim it off carefully, then having previously provided sweet barrels, draw it off by the spile hole, adding from a pint to a quart of apple brandy to each barrel of strong cider, bung it up tight, and store it where the frost will not injure it. In this way, I presume it will keep well—and if the party be so disposed, I would recommend any bottling to be done in April, and during clear weather, though it is safe to bottle immediately after having undergone a thorough fermentation.

The following Receipt to make an excellent American Wine,

was communicated to the Burlington Society for promoting domestic manufactures, by Joseph Cooper, Esq. of Gloucester county, state of New Jersey, and ordered to be published;—which, from its extreme simplicity, and economy, shewing the convenience with which a very pleasant, healthful beverage, may be kept by every family in our country, is published in this work. And moreover, as it may have, in some degree, the happy effects of correcting the baneful and pernicious effects of coffee, which is so commonly used for breakfast in