CIDER. A fermented liquor made from the juice of apples. Cider is made in all the temperate climates of the world which are not sufficiently warm for ma turing the grape, and where the cold is not so great as to reduce the inhabitants to only the beer produe,d by a ferment ed decoction of grain. Cider is formed by grinding or crushing the apples when ripe, either in a circular stone trough by a stone roller turned by a horse, or be tween fluted or spiky, and afterwards between smooth rollers of wood or iron, driven by men. The apples, including the core and the seeds, being reduced to a pulp by crushing or grinding, the mass is put into a hair cloth and powerfully pressed ; and the liquor which rang from it is put into casks, where it is allowed to ferment, the casks being freely expo sed to the air in the shade • the progress of the fermentation is then carefully watched, and as the sediment has subsi ded the liquor is racked off; on the proper time being chosen for doing this depends the excellence of the cider. The best cider, other circumstances being the same, is that in which the fermentation has gone on slowly, and where the vinous fermentation has not gone so far as to be come acetous. The check to fermenta tion consists in racking off from one cask to another. Before winter the casks are removed to a cellar, and by the following spring the liquor is fit for use, or bot tling.
The value of apples to produce this beverage of good quality is proportionate to the specific gravity of their juice. M.
Couverchel has given the following table, illustrative of that proposition:— Juice of the green renette, queen apple (reinette verse) . . . 1,084
English renette . . • - • 1,020 Red renette 1,072 Musk renette 1,089 Fouillet ray6 Orange apple 1,086 Renette of Caux 1,060 Water 1,000 In November,2, 340 kilogrammes of apples (21 tons English, nearly) are sup posed to afford 1,000 litres (2201 gallons) of pure cider; and 600 litres of a small ci der made with the mare mixed with water and pressed. But many persons mix all together, and thus manufacture 1,600 Ii tree out of the above weight of fruit. In France, the fermented liquor, as soon as it is clear, is often racked off into casks containing the fumes of burning sulphur, whereby it ceases to ferment, and pre serves much of its sugar undecomposed. It is soon afterwards bottled. Average cider should yield 6 per cent. of alco hol on distillation.
Cider-apples may be distributed into three classes, the sweet, the bitter, and the sour. The second are the best ; they afford a denser juice, richer in sugar, which clarifies well, and when fermented keeps a long time; the juice of sweet apples is difficult to clarify ; but that of the sour ones makes bad eider. Late ap ples are in general to be preferred.
Frederick Falkener, in the fourth vol ume of the Royal Agricultural Journal of England, adverts judiciously to the ne cessity of the presence of alkaline and earthy bases, in the soils of all deciduous trees, and especially of such as produce acid fruits.