Cider press

“ A really Bacchanalian presence is the only one that should be tolerated in a cider-maker; the lean and hungry character is quite out of place amidst the fragrance of the crushed apples, and the generous liquor running from the press.
The cider-maker is always allowed a liberal quantity of last year's produce, on the principle of "thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn"—a principle that should always be recognized in the labourer's hire, and one which is too often forgotten by the public in its estimate of the necessities of the farmer himself. ”

“ Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable to the civilized taste, such at least as were frozen while sound, let a warmer sun come to thaw them, for they are extremely sensitive to its rays, are found to be filled with a rich sweet cider, better than any bottled cider that I know of, and with which I am better acquainted than with wine. All apples are good in this state, and your jaws are the cider-press. Others, which have more substance, are a sweet and luscious food,—in my opinion of more worth than the pine-apples which are imported from the West Indies. ”

“ With three men at work, it will turn 800 lbs. of apples into 60 gallons of cider in about two hours. The old press was not so quick or clean, but was more picturesque.
Cider-making is not a very pleasant sight; and I have known people say that they would never touch cider again, having once seen how it was made. A crushed apple is not a pretty thing at any time, and is none the prettier for being in company with several thousand others. However, cider-making is not quite as bad as wine-making in Southern Italy and Sicily. ”

“ After a first crushing or bruising, the apples are left in a great tub open to the air for a day. Then the free juice is drawn off and the rest left to dribble out, after tepid water has been added to hasten the process. It is then left to ferment very slowly in a temperature of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Small cider—the common variety, one might call it the vin ordinaire of Normandy—is a mixture of apple juice and river water; the muddier the better, it would seem.
A Norman Cider-press
The consumption of cider is apparently increasing throughout France. ”

“ After having racked your cider off from the dregs carefully, put in the whites of 6 eggs, battered light, and a scant 1⁄2 pint of mustard seed. Bung up and in 5 or 6 weeks rack it off again carefully from the dregs. Cleanse the barrel well and put in the same barrel—1⁄2 gallon of old rye whiskey will add considerably to its flavor. If your cider is very sour, add from 3 to 5 lbs. white sugar; to insure its preservation it should be strained through a cloth from the press. By being careful—cider put up in this way will keep for 5 years. ”

“ The cider harvest is in September. When the season is favourable, the heaps of apples collected at the presses are immense—consisting of hundreds of tons. If any of the vessels used in the manufacture of cider are of lead, the beverage is not wholesome. The price of a hogshead of cider generally varies from 2l. to 5l., according to the season and quality; but cider of the finest growth has sometimes been sold as high as 20l. by the hogshead, direct from the press—a price equal to that of many of the fine wines of the Rhine or the Garonne."
Old Apple Trees. ”

“ Most farms had large orchards about them, and many barrels of apples were stowed away in the cellar, but the larger part was made into cider. There would usually be several little cider-mills in a town, whose creaking machinery could be heard on many a cool autumn day groaning under its labors. The shaking of the apple-trees and carting the fruit to mill, and the taking 17 copious draughts of the sweet liquid through a straw from the tub that received it from the press, and then the return with the full barrels—all this had more of the frolic in it than real work, particularly for the boys. ”

“ It is unusual to find a farmer with an old-fashioned hand press, as it was found that these did not extract all the cider. They now have cider mills, to which the farmers take their apples to be ground and pressed by powerful machinery. ”

“ 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 ”

“ A very few of our readers may know how they made cider in those days in the new settlements, and a good many may not even know how it is made now. We will describe his cider mill and press. At the end of his orchard was a large white oak tree, more than four feet through; under this he had placed a large trough, dug out of a log; in this he put the apples. He then took an oak log about six feet in length, and six inches through, in the middle of which a hole was bored, and a round66 stick put through for a handle. ”

“ The other and more efficient presses have a wooden or iron screw for leverage, like the cider presses of the North, or the common standing presses in manufactories. These are more expensive, and are used only on plantations of considerable extent. The tobacco plant, when full grown, is four or five feet in height. ”

“ Men drink cider by the gallon,—by the gallon daily; cider presses are to be found at every squire's house, at every parsonage, and every farm homestead. The trade of a brewer at Baslehurst would seem to be as profitless as that of a breeches-maker in the Highlands, or a shoemaker in Connaught;—but nevertheless Bungall and Tappitt had been brewers in Baslehurst for the last fifty years, and had managed to live out of their brewery. ”

“ That this thawed-out Sunday barrel of cider would prove invariably a source of much refreshment, inspiration, solace, tongue-loosing, and blood-warming to the chilled and shivering deacons, elders, and farmers who gathered in the noon-house, any one who has imbibed that all-potent and intoxicating beverage, oft-frozen "hard" cider, can fervently testify. ”

“ The wood for these beneficent noon-house fires was given by the farmers of the congregation, a load by each well-to-do land-owner, if it were a "society-house," and occasionally an apple-growing farmer gave a barrel of "cyder" to supply internal instead of external warmth. Cider sold in 1782 for six shillings "Old Tenor" a barrel, so it was worth about the same as the wood both in money value and calorific qualities. A hundred years previously--in 1679--cider was worth ten shillings a barrel. In 1650, when first made in America, it was a costly luxury, selling for £4 4s. ”

“ To make good cider, fruit should be ripe, (but not rotten) and when the apples are ground, if the juice is left in the pummice twenty-four hours, the cider will be richer, softer, and higher coloured; if fruit is all of the same kind, it is generally thought that the cider will be better; as the fermentation will certainly be more regular, which is of importance. The gathering and grinding of the apples, the pressing out of the juice, is a mere manual labour, performed with very little skill in the operation; but here the great art of making good cider commences ”

“ Boiled cider, in our grandmothers' time, was indispensable to the making of a good "mince pie," adding the proper flavor and richness, which cannot be substituted by any other ingredient, and a gill of which being added to a rule of "fruit cake" makes it more moist, keeps longer, and is far superior to fruit cake made without it. Boiled cider is an article rarely found in the market, nowadays, but can be made by any one, with but little trouble and expense, using sweet cider, shortly after it is made, and before fermentation takes place. ”

“ As I sat gazing on the opposite woods, dark in the shadows of moonlight, I thought upon how very slight a circumstance often depends the fate of individuals and the destiny of nations. In the autumn of 1780, a farmer chanced to be making cider at a mill on the east bank of the Hudson, near that part of Haverstraw Bay called 'Mother's Lap.' Two young men, carrying muskets, as usual in those troubled times, stopped for a draught of sweet cider, and seated themselves on a log to wait for it. ”

“ Fruit-growers who look to cider-making “as a means of utilizing windfalls and small and inferior apples of cooking and dessert varieties not worth sending to market” should be warned that it is as important to the cider industry that good cider only should be on sale as it is to the fruit-growing industry that good fruit only should be sent to market. The juice of the apple is naturally affected by the condition of the fruit itself, and if this be unripe, unsound or worm-eaten the cider made from it will be inferior to that made from full-grown, ripe and sound fruit. ”

“ The shippers and consumers, therefore, avoid paying freight on the water in ordinary cider. In addition, the product, when properly barreled, because of its higher amount of sugar, keeps better than raw cider, which quickly turns to vinegar.
The process, as described by the department's specialists, consists of freezing ordinary cider solid. The cider ice is then crushed and put into centrifugal machines such as are used in making cane sugar. When the cider ice is whirled rapidly the concentrated juice is thrown off and collected. The water remains in the machine as ice. ”

“ Those who drink your beer will not fill drunkards' graves. They will close their career and march out of this life with perforated stomachs and a look of intense anguish.
Your method of making cider without apples is also frugal and ingenious. Thousands of innocent apple worms annually lose their lives in the manufacture of cider. They are also, in most instances, wholly unprepared to die. By your method, a style of wormless cider is constructed that would not fool anyone. ”

“ If such fruit be not good enough to send to market, neither will the cider made from it be good enough to place before the public. Nevertheless, it may furnish a sufficiently palatable drink for home consumption, and may therefore be so utilized. But when, as happens from time to time in fruit-growing districts, there is a glut, and even the best table fruit is not saleable at a profit, then, indeed, cider-making is a means of storing in a liquid form what would otherwise be left to rot on the ground ”

“ When we had got out of sight of Mount Vernon, a band of music came on deck, and played like anything, while we went down into the cabin, one party at a time, and ate dinner, which tasted delicious, I can tell you—to say nothing of the bottled cider, and such like, that kept the corks a-flying about like bullets.
It is wonderful what smartness that cider gives to a person. It sparkles through one like the first spring sap in a maple-tree. ”

“ This may be avoided by "racking," that is to say, the cider when made may be turned from one hogshead to another at intervals, whenever it shows signs of fermenting. This continuous "racking" will arrest the progress of fermentation as effectually as "matching."
The sweet cider is in far greater demand by the general public than that which is "rough," but a West Country labourer will hardly thank you for the cider that will be drunk with delight by the cockney. He prefers it "rough," that is to say acid, the rougher the better, till it almost cuts the throat as it passes down. ”

“ The common practice is next to sprinkle the pulp with 1⁄6th to 1⁄4th of its weight of spring or river water, and then to allow it to remain in tubs or wooden cisterns for 12 or 14 hours, during which time incipient fermentation commences, and the breaking up of the cells of the membrane takes place, by which the subsequent separation of the juice is facilitated. This plan, though general among cider manufacturers, is prejudicial to the quality of the future liquor; as not only is a portion of the newly formed alcohol lost, but the skins and pips often impart to it a disagreeable flavour. ”

“ It calls irresistibly for tobacco; in fact the true cider toper always pulls a long puff at his pipe before each drink, and blows some of the smoke into the glass so that he gulps down some of the blue reek with his draught. Just why this should be, we know not. Also some enthusiasts insist on having small sugared cookies with their cider; others cry loudly for Reading pretzels. Some have ingenious theories about letting the jug stand, either tightly stoppered or else unstoppered, until [Pg 14] it becomes “hard.” In our experience hard cider is distressingly like drinking vinegar. ”

“ Uncle Joe's ham-barrel came next, and was likewise recognized, carefully examined, and accepted by the board. Then two cider-barrels, which awoke an immediate and special interest.
For cider is the New England staple. Its manufacture and preparation are matters not to be lightly dismissed. Good seasoned cider-barrels have a value in no way related to cooperage. It is the flavor, the bouquet, acquired through a tide of seasons, from apples that grow sweet and rich through summer sun and shower and find a spicy tang in the first October frost. ”

“ Do you drink cider because you like it, or because you cannot afford better?"
"There is nothing better than Norman cider, except Cognac brandy," replied Master Pothier, grinning from ear to ear. "Norman cider is fit for a king, and with a lining of brandy is drink for a Pope! It will make a man see stars at noonday. ”