Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/365

Rh more tough and less juicy than others, consequently requiring more grinding. Not more than 7 or 8 bushels should be put into the mill at once. They should be ground, till the kernels and rinds are all well mashed, to give the flavour to cider. Pour the cider from the mill into a press; press the juice well, then pour it into hogsheads. When it has done fermenting, and the time for this is very uncertain, rack it off into other hogsheads, let it settle, and then bung it down.

Fruit of every kind should be gathered in dry sunny weather, quite ripe. All home made wines are the better for a little brandy; though some persons never use any.

Dissolve ½ lb. hartshorn shavings in cider or rhenish wine; this is sufficient for a hogshead.—Or: to 2 table-spoonsful boiled rice, add ½ oz. burnt alum in powder: mix with a pint, or more, of the wine, stir it into the cask, with a stout stick, but do not agitate the lees.—Or: dissolve ½ oz. isinglass, in a pint or more of the wine, mix with it ½ oz. of chalk in powder, and put it into the cask: stir the wine, but not the lees.

Take 12 quarts of the best sweet wort, from pale malt, let it cool and put it into a 10 gallon cask. Take as much water as will be required to fill up the cask, put it on the fire, with 22 lbs. of the best lump sugar, stir from time to time, and let it boil gently about a quarter of an hour, taking off the scum as it rises. Take it off the fire, let it cool, pour it into the cask, and put in a little good yeast. It may, perhaps, continue to ferment two or three weeks; when this has ceased, put in 3 lbs. raisins, chopped fine; these may cause fresh fermentation, which must be allowed to subside; then put in the rinds of 4 Seville oranges, and their juice, also a quart of good brandy; at the end of three