Homemade & Commercial

Wine, Beer, Spirits, Cider & Mead Guides

Alcoholic beverages; most commonly beer and wines made at home. Brews made from brewing kits purchased at shops specialized in spirits. The Beer Pirate features homebrew recipes, equipment requirements, and commercial productions information; and all the best practices needed to make that perfect batch!

Whereas cider may be still (draught) or sparkling, true perry is a sparkling drink – that is, it is not made as a still or draught perry, though I can think of no reason for not making it as still perry if this suits the individual operator. The fact that it is ’still’ will mean that, strictly speaking, it will not be perry because it is not sparkling; after all, champagne would not be champagne without its sparkle. Nevertheless, those with an abundance of pears should try their hand at making perry either sparkling or still – as it suits them. But do take note of all I have had to say about sparkling cider in the chapter on cider making.

Perry may be made in exactly the same way as cider. Dessert pears are not needed. A mixture of pears; some sweet, some lacking juice and on the dry side, some cooking pears and in fact some of those little hard ones that children love to get their teeth into may all go in together. But where only one variety is available, a few from an outside source should be obtained and added, otherwise the perry will lack character. Where additional pears are not obtainable, a few crab-apples will do nicely-say one pound to every ten pounds of pears.

A dry sparkling or merely a dry still pear wine or perry low in alcohol – say 8-9% by volume is a nice drink.

Pears usually contain enough tannin, therefore none need be added – so put the tea-pot away. Acid will be needed; this should be added at the rate of a quarter ounce to the gallon of juice obtained. Where some water has been used to make a bit more of the juice, a little more acid should be added because in diluting the juice you will reduce the acid content.

The most common fault in an amateur’s cider is acidity. This is because most apples contain more acid than is needed for pleasant cider. Diluting the juice to lessen the acidity before fermentation usually results in a poorly-flavored cider. Balancing the acidity using acidemetric apparatus, is almost certainly beyond the scope of beginners because not only is expensive apparatus needed, but also some laboratory experience.

However, if a cider turns out too acid, some of the acid may be removed quite simply by anyone. The only risk is that of removing too much. Even this can be rectified, but this involves adding more acid. Better to proceed with caution and to get the lessacid cider you are after at first or second attempt. Now let us suppose a cider is only a little too acid. Removing a little acid is quite simple. Take a quart of the cider (a quart of each gallon); take a little of this quart and dissolve in this by stirring about a quarter ounce of precipitated chalk – from any chemist for a few coppers. When dissolved, stir this into the quart. Leave until the sample is clear again and then siphon the clear cider off the chalk deposit. Having done this, return the treated cider to the bulk. The acid will have been removed from the quart by the chalk, and this completely acid-free cider going into the bulk should be enough to reduce the acidity of the rest of it. If it is found that not enough acid has been removed, repeat the process, but with less chalk this time. If by accident, too much acid is removed so that you have a flat almost insipid cider, the remedy is to add either citric acid from a chemist or lemon juice.

On the skins of apples there are various strains of yeast and some bacteria. These get into the juice when it is in the process of being pressed from the apples. These yeasts and bacteria can start souring ferments and turn the alcohol into acetic acid vinegar. Boiling the juice will produce a cider that will never clear – though it will destroy the troublesome yeast and bacteria. Therefore, we must destroy the yeast and bacteria without boiling. Here again, Campden fruit-preserving tablets do the job for us.

Having expressed the juice, one Campden tablet per gallon is crushed and dissolved in a little warm water and stirred into the juice. Two may be used to make sure there will be no souring ferments, but if two are used, the juice should be stirred vigorously after one hour and then again after ten minutes. This will liberate much of the gas so that the yeast added to ferment the juice is not also killed as it is put in.

The gas produced by the Campden tablets is known as sulphur-dioxide or 5.02, This method of destroying unwanted yeast and bacteria is used extensively by both commercial and amateur wine makers.

All bottles and stoppers must be washed in a solution of sulphur dioxide made up by dissolving 2 oz. sodium metabisulphite in half a gallon of warm water. Half a pint of this is poured into the first bottle, then into the next and next and so on. When a dozen have been done this half pint is discarded. The bottles are then rinsed with boiled water that has cooled; they are then ready to receive the cider. Jars for draught cider are treated in the same fashion. The bulk of the sterilizing solution may be kept for further use. Best to use a glass-stoppered or rubberstoppered bottle for this. Plenty of chemists will let you have one for about a shilling.

Where there is no means of separating the JUICe from the pulp, it will be found that quite good cider may be made from fermenting the pulp. There will be some loss of juice if this is done because some will inevitably be left in the pulp.

The process is simplicity itself. One merely proceeds to produce the pulp as directed above, and instead of pressing out the juice, the whole lot is fermented. Sugar is dissolved in as little water as possible. This is boiled together and added to the pulp. The pulp is then measured and treated with Campden tablets as already directed. The yeast is then added and fermentation allowed to proceed for seven-eight days. After this, the cider is strained free of apple particles. The pulp should be allowed to drain. While this is draining, a sheet of polythene should be spread over the surface of the pulp and down round the sides of the vessel receiving the drippings. This should be tied in place with thin string or kept in place with strong elastic to prevent airborne diseases reaching it. Leave for two or three hours. Then put the strained cider into jars and fit fermentation lock. Do not squeeze the pulp too much.

One variety of apple alone will not make for a balanced cider. The chances are that it will lack flavour, body, and in fact, most of the characteristics of a good cider. Almost any sort of garden apple may be used but do use some sweet, a few sharp and, if possible a few dry sorts of apple, or some pears not over-loaded with juice. It would not be sensible to recommend any particular blend of apples simply because one will have to use those available; only those living in cider-growing areas will have the true cider apple at his disposal and he will already have someone at his elbow to tell him how best to handle them.

To select the right type of apple for the job would involve knowledge of the acid, sugar and tannin content of each variety, and hardly any amateur is likely to have such knowledge at his disposal. If he had, he would not necessarily know how to utilize it.

So, at first attempt, chances will have to be taken on just how the final cider comes up to hopes and expectations. But with a little experience gained in making a few lots, any operator should be able to learn how to blend the apples he has available in order to make the cider he is after. Alternatively, he can make several different sorts in small quantities and then blend them to get an improved produce as wine makers blend their elderberry, damson and plum wines. You would be surprised (if you are not already a wine maker), just how this making of small lots of varied, yet similar wines and then blending them makes for some really top-class products. This does not mean that the individual wines are not in themselves top-class products. It is merely that in a poor season one of these wines might disappoint. It is at times like this when blending with other wines will make that disappointing wine into something quite remarkable.

And so it is with ciders. Small lots may be improved by blending with each other, but a large amount of one sort if it is not up to expectations has to be drunk as it is. So use of your common sense will bring you very close indeed to making the cider you like at first attempt – even if it does mean blending two or three lots made with different sorts of different mixtures of varieties of apples.

Sugar

White household sugar is quite suitable, but very good results are obtained when golden syrup is used. Try this, for many people find this gives some character and flavor to a cider made from unsuitable apples. Demerara sugar should not be used; nor should other brown sugars. Either white sugar, which adds nothing but sweetness, or golden syrup, which adds both color and some little flavor, are the best to use.
If golden syrup is used, more will have to be used to raise the gravity to the required level. Stir in a little at a time, taking the readings after each addition until the required reading is obtained. Pound for pound, there is less sugar in syrup than in dry sugar itself, this is the reason for using more syrup than sugar.

Water

Many people find sugar additions difficult, or they fear that adding water will reduce the flavor of the cider. They therefore overheat the juice to dissolve the sugar, and thus dissolve or make active pectin in the apple, and as every wine maker knows pectin causes cloudiness difficult to remove. So let me make it clear that the use of a little water will not reduce to any appreciable extent the flavor of the cider provided the amount used is the absolute minimum needed to dissolve the sugar, this being about one pint to two pounds of sugar.

Put the sugar in the water and bring slowly to the boil, stirring frequently to avoid sticking to the bottom of the saucepan or burning. When sugar is dissolved, cool the resulting syrup and then stir into the apple juice. The procedure after this is the same as already stated.

Method

The apples should be washed in water, and even if a press is available, they will first have to be pulp. This is best done if they are put in an open tub and pounded with the end of a stout pole. Mincing small quantities is a good means of extracting the juice. Large quantities are a problem, but if you know a friendly butcher, he might be willing to mince them for you with his much larger machine.

Modern domestic fruit juice machines are ideal for small amounts of ordinary fruit, but are not suitable for apples or pears. One can overcome to some extent the problem of pressing to get the maximum juice by fermenting the pulp-pounded apple. This method of making cider is described separately.

When using a press, put in only small amounts of pounded apple at a time otherwise you’ll not be able to screw down properly. Directions are supplied with the different presses and because each is used in a slightly different way and the directions will vary with each press; for this reason I cannot give here general purpose instructions to cover each one. Minced apple may be strained through a strong coarse cloth and wrung out, that is, when all juice that will drip out has done so, two people may twist the cloth in opposite directions while the part containing the pulp is held over the vessel catching the juice.

Having produced all the juice you can, strain a sample as free as possible of particles of apple pulp and take the reading using a specific gravity hydrometer reading from 1.000 to 1.100 – the same as that used for home brewing. From this reading you will be able to see how much sugar the juice contains .and calculate how much to add to raise the gravity to give the amount of alcohol you want to make.

Having done this, the sugar is added (or syrup if this is being used). Dry sugar will have to be dissolved in a little of the juice warmed until the sugar is dissolved. Do not make juice hot otherwise a clearing problem may crop up later on.

Where only a gallon or so is being made and therefore comparatively little sugar being added, this may be dissolved in a little hot water – say half a pint and then added to the juice. This half pint is not likely to reduce the flavor of the juice to any great extent, but because it will reduce slightly the hydrometer reading, another ounce per gallon of juice should be added.

The type of vessel used for fermentation purposes will depend on the amount of cider being made. If ten or so gallons are being made an open barrel will be needed. But if it’s just a gallon or two a two-gallon polythene pail will be ideal – these hold a little over two gallons.

Having produced the juice and added the sugar, the amount you have should be assessed as accurately as possible or measured, for it is at this stage where we must destroy the yeast and bacteria in the juice.

To each gallon crush and dissolve one Campden fruit preserving tablet. Dissolve this in about an egg-cupful of warm water and stir into the bulk. Leave for a few hours, stir vigorously and then add your yeast. This adding of Campden tablets may be carried out before adding the sugar if you wish.

It is now time to add the yeast. A good all-purpose wine yeast is quite suitable, but when these are used, fermentation is rather slower than when one of the vigorous yeasts in granulated form is used. The granulated yeasts do not settle and stick hard to the bottom of bottles as wine yeasts do. But this is not important where a draught cider is being made. Dried wine yeast in tablet form may be started off as a nucleus as directed for reclaiming yeasts from commercial beers. The tablet is put into a small amount of water in which some sugar has been dissolved by boiling. When cool, the tablet is put in; in a few days the yeast will be fermenting. This should be prepared three or four days in advance of preparing the juice. Dried yeast in granulated form may be added as it is, as this usually starts fermenting within a few hours, whereas wine yeasts take several days to get going, and it is important not to leave the juice inactive for this period. Fermentation will be seen as frothing on the surface. After about ten days, the cider is transferred to gallon or two-gallon jars – according to the amount being made. Fermentation locks are then fitted. The use of these is included in the chapter on beer making.

When the lock has been fitted the cider is kept in a warm place until all fermentation has ceased.

This will be draught cider of an alcoholic content according to the amount of sugar used. It will also be dry.

Sweetening this or making it into a sparkling cider has been described in Cider Varieties.

Cider does not improve greatly on keeping. But it should be kept for three months at least. After six months there is never an improvement.

Not quite so easy to make as other sorts; the difference being the same as making draught and gaseous beers. In making sparkling cider one must make a dry cider first and then prime this with sugar as directed under Priming. The bottles for sparkling cider must be the strong screw-stoppered sort. If these are used, the draught, dry cider may be made into sparkling cider quite readily. But as most people want their cider crystal-clear the problem of removing the inevitable yeast deposit that will form in each bottle after priming will arise. As in beer making, if a good sedimentary yeast is used, this will stick to the bottom of the bottles so that all but a little of the cider may be poured off clear. I do not know who first said this, but he was absolutely right when saying: ‘The English drink with their eyes rather than their palate; they will drink anything provided it is crystal clear.’ How true, and how much time and trouble they would save themselves if they were content to drink ciders and other alcoholic drinks with just a haze in them. They will drink fruit juices as cloudy as a muddy puddle, but just because it has been seen to be crystal clear, it now seems that wines, cider, and the pale-colored beers must also be crystal clear. The faint yeast haze found in these drinks sometimes does not mar the flavor, only the appearance. If you cannot tolerate the idea of a yeast deposit in your bottles of cider, you may remove it, but this is not as easy as it sounds; though after some experience it can be done quite effectively.

The primed cider is put into bottles, the stoppers are screwed home and the bottles stood in a cardboard crate upside down. This allows for the yeast to settle on the stoppers of the bottles. A gentle twist from day to day will assist the yeast to slide down the necks so that when the renewed fermentation has ceased after about a week – longer in some cases – all the yeast has settled to about a quarter-inch-thick deposit on the stoppers. The bottles are then held upside down over the sink, the stopper of each is given a twist in the open direction and then back again at once. This action allows the gas to squirt out the deposit. You won’t do it first time, but if you are patient, you will learn to do it with practice.

Freezing is another method, but few have the facility, so there is little point in including details here.

This is the easiest to make because if just enough sugar is added to make the amount of alcohol required, the cider will turn out dry when all the sugar has been used up in producing the necessary alcohol. Therefore, all you need do is to allow fermentation to go on until it ceases and the cider becomes clear. It may then be siphoned off the deposit into bottles or into jars and used as draught cider.

Medium Dry, Medium Sweet or Sweet Cider

These are not really any more difficult to make than dry cider, but it must be borne in mind that to add more sugar at the outset in the hope of leaving some unfermented to sweeten the cider will only result in this extra sugar being converted to alcohol so that the cider becomes a high alcohol dry cider or rather dry apple wine.

As will be seen by those who have read the chapter on mead making (p. 124), up to two and a half pounds of sugar per gallon will be fermented out by the yeast – and this amount will produce 14% of alcohol by volume; much too much for cider. Therefore, the only way to make a medium dry, medium sweet or sweet cider is to add just enough sugar to give the alcohol required and to finish with a dry cider and then sweeten it to taste. But because this sweetening will give rise to further fermentation, we must preserve the cider, or in other words, we must destroy the yeast so that further fermentation cannot take place.

Using Campden fruit preserving tablets for this is the easiest way out of the problem. Having made the dry cider with the amount of alcohol required this will result automatically when the right amount of sugar has been used – so much in the juice and so much added – the amount of cider must be measured after sweetening to taste. To each gallon, crush and dissolve two Campden tablets in a little warmed cider and then stir this into the bulk. Bung down and keep in a cool place. This should be enough to prevent further fermentation, but if after a week or two, the bung blows out of the jar, similar treatment with a further tablet per gallon will be necessary. Keeping in a cool place is a great help in preventing further fermentation. This is because yeast likes warmth – indeed, it must have warmth to ferment well. But a cool atmosphere, the amount of alcohol present in the cider, together with the preserving qualities of the Campden tablets is usually sufficient to prevent further yeast growth.

Like wine and beer making, cider making is on the increase to such an extent that there are now available small cider presses for home operators. Since this can be used also for crushing and pressing large amounts of fruit for making wines it would soon pay for itself. I believe one firm of home wine and home brew supplies, retails an ‘assemble it yourself press’ for about $358.

Where it is planned to make large amounts of cider a press will be an essential, but where just an occasional gallon is to be made, a press – though useful – is not essential. Most home operators ‘knock up’ quite a nice drop of cider without a press and do it very often, merely by making small amounts – two or three gallons frequently – instead of twenty or so. Any apples may be made into a cider of sorts, but for true cider, only true cider apples are suitable and these do not grow in all districts. And, as with wines, the quality of the cider depends on the quality of the apples used. Since weather, soil, situation, the amount of rain or sunshine during the growing and harvesting affects the quality of the apple – mainly in sugar and acid content – it follows that cider made in one year will be better than in another, depending on the weather. Skill and knowledge which can only come from experience will assist amateur cider makers to blend apples and to make allowances for deficiencies of one sort or another. But all this need not bother beginners who will not be so fastidious as to insist on the very best at the first attempt. They will know better than to expect to be able to make a cider to satisfy connoisseurs the first time and will be satisfied with jolly good second-class or ‘everyday’ sort of cider.

Whether cider making is going to be an attractive proposition will depend on whether cider is the favorite drink of the operator or not. There is little point in someone making cider just because this book explains how to do it unless he knows in advance that he likes cider. Not everybody does; I like it sometimes as a long refreshing drink, but I prefer a good commercial or home produced beer. In winter, I drink a lot of my own wines.

As a child I remember the traveling cider press that clanked to a standstill at the gate of my grandfather’s cottage, and I can vaguely recall the urgency with which every local child was commandeered to help collect the apples. And I remember helping him with the pressing, though I cannot remember exactly how it was done. Then there was the transporting of the juice to the converted pig-sty he used for making the juice of the apple into the drink of the countryman. Some pretty good cider came out of that unlikely building, according to stories my late father told me – stories about men with reputations for having cast-iron intestines being flattened by just a couple of pints of ‘old Dad’s’ concoctions.

The principle of cider making today is the same as in my grandfather’s day and is, in fact, the same as it always has been. Cider making can be traced back to before the Norman conquest of this country. Before the first “World War, cider was made in almost every country cottage; every farmer made it for his laborers and in almost all ‘gentleman’s houses’ those nearly forgotten places where the illiterate sons and daughters of the working classes were employed for a pittance, and who, incidentally, had to appear, or actually were, grateful for the opportunity – beer was made on quite a large scale.

When I was very young, one heard of the generosity of the ‘gentry’ who might concede to their under-paid employees drinking half a pint of the cider or beer they had spent hours of sweat-labor to produce for their master. I recall hearing of how one young lad – obviously a budding scoundrel- had drunk the accumulated drips from a barrel of beer. He was dismissed on the spot with the loss of his ten shillings – one month’s wages. And according to remarks at the time, this ‘young criminal’ was fortunate indeed in having such a generous master, for he had lain himself open to a month in jail. But I suspect he escaped this, for the master feared he might be dubbed as mean if he had handed the lad over to the police. Such were the good old days and like a lot of other things from the past, you can keep ‘em. But not beer and cider; we’ll have as much of these as we can make.

There are over twenty million gallons of cider made in factories in this country and probably as much made in odd lots by home operators every year; quite an intoxicating thought. God knows how many apples are needed for that lot!

If cider making were not worthwhile for the amateur, production of commercial cider would double. This may be the reason for the commercial producers making such a variety of splendid ciders and advertising their goods on such a large scale they are doubtless trying to capture the market for that other twenty million gallons. They won’t do it, for not only can the amateur make a worthwhile cider, he can do it for half the price of commercially produced cider. If he grows apples, the cost is reduced by half again – he has only sugar to buy.

Those who live in cider-apple growing districts will know this well enough as those who live in cherry growing areas know well enough, so there is no point in attempting to bring the fact home to them. Those who live in such areas, would do well to find a grower and arrange for buying some of the crop annually. In some areas, growers will express the juice from an amateur cider-maker’s apples for him. In others, a commercial cider producer will often sell juice expressed from the firm’s cider apples to enable an amateur to make his cider with readily expressed juice.
All this being as it may it is not intended to explain how to make cider from readily expressed juice from a commercial press. Anyone with this God-sent facility at his elbow will also have neighbors with a relative working at the cider factory who will be able to tell him more about using the particular juice from the type of apple used than I could hope to. Each firm has a method to suit its particular apple, its retail trade and the people of the areas in which its products are mainly sold. And these will be a lot different to the next factory perhaps at the other end of the county or country.

My aim is to show the novice cider-maker how to use whatever types of apples are available to him. In this way he will make cider – not an imitation of some commercial product – but one peculiar to his particular needs. Furthermore, if he grows apples, he will be able to make a type or variety of cider quite unique. It will still be cider, but far and away different from the commercial product.

There is far too much of trying to ape the commercially produced these days. Wine makers, try to make wine (and do, incidentally) almost identical to commercial products. It’s the same now with beer and will, I expect, be the same later on with cider. But I hope not. And I hope copying the commercial will soon die a natural death.

A number of people will ask why I have said this when obviously if we can make wines and beers as good as commercial products it is a good thing. Up to a point it is a good thing and I for one have copied commercial methods and made wines identical to world-famous commercial products. But in doing so, we forget, or just overlook the fact that in making wines from ingredients found in the field and hedgerow we are making something quite unique compared with commercial products. Our ‘country wines’ while still being basically country wines are now so much like commercial products that they are no longer what they used to be country wines. They are better wines in every respect; higher in alcohol, of perfect clarity, full-bodied most of them, of good bouquet and splendid flavor. But I still feel that there is nothing to compare with the unusualness of the old country wines as I remember them as a youngster. And surely it was this unusualness that made country wines so different from the products we have turned them into. Anybody can go into the nearest pub and buy cider, but he will not be able to buy cider like the stuff he can make himself any more than a true country wine maker could buy a bottle of cowslip wine. So there it is. Copy the commercial and make something you can buy almost anywhere or stick to making something that cannot be bought anywhere or at any price.

Before making cider it should be borne in mind that to make it too strong is to make apple wine. Such would not be drinkable by the pint or half pint, but only by the wine glass. Cider is usually about 8%-9% of alcohol by volume, or around 14-15 degrees proof spirit, and this is plenty. A medium strength wine is only a little above this, so don’t spoil your cider and perhaps temper by making it stronger than this.

The safest means of making sure of not making it too strong is to use a hydrometer. The use of this is explained in the beer-making section. After the juice has been strained from the pulp, and water, if any is used, has been added, the reading is taken using the same kind of hydrometer as that used for beer making. The Specific Gravity and Alcohol Table, is quite suitable for cider. It will be seen from this that a reading of 1.070 will produce a cider of 9.2% of alcohol by volume – approximately 140 proof. This is plenty for cider. Anything stronger would be too strong. Indeed, a reading of 1.060 should be enough. If you want to make just a little drop of something stronger, take a look at the Specific Gravity and Alcohol Table in the chapter on mead making. This covers a wider range because mead is wine, which is, naturally a stronger drink.

It is unlikely that apple juice will contain enough sugar to make the amount of alcohol required, therefore, some will have to be added. Now, suppose you take the reading of the juice and it registers 1.040. You decide you want more alcohol than this figure will give you; all you have to do is to add sugar to give the reading you want which in turn will give the amount of alcohol you require. This will be readily seen by consulting the table already mentioned. Let us suppose you want to raise the gravity by twenty degrees on the hydrometer, all you have to do is to bear in mind that 2% ounces of sugar will raise the gravity of a gallon of juice by five degrees, 5 ounces being needed for 2 gallons, 10 ounces for 4 gallons and so on. Therefore, if you want to raise the gravity by twenty degrees in one gallon, you merely calculate thus: 2% ounces of sugar will raise it by five degrees, so to raise it by twenty, you must add four times 2% ounces – 9 ounces per gallon.

It will be seen then that a cider of any strength may be made merely by increasing the amount of sugar. But as already explained, over-strong ciders should not be the aim of anybody simply because, like beers, cider is for drinking in larger quantities than wines.

The variety of uses for cider in these hors d’oeuvres gives a good introduction to the remarkable versatility of cider in the kitchen. Fresh cider provides the sweetness in Sweet and Sour Plum Wings and a flavorful cooking liquid for Grilled Sausages. semi-dry cider not only balances the vinegar} but gives a subtle apple flavor to an otherwise very traditional Pickled Herring. The addition of dry hard cider to Chicken Liver Pate brings all of the natural flavors in this recipe to their fullest.

Grilled Sausages

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 8 Polish sausages (or other mildly spiced sausages) cut into ½-inch slices
• ½ teaspoon ground sage
• ½ cup fresh sweet cider

Melt the butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the sausage slices and brown lightly on all sides. Stir the sage into the cider and then pour the liquid into the pan. Stir the sausage to cover with liquid and simmer over medium-low heat for 10 minutes} stirring occasionally.

Cool and serve with cooked mustard sauce} following.

Serves 12

Mustard Sauce

• ½ cup dry sweet mustard
• ½ cup cider vinegar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Dash salt
• 1 cup mayonnaise

Place the mustard and vinegar in a jar with a tight-fitting lid, stir well, close and let the mixture stand overnight. Combine the mustard mixture, egg, sugar and salt in the top of a double boiler and cook over medium-high heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Cool the sauce completely and then stir in the mayonnaise.

Makes 2 cups

Once you have discovered the pleasure of fresh and bottled cider by the glass) it is simply a matter of time and curiosity until the satisfaction and enjoyment of cooking with cider becomes apparent. Whether fresh and very sweet or fully fermented and bone dry) cider is one of the most versatile liquids a cook can use. Since most recipes require the addition of some liquid during the cooking process) cider can be used in preparing an entire meal from the first course through dessert.

Cider is an important part of the regional cuisines of France and England. It is an essential element of such classic recipes as tripe a la mode de Caen from Normandy and Devon pork pie, for example. More important) though) is the general use of cider in a wide variety of meat, fowl and seafood dishes. Cider gives its own zest and flavor to many foods that are more often prepared with wine.

In order to simplify the use of cider in the kitchen, we have written recipes for three categories of cider – fresh sweet) semi-dry) or dry hard. Fresh sweet cider is recently pressed, not effervescent, and full of apple flavor. Semi-dry cider is bubbly, mildly alcoholic and fruity, but still fairly sweet. Most of the sweeter bottled ciders fall into the semi-dry category. Dry hard cider is bone dry, relatively alcoholic, not effervescent and rarely fruity when naturally fermented. Only the driest bottled ciders should be considered in this category for cooking.

Sweetness is the primary consideration for successful use of cider in cooking. The natural sugar in fresh cider averages 12 percent, which translates to two cups per gallon or four to six teaspoons per cup. Almost all bottled ciders have some sweetener added during blending. The sweetness of the cider on hand must be consistent with the desired sweetness of cider in a recipe or good food and good cider can be turned into a most unsatisfactory experiment.

Balance in the cider between sweetness and acid is also important to the cook. Most well-made cider, whether fresh or bottled, is high in acid. The sharpness of cider works to enhance the natural flavors in many foods.

Fruitiness is the third quality to consider for the most effective use of cider in the kitchen. Fresh cider often retains an apple flavor throughout the different stages of fermentation. Some bottled ciders also boast a distinctive fruitiness, which to American palates is somewhat bitter and even sour. However, many ciders, both fresh and bottled, have little apple flavor, which is a great advantage when adding cider to yeast breads, for example.

There are several different ways to prepare cider for use in the kitchen. American pioneers, especially the early colonists in New England, often boiled the fresh cider until it became a substance similar to maple syrup. Boiled cider was used to sweeten a great variety of desserts and beverages. It was the essential ingredient in a colonial favorite called boiled cider pie and a major addition to such regional specialities as Boston baked beans.

Since many hours of cooking were required to reach the [roper degree of thickness, boiled cider usually lost much of its natural apple flavor and became somewhat molasses-like from prolonged exposure to heat. A more satisfactory method of concentrating cider today is by freezing.

Fresh cider is mostly water, which means that most of the sugar, acid and flavor is contained in a relatively small amount of liquid. To obtain that concentrate, remove three cups of cider from a gallon of cider and freeze the rest overnight. When the cider is thoroughly fro-

zen} the jug can be opened and placed upside-down in a large bowl. The concentrate will thaw before the water in the cider, and most of it will be in the first five cups of melted liquid. It can be used to make several delicious desserts or can be mixed and blended with other beverages. Cider can be stored for several months in the freezer. Just be sure to thaw it completely and to shake before using so that the concentrate is blended back into the liquid.

Fresh cider can also be pasteurized to maintain a desired level of sweetness, although pasteurization is an inexact science, and results will vary depending on the cleanliness of the cider} the storage temperature, and the length of storage desired. Pour the cider into a sauce pan and heat to from 170 to 175 degrees for thirty seconds to a minute. Pour the hot cider into a bottle, cap} and invert the bottle so that every part of the container has been heated to destroy most of the organisms. Cider may be preserved at higher temperatures} but the flavor will suffer correspondingly.

Ideally, those who are just learning to cook with cider should keep a variety of bottled ciders and fresh ciders at different stages on hand. Fresh cider should be checked regularly so that the cook knows about how much sweetness, flavor and acid the cider contains. A supply of fresh cider gives the cook convenient control over the important characteristics in a fermenting gallon of fresh cider. Cider that has become too dry} for example, can be sweetened by simply adding a small amount of fresh cider.

Fresh cider not only allows the cook to control the quality and characteristics that are most important for cooking, but is generally much less expensive than bottled cider. But whether you cook with cider that is naturally fermented, or processed and bottled, we hope that you will find the results as tasty and worthwhile as we have.