As a child I well remember the traveling cider press that clanked to a standstill at the gate of my grandpar­ents' cottage. Its arrival was anticipated weeks ahead and most people had their apples ready, with the bar­rels and other things needed for the job of converting the apple into the drink of the countryman. I was too young to be able to remember all the details of those days, but I can recall that my grandfather used to com­mandeer every local child, not already employed by its parents, to help collect the apples, and woe betide any of them that ate an apple before the job was finished.

In a good year - as my parents have told me since -my grandfather would turn out as much as a hundred gallons of the best cider in the district. And nearly all of it, they maintained, he drank himself.

He used about fifteen hundredweight of apples of different varieties 'all shoved in together', and heaven knows how much sugar. If he used as much per gallon as we do at present for making wine, then it was hardly cider he made, but rather apple wine. No wonder his cider was known to be the best; for 'best' to the country­man's reckoning is the smallest amount that can knock a man off his feet. My father swore that there was not a man living - and they could drink in those days - who could drink a quart of grandad's cider and get home under his own steam.

I have never made cider, because I have never had the space to do it, and have been far too busy with wine-making. And, unfortunately, the recipe handed on to my parents was lost during the war together with a lot of other valuable recipes.

However, I have here a recipe which, I am assured by a friend, the one who collects rain-water, will make cider as good as the best. Experienced wine-makers will have no trouble with this method.

He maintains that, strictly speaking, there is no right or wrong way about amateur cider-making. Each home operator favors a slightly different method and each makes a good job of cider-brewing, while maintaining that his own method is the best. They use whichever apples happen to be available, not necessarily those that give the best results - usually a mixture of varieties that often includes too many sweet ones or too many of a 'sharp* variety. Nevertheless, they all turn out a really good drop of stuff to satisfy both their own personal taste and that of their friends.

My friend uses a press which belongs to a group who run their own cider-making circle; this spreads the ex­pense of both press and barrels over a number of users.

To make seven gallons of 'still* cider he uses one hundredweight of apples, the sweetest and juiciest he can get.

After pressing, the juice is put into a sulphured tub and three pounds of sugar are added to every gallon of juice. This is stirred until it is dissolved and then eight ounces of yeast are stirred in. The liquid is kept in a fairly warm atmosphere so that fermentation gets under way without delay.

After seven days' fermentation he samples the cider daily. When he is satisfied with the flavor and the alcohol content (which he judges by taste) he stops fer­mentation by adding sulphur-dioxide tablets. Three to each gallon is usually enough, but sometimes, especially if the weather happens to be warm for the season (the cider is usually made at the end of September or early October), one more may be needed.

If fermentation is allowed to carry itself to a natural conclusion the cider might well be anything up to 14 per cent alcohol by volume and therefore too strong to be drunk by the pint - or even the half-pint. By ar­resting fermentation when the cider tastes 'right' he gets exactly what he wants.

When fermentation has ceased he puts the cider into stone jars and leaves it undisturbed for three months. By that time it is crystal-clear. When this stage is reach­ed the cider is bottled and used as required.

To make a sparkling cider one would have to follow the directions given for making champagne on page 153.

For a dry cider, much less sugar is needed and fer­mentation is arrested when the required degree of sweetness has been reached. This is determined by daily sampling. If a very dry and very strong cider is required, add, say, two pounds of sugar to each gallon of juice and allow fermentation to carry on to its natural con­clusion. The cider will not necessarily be as strong as 14 per cent because fermentation ceases when there is no more sugar to be converted into alcohol.

If the cider turns out too dry and sweetening is neces­sary, this has to be done with sugar or golden syrup when the finished cider has become crystal-clear and has been siphoned into bottles.

Space is left in each bottle and some cider is made into a sweet syrup with sugar or golden syrup. This is then added to each bottle, and the bottles corked as soon as possible.

Care must be taken here, because if any 'live' yeast spores are present in the cider, the sweetening medium will give rise to further fermentation within the bottles. This need not result in a series of explosions: the added sugar might well be used up before the pressure inside the bottles became too great; it would mean that you would have a medium-dry sparkling cider, whether you liked it or not.

Don't throw away the apple-pulp from the press for this may be made into a delicious Spiced Apple Wine by using the following method.

Measure the pulp, and to each gallon add one quart of water and one pound of sugar. The sugar will have to be dissolved in warmed water before it is added to the pulp. To each gallon of this mixture add half a pound of raisins, half a pound of kibbled maize and two cloves. Then add the yeast, and proceed as you would with any other kind of wine.

Ales, Beers and Stouts

There is no need here for lengthy details of the brewing of ales and beers, for packets of dried malt and hops, and jars of concentrated extract of malt and hops, are readily obtainable from firms dealing in wine-makers' and home-brewers' requirements; and these are invari­ably accompanied by the fullest directions for brewing. The following, however, should be borne in mind.

All fermenting liquors are open to attacks by acetic bacteria and wild yeasts (see 'The Enemies', page 6). Home brewers of beers and stouts, therefore, must take the same precautions against these micro-organisms as home wine-makers do.

The risk of contamination when brewing beers, etc., is considerably lessened by the short period of fermen­tation - two or three days - and if the fermenting beers are covered in the same way as fermenting wines, they should be quite safe.

The greatest risk of contamination comes from uten­sils, bottles, etc. Home brewers must sterilize all uten­sils either chemically or by boiling, as I have explained for home wine-making.

Wooden fermenting vessels and closed casks - those in which the beer is kept - must be sterilized by having sulphur burned inside them. This is not an easy thing to do in a small space, so if you live in a flat it might be best to use only stone jars and stone fermenting vessels. Wooden casks, etc., must not be sterilized with liquid sulphur; the wood absorbs this and not only would the subsequent brew be ruined by the flavor of the sul­phur, but it is most unlikely that the brew would fer­ment at all, for excess sulphur will destroy the yeast organism.

Wooden casks and such-like may be effectively ster­ilized with a small piece of sulphur burning in a large spoon. The spoon should be attached to a cane and then led into the cask. And this job should be done out of doors.

I strongly advise all those interested in taking up home brewing to use stone fermenting vessels - those fitted with taps are best, for they allow the lees to settle below the level of the tap itself and the moderately clear beer may then be drawn off without disturbing the lees.

If a two-way tap is available, so much the better. This means that the tap can be turned to fill one bottle, and then switched to fill the next, which is held in readiness. By this means sudden stoppage of flow is avoided and there is no churning up of the lees, which so often takes place when the flow is suddenly halted. If you have ever siphoned wine off lees in a glass jar you will know how important continuous flow really is.

The skill in home brewing comes in deciding the best time to cork the bottles. And this each operator must decide for himself. Screw-stoppers are used, of course, and they must be screwed home when you have decided that fermentation is nearly over. Fermentation must continue long enough to charge the beer with sufficient carbon dioxide to put a head on top of your glass, but at the same time not so long that the bottles explode. The risk of this is so slight that it may almost be dis­regarded, for the amount of sugar added can only fer­ment for a certain time (depending on temperature), and by the time you have made, say, three brews, you will be quite able to decide the exact moment for screwing home the stoppers. You may cork too late the first time, with the result that the beer is a bit flat. Next time, you may screw home the stoppers too soon, with the result that when you unscrew them you have beer all over the ceiling. But you will find it surprisingly easy next time to decide the exact moment for screwing up.

Packaged malt and dried hops sufficient to make four gallons of brew cost about three shillings or three and sixpence. And it will make a drink equal to that costing one and three pence a pint in your local. As it is so cheap, the possible loss of the first brew will not be a calamity.

The amount of sugar prescribed in the recipes pro­vided by the supplier will produce a brew containing 2 per cent of proof spirit, and you can make all you like at this strength without a brewer's license. To be on the safe side, call your brews 'home-brew* and not by the proper name - 'ale', 'beer*, 'stout', or whichever you are making.

You must not sell your home-brew and you must not make it stronger than 2 per cent (it is quite a simple matter to do so) without a license: if you do, and the local excise people find out, it might cost you as much as fifty pounds in fines.

The risk of contamination by acetic bacteria and other of the enemies of successful wine-making and home brewing - slight though it is - is completely eliminated by the use of fermentation locks (see page 91). These also help to retain the carbon-dioxide gas so important to beers, and help the brewer to control the progress of fermentation.

This is all that need be said of home brewing, apart from adding that the home brewing of beers, etc., is undergoing a revival in this country and on the other side of the Atlantic. The export of British malt and hops - the best in the world - is a dollar-earner, and purchase in ready made-up quantities has advantages over the buying of loose lots and working it all out for oneself.

The beginner would do well to divide the first four-gallon packet he buys into lots sufficient to make four separate gallons: by the time you have used up the whole packet you will be quite experienced. If you do this, remember to use only a quarter of the amount of sugar prescribed in the recipe supplied with the packet of ingredients.

My grandfather, an estate blacksmith in the 'spread­ing chestnut tree' style, was a barrel-bellied block of a man with an immense capacity for good beer. He swore that there was no beer to compare with the stuff he could turn out in a converted pig-sty at the end of his orchard. If regulations controlling the strength of home­brews were the same in those days as they are today, then I am afraid he must have sailed pretty close to the wind. For, young as I was at the time, I well remember hearing how any unsuspecting visitor taking more than one pint invariably finished up under the table.

And I can remember it being said that my grand­mother could barter a bottle of wine for anything we wanted, from a chicken to a bushel of malt. She was famous locally for her wine; every visitor was regaled with it. And I recall how, sitting in her high-backed stump-leg wooden chair, she would listen to and agree with everything the vicar had to say of the evils of alcohol. I often wonder what would have happened had she had to answer the door while he was there, for in­variably, under her chair, hidden by the austere folds of her ankle-length black skirt, was a bottle of her best.

Both my grandparents lived to be over eighty, so there can be little wrong with home-made wines and beers.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...