But I can assure them, the more
any liquor is rack'd, the more it is weaken'd. By often racking, it
loseth its body, and so becomes acid for want of strength to support
it.
Another gross error many people are guilty of, in keeping the bungs
out of the casks. Nothing is more pernicious to fermented liquors,
than their being exposed to the open air, whereby they lose their
strength and flavour. Take a bottle of wine, draw the cork, and let it
stand exposed to the open air for twenty-four hours only, and you will
then find it dead, flat, and insipid; for the spirit is volatile,
and has been carried off by the air, and what remains is the gross,
elementary part chiefly. A cyder-cask should never be kept open more
than fourteen or fifteen days, that is, 'till the ferment is stopt;
but so contrary is the practice, that I have known them very commonly
kept open three or four months. It hath been objected to me by cyder
and sweet-makers, that stopping up the cask so soon will endanger
the head being blown out or bursted; but their fears are groundless,
provided the ferment is stopt. The bottoms are quite confined, and
it is impossible they should rise, unless a forcing be added to raise
them.
The best time for bottling your cyder, is in the winter, or cool
weather, when it is _down_, otherwise you will hazard breaking most
of the bottles.
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