VINEGAR.

Cider Vinegar.

Take 10 gallons apple juice fresh from the press, and suffer it to ferment fully, which may be in about two weeks, or sooner, if the weather is warm; and then add 8 gallons like juice, new, for producing a second fermentation; in two weeks more add another like new quantity, for producing a third fermentation. This third fermentation is material. Now stop the bunghole with an empty bottle, with the neck downward, and expose it to the sun for some time. When the vinegar is come, draw off one-half into a vinegar cask, and set it in a cool place above ground, for use when clear. With the other half in the first cask, proceed to make more vinegar in the same way. Thus one cask is to make in, the other to use from. When making the vinegar, let there be a moderate degree of heat, and free access of external air. The process is hastened by adding to the cider, when you have it, a quantity of the mother vinegar, as it is called—a whitish, ropy coagulum, of a mucilaginous appearance, which is formed in the vinegar, and acts as a ferment. The strength of vinegar depends on the amount of sugar or starchy matter to be ultimately converted into acetic acid.

Cheap Vinegar.

A supply of vinegar can be kept constantly on hand by retail grocers. Before you have sold out a barrel entirely of your regular stock, say two or three gallons, fill it up with 1 gallon of molasses to every 11 gallons of soft water. This mixture will become good vinegar in about three weeks—and can be treated in its turn in the same way. When less than a barrel a week is used, three barrels thus treated and used in rotation, will be sufficient to keep up a perpetual supply. If the barrels stand on end, there must be a hole made in the top, protected with gauze to keep out insects. If standing on the side, the bunghole must be left open, and similarly protected.