Part 4
First level the soil and dig out holes for the corners large enough to admit brick piers 14 inches by 14 inches, or stones about 1 foot square; fix an iron dowel in the centre to receive the corner posts of the structure. Some provision for air (air-bricks), or an aperture covered outside and inside with perforated zinc, should be provided just above the ground line, and if over 20 feet long an extra foundation should be put in at the half distance to hold another support.
Make the main posts 6 feet long, 6 inches square, and prepare a hole in the foot to receive the dowel mentioned above. This will keep the framework firm. The main ground plate should be 4½ inches by 3 inches, and the top plate of the same size. Support and steady in the usual way with quartering 4½ inches by 3 inches, and when this is fixed, choose a dry day, and pitch, tar, or cold creosote the lower plates and all the woodwork 2 feet from the ground to protect from damp: this quartering should show an even outside face to secure the matchboard.
The cheapest material for the outside covering will be ¾-inch matchboard, and it may as well be fixed outside the rafters as well. Pitchboard 4½ inches by 1 inch, rafters 3 inches by 2 inches.
_Inside Bonds_ from one side to the other, 4½ inches by 3 inches. If stout they are useful to hold planks, on which baskets can be placed overhead in the roof, space. In order to receive the side thatch, a board is attached round the door-plates and at the corners, 6 inches wide, from the ground to eaves, in which the thatch is placed upright, and it is kept in position by lateral splines of wood 3 inches by 1 inch.
_The Roof Thatch_ may be 18 inches thick on the roof and 6 inches at the sides, and where it can be procured, carex or reed is strongest and most lasting, but it may be of wheat straw or heather. The thatch at the sides should be 6 inches thick.
Both an inside and outside door should be provided, and they must be made to fit closely to exclude draughts.
In order that one may readily inspect the fruit, windows of 21-ounce glass are inserted, and this saves the use of a candle at storing time; but outside shutters must be provided to keep the place as dark as possible, and a fruit-house is perhaps better without windows.
_Ventilation_ is provided by an opening under the apex of roof at each end, 18 inches by 8 inches, a small opening being left between the dairy shutters, which can be stopped by hay or moss in severe weather, and inside opening should be protected by perforated zinc, fine enough to keep out wasps and flies; another ventilator should be inserted about midway under the lowest shelf, to open from outside by a shutter, being covered inside by perforated zinc.
To protect the contents from rats, a ½-inch stout wire netting should be fastened to the matchboard outside beneath the thatch, so that an entry would be difficult.
_Inside Shelves_ on which to lay the fruit are readily fixed at the sides. First place uprights 2 inches by 1½ inch from the ground to the rafters, and then attach bearers 2 inches by ¾ inch on this to the quartering; 1 foot between the shelves is a very convenient distance, the lowest shelf being placed 6 inches from the ground, making six all up to the eaves. The shelves are made of ¾-inch matchboard, should not quite meet each other by ¼ inch, so as to gain a slight circulation of air; upon this place lengths of clean wheat straw, so that the fruit shall not touch the wooden shelves. In the centre of the fruit-house a narrow table with a raised edge made of lengths of matchboard, set on trestles, is useful to set up exhibition collections or to show special samples. Baskets of fruit can be set under this for early use.
_Floor._—The best possible floor is the natural earth—paved surfaces are apt to become too dry. The latest sorts should be stored on the lowest shelf.
_Names._—Provide slips of zinc 4 inches long, turn up one end 1 inch, at an angle of 45°, and then slit this angle three times, and bend it so that it will hold a neat card; the other end can be slipped under the straw.
From their fruit-house, constructed on these lines, Messrs. Bunyard have put up 80 dishes of fresh clean apples at the Temple Shows at the end of May.
_Pears._—If pears constitute the bulk of the store, the fruit-house should be rather drier and rather warmer than in the case of apples. In either case, the winter temperature should not fall below 40° F., and the summer temperature should not rise above 60° F.
A very convenient method of storing apples and pears is in flat trays, such as those known as Orr’s, of which Mr. White, of Bedford, holds the patent rights. The fruit is placed direct in these as picked from the tree, and the trays are carried to the fruit-house as fast as they are filled.
_Medlars_ should be picked in November, preferably after the frost has touched them. Their stalks should be dipped in strong lime, and the fruits buried in boxes of wet bran, no two medlars touching, and placed in the fruit-house.
_Walnuts_ should be removed from their outer rinds, and at once placed in an earthen jar. Cover them with three inches of sawdust, and place them in a cool cellar or fruit-house.
_Filberts, Cobs and Hedge Nuts_, for storing, should be gathered just before they slip their husks—though they must be so ripe as to do so at the slightest force. They should be dried before storing, or the husks will become mouldy. They may then be treated as advised for walnuts, or they may be placed in a jar and sprinkled over with salt.
_Gathering and Drying Herbs._—Herbs should usually be picked just before they flower, and, their roots having been cut off, they should be tied into bundles and quickly sun-dried. These bundles may then be tied in paper bags and hung in a dry room, or they may be powdered and bottled. Lavender should be cut as soon as the flowers are fully open. It should then be dried in the shade, and stored in a dry room.
THE BOTTLING OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
THE value of fruits bottled whole in such a way that they retain their natural form as well as their natural flavour is becoming more and more recognized, and fortunately science has kept space with the spread of this recognition, so that it is a perfectly simple matter for the owner of the smallest garden to bottle his fruit at the most trifling cost and trouble. The methods adopted have for their object the destruction of the germs present in the fruit, through whose activity fermentation and decomposition usually result, and the subsequent exclusion of germs from the vessels in which the fruit is being preserved. Glass bottles with air-tight stoppers are usually employed for this purpose, and several excellent varieties are in the market. In practically all of them, the top fits on the wide open mouth of the bottle and presses on a rubber ring. The tops are usually either held down by a metal screw ring or by a spring clip or wire bail. Of the bottles here illustrated, the Climax, May Queen, and Empress are manufactured by the Rylands Glass Company, of Barnsby; whilst the others are dealt in by Messrs. E. Lee and Company, of Maidstone. Messrs. Lee are also responsible for an admirable apparatus or boiling pan for sterilizing the fruit or other product. This apparatus serves not only for the purposes of fruit bottling, but is also serviceable for sterilizing milk and for certain other culinary purposes. Select ripe fruit, removing any that are unsound, and, having washed the bottles, place the fruit therein—packing the bottles full to the shoulder. Pour in cold water or cold syrup (from a table-spoonful to half a pound of sugar to the pint of water) so as to fill the bottles to the brim. Place the indiarubber ring round the ledge on the neck of the bottle, place the disc upon it, and loosely arrange the screw-top, if that method be adopted, as free outlet must be left for steam to escape. Take a pan, such as Lee’s sterilizing apparatus includes, and place cold water in it of such a depth as shall reach the shoulders of the bottles which are now to be placed in the pan. Heat until the water in the pan has a temperature of between 155° and 160° F., and this temperature is to be maintained until the bottles are removed. The bottles are to be lifted out singly and the covers at once screwed down, or locked by the spring or lever, according to the make of bottle. They should be cooled as quickly as possible. Apples and pears should be peeled, cut, and cored, and placed in cold water directly they are cored. All stone fruit should be stoned before bottling. The time for which the bottles should remain in the pan, at a temperature of 155° to 160° F., varies. Cherries, rhubarb, small plums, gooseberries and currants require about twenty minutes; tomatoes, half an hour; apricots, three-quarters of an hour; and pears, an hour.
Mushrooms and carrots may be bottled in the same way as fruit, but the bottles containing them should be left in the pan of heated water for an hour and a half. Green peas, asparagus and French beans, if first placed in boiling water for five minutes, may be bottled in like way, the bottles remaining in the pan for an hour.
_To make Fruit Syrups._—Mash the fruit (raspberries, currants, strawberries, blackberries, etc.), and allow it to remain, loosely covered, in a warm place for three days. Then pass the juice through a muslin strainer, and add a pound of sugar to every half-pound of juice. Boil until the sugar is dissolved. Cool and bottle, corking securely.
THE DRYING OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
BY means of an evaporator, or drier, a number of fruit and vegetables may be preserved by the removal of the moisture which they contain. Quite cheap evaporators are now to be obtained, such as the _Quorn_, of Messrs. Lumley, of the Minories, London. As the makers of the various evaporating appliances supply full instructions for their use, it is not necessary here to give more than the briefest summary of the treatment to be adopted in drying one or two typical fruits and vegetables.
The method of preparing apples to be evaporated is as follows:—
After the apples have been pared, cored, and sliced, they are placed in a tub of perfectly clean water, containing a small quantity of salt, which prevents oxidation and discoloration. They are then cut once vertically, and all bruises, specks, and parings trimmed away to produce the well-known apple-rings of commerce. These are placed thinly on one of the trays of the evaporator and entered at the lower end of the upper flue. Sometimes a little sulphur may be sprinkled on the furnace with great advantage for the purpose of bleaching the rings. The first tray remains in the position just mentioned until the second tray is ready to be placed under the first tray which will be in four or five minutes; the third tray is then filled in the usual manner, and placed under the second tray, and when the fourth tray is ready the first three trays are pushed forward in the flue, and the fourth tray takes the place of No. 1, and so on until the top flue is full. On the arrival of the first tray at the upper end of the flue, the contents are examined, and those that are sufficiently dried are removed, and the remainder turned over and returned down the lower and cooler flue. In many cases, one tray will hold the whole of the contents (which are nearly dried) of two or three trays, the empty ones being taken away to be again filled with fresh fruit. The degree of heat used for drying apples is from 175° to 240° F.; and the time occupied varies from two to four hours, according to the variety of the apple, but from two to two and a half hours is the usual time. Whole apples require a much longer time, eight to ten hours, according to size and variety.
Plums are dried in the same manner, except that they are placed in the evaporator at once. They should be graded according to size, and be uniformly ripe. During the process of evaporation plums ought to be removed from the evaporator once or twice for the purpose of cooling them and toughening the skin, and so prevent bursting, which they are liable to do, because the skin does not allow the moisture in the fruit to freely escape when first placed in the machine. As soon as the plums commence to shrivel all danger of bursting is past, and they may then remain in the evaporator until dry. The time required for plums is from six to ten hours, and the temperature requisite 240° to 300° F. Plums may be steamed for a few minutes and then split in half, thus entirely dispensing with the cooling process, and considerably reducing the length of time required in drying. 100 pounds of fresh plums will give about 30 pounds of dried.
Apricots are simply cut in two, the stones being taken out, and the fruit then dried just like apples, at from 240° to 250° F. They take from two to three hours to dry. From 100 pounds of the fresh fruit, 10 to 12 pounds of dried will result.
Pears for drying purposes ought not to be quite ripe. They are peeled, and either dried whole, or, more generally, are divided, and the seed-vessels cut out, the stems being left on. They then require steaming for eight or ten minutes, and are filled in from the bottom upwards. The temperature used is 212° to 240° F., and the pears will take five to seven hours to dry if divided, or seven to nine hours if whole. From 100 pounds of fresh pears 12 to 16 pounds of dried ones will be obtained. When preparing the pears before drying, the flavour will be improved if a little sugar be added to the water in which they are cooked, and to this may be put the juice of the removed seed-vessels and peelings.
Vegetables require, in addition to the peeling, slicing, or cutting up, to be steamed or cooked for five to seven minutes before they are dried. This is necessary in order to keep their colour and to prevent their becoming hard. When dried on a small scale the cooking in boiling water is generally sufficient. Like apples, vegetables are always filled in from below upwards.
French beans are cut into strips by a special machine, and cooked for a few minutes. A little soda added to the water helps to preserve their bright green colour. The time required for drying is from three-quarters to one hour. Temperature 150° to 160° F. 100 pounds of fresh beans giving 10 to 12 pounds of dry.
Peas require simply shelling and a few minutes’ cooking. They should not be quite ripe, and are laid thinly on the trays. They take from one to one and a half hours to dry. Temperature 212° to 220° F. 100 pounds of green pods will yield about 10 to 12 pounds of dried peas.
HOME-BREWED BEER
“Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale.”
“It illuminateth the face, warmeth the blood, and maketh it course from the inwards to the parts extreme.”
“A quart of ale is a dish for a king.”
“Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; ’tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen years old the fifth day of next March, old style.”
ONE of the finest pamphlets ever issued in this country is William Cobbett’s “Cottage Economy.” Even now it affords good stimulating reading, and might still serve as a wise protest against the pietistic and other cant of the times. The object of the little book was first to emphasize the sound doctrines that no nation ever was or ever will be permanently great if it consists to any large extent of wretched and miserable families; that a family to be happy must usually be well supplied with food and raiment; and that it is to blaspheme God to suppose that He created men to be miserable, to hunger, to thirst, and to perish with cold in the midst of that abundance which is the fruit of their own labour. The second object of the book was to convey to the families of the labouring classes in particular such information as to the preparation of food, the selection of clothes and furniture, and the general management of homes as his wisdom and sound judgment dictated. All through the book runs a steady stream of common sense far removed from the slushy cant so prevalent in works of the kind. “A couple of flitches of bacon are worth fifty thousand Methodist sermons and religious tracts. They are great softeners of the temper and promoters of domestic harmony.” “Oak tables, bedsteads, and stools, chairs of oak or of yew-tree, and never a bit of miserable deal board. Things of this sort ought to last several lifetimes. A labourer ought to inherit from his great-grandfather something besides his toil.” “Nowadays the labourers, and especially the female part of them, have fallen into the taste of niceness in food and finery in dress; a quarter of a bellyful and rags are the consequence. The food of their choice is high-priced, and the dress of their choice is showy and flimsy, so that to-day they are ladies, and to-morrow ragged as sheep with the scab.” A healthy attitude towards the plain and the wholesome and the genuine marks the whole book. Among other things ardently desired by Cobbett was the extension of the practice of the home brewing of honest beer, and he denounced the growing habit of tea-drinking with a vigour that time and results have shown was not misplaced. He looked upon tea-drinking as a destroyer of health, an enfeebler of the frame, an engenderer of effeminacy and laziness, a debaucher of youth, and a maker of misery for old age. And he could scarce find adequate vent for his impatience of what he rightly considered the everlasting dawdling about with the slops of the tea-tackle, or for his pity for the labourer who, instead of cheerfully and vigorously doing a morning’s work on the strength of a breakfast of bread, bacon, and beer, has to force his tea-sodden limbs along under the sweat of feebleness, and at night to return to the wretched tea-kettle once more. How different, says Cobbett, is the fate of that man who has made his wife brew beer instead of making tea!
It has been said and often quoted that there is good beer, and better beer, but no bad beer. The present writer’s experience is that there is beer so bad that few drinks can rival it for disagreeableness in taste and effects; stuff which should never be called by the same name as that transparent, brown or amber, vinous fluid, “bright as a sunbeam,” free from acidity, flatness and insipidity, which alone is worthy the name of beer.
To make good beer requires good materials, care, cleanliness, and method. Given those, failure should be impossible. The water should be good, soft water being usually to be preferred; the malt fresh and full of flour; the hops bright, yellowish-green in colour, with a pleasant brisk fragrance, and free from leaves and bits of stem; and the various tubs, boilers, and other appliances scrupulously clean. The several temperatures should be taken with a proper thermometer, and not guessed, as that way many disasters lie.
Spring and autumn are the seasons most suited for brewing, as at other times it is difficult to keep the temperature within the proper limits. Four bushels of ground or bruised malt are placed in a wooden “mash tun,” and twenty-two gallons of water at a temperature of 170° F. are added thereto. This is well stirred for half an hour, and then another eighteen gallons of water at 170° F. are added, and the stirring is continued for half an hour longer. Cover the mash tun for a couple of hours, and then draw off the infusion or wort through a hole in the bottom, protected by a strainer, so that the malt itself remains behind in the mash tun. Next add to the malt thirty gallons of water at 185° F. Stir for half an hour, let it stand for an hour, and then draw off as before. Next add eighteen gallons of water at 200° F. to the malt, stir for ten minutes, and draw off half an hour later. The three washings may be all mixed together if a good ale of average strength is desired, or the third washing may be separately treated so as to make a light table ale, or they may be all three separately treated so as to form three ales varying from very strong to very light, the former having considerable keeping quality. In any case, it is imperative that the minimum of time be lost in transferring the wort to the copper. It should be boiled for an hour and a half, and the hops (varying from one pound in the case of a mild table ale to six or seven pounds in the case of very bitter ales, three pounds being a good average amount) added, the boiling being continued for half an hour longer. The wort is then passed through a strainer into large, shallow tubs to cool, the depth of liquid not exceeding four inches. It is next poured into fermenting tuns (casks with one head removed do nicely), which must not be more than half-filled. The yeast (at the rate of a pint to the barrel of thirty-six gallons of wort) is to be mixed with a little of the wort which has been heated to 85° F. As soon as this portion shows signs of general permeation by the process of fermentation it is to be added to the main body of wort, which is to be at a temperature of 60° F. Stir it well, and then allow it to stand. As soon as a yeasty appearance is noticed in the head which rises to the surface, skim it off every two days until no more yeast appears—usually a week or more from the start. Then draw off the clear ale into casks, filling them completely, bung them securely, and place them in a cool cellar. It may then be kept for from one to twelve months, or longer, according to its quality and strength. Ale or beer should be tapped a week before it is required to draw any from the cask in order that it may have time to settle.
Finally, the ale-wife may be referred to the appeal of Dr. King—
“_O Girzy, Girzy! when thou go’st to brew, Consider well what you’re about to do; Be very wise, very sedately think, That what you’re going now to make is drink. Consider who must drink that drink, and then What ’tis to have the praise of honest men._”
CIDER