[Illustration: RYLAND’S FRUIT BOTTLES.
_Empress._ _Climax._ _May Queen._
]
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: LEE’S FRUIT BOTTLING BOILER AND FRUIT BOTTLES]
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.