1903 The still-room by C. Roundell

The Bottling of Fruit

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 (rasp- berries, currants, strawberries, blackberries, etc.), 65 F