A FEW IDEAS UPON RAISINS AND RAISIN-MAKING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10306, 13 March 1895, Page 2

A FEW IDEAS UPON RAISINS AND RAISIN-MAKING.

(From " The Year Book of Au6trslia,"by A. Molineux.)

"... The climate of the lower latitudes is not always to be relied upon for making raisins, and therefore artificial heat is generally resorted to. The grapes, as they are brought in from the vineyard, are placed in oblong wirebottomed sieves, holding about 401b of grapes, and fitted with handles. They are then dipped by two men in a boiling lye, mode from vinecutting aßhes, with au addition of 402 of common soda to each gallon of water. The grapes ate kept submerged for about 20 seconds and then carefully aud evenly spread upon the drying-trays. The dipping causes imperceptible cracka in the skin of Che grapes, through which the watery part of the sap escapes, and causes the grapes to dry in one-third of the time they would otherwise have taken. When they are about two-thirds dried the trays of grapes are placed upon racks in the drying houses, which should be built of adobe or pise\ and roofed in with a good thick thatch. Adobe is made oi mud missd with straw, either built up directly or first made np into blocks or bricks. Pise is simply dty earth placed between two boards and rammed hard ; a second tier upon the first, and so on until the walla ore high enough. The heat is conveyed to the room by means of pipas in the usual manner. A short time only is needed to euro the fruit, snd it is then taken out into the store to cool and "sweat." This is a peculiarity that can only be understood by experience—just in the same way that the operator tells by the peculiar brown colour of bis raisins thab they are dry enough. Previously to the sweating, when the fruit iB dry and cool, tha fruit is passed through an ordinary winnowing machine to remove the stalks and strips, and the cleaned fruit is packed in a heap in the cornor till it becomes moist or clammy. Tha boxes are then prepared by papering, and each one receives the proper quota of fruit, is nailed down, branded and labelled, and sent off to tha merchant. The operations for currants are exactly similar. . . . It is said that in Spain and other places where the best table raisins ate made, the growers go over the vines and cut the stalks of each suitable bunch nearly through when the grapes are rips, leaving the bunch suspended to the vine. By the oud of the season these buuehes are nearly ready for packing. They are extramely careful not to touch the bunches with their hands, as this would destroy the bloom, and each bunch is handled by the sfcalka. In drying they generally make a bank oE red clay sloping rather rapidly, so as to expose the bunches fully to the sun, and at night, as well as when rain threatens, they cover the back with boards. Some of the berries get detached even with tha greatest care, and these ate set aside for tha second or third class. The best bunches are carefully (elected and packed in small boxes, being lifted by the stems. However choics the bulk in the box may ba, the choicest and best bunches are put on top, with the bloom in perfect condition, and the whole is finished by laying a neat label, sometimes a chromolithograph, oa top." Of course the raisin and currant grapes are different from the wine grapes, and care must be taken at the outset to plant the right kinds of vines.