End of the Line

Chapter Twenty. Dan's Business

Chapter Twenty

Dan's Business 

Dan's first priority after his banishment was to make the cabin inhabitable. He soon realized however that he would not be able to complete the task before the onset of winter so his attention shifted elsewhere; to his chronic lack of cash. Hindered by the lack of transportation, he restricted his search for employment to the immediate neighbourhood. Eventually he obtained a job tending bar on Friday and Saturday nights in one of the taverns in Knowlton. He soon realized that his primary function was to keep a semblance of order in the run down saloon, evicting any patrons that stepped out of line. In his first few weeks on the job this led to several altercations as local Quebecois tried to prove their manhood by foolishly challenging the English giant. His fame soon spread, and the tavern gained a reputation as being the only orderly drinking establishment in town. 

In the course of his job, he noted that many of the locals liked to drink cider, either neat or in a mix with porter. He approached the owner of the bar and offered to provide him with cider at a price lower than that asked by the Abbotsford supplier. His employer showed immediate interest, but would not commit until he had tasted samples. 

Dan had no idea how to make cider, and after his experience with the bible thumpers up at the farm, he kept his project secret. Only Belle knew what he was up to. First, he sorted the harvested apples, removing any that were spoiled. The apples were quite small and the task of coring and cutting them into quarters or smaller pieces proved extremely tedious. The cider press was inoperable, so Dan had to juice the apples by hand. He did this by placing the sectioned apples in large, old, but clean, pillowcases that Belle had purloined from the laundry. Then with a wooden mallet he mashed up the fruit, squeezed the juice through the fabric, in to a large metal bowl. This proved difficult even for Dan's powerful grip. He then transferred the juice to bottles that he capped and stored in the cider house. The fermentation could wait until he obtained a supply of yeast. 

Two weeks later, after obtaining some champagne yeast, Dan returned to the cider house. He knew as he stood on the threshold that something was wrong. The smell of rotting apples pervaded the air. He stepped inside the shack. The bottles that had been so neatly stacked on the shelves lay in shatters, covered with bubbling brown ooze. Dan belatedly realized that the apples must have contained natural yeast. He started over. 

This time he transferred the juice to flasks that he stoppered with cotton wool. After five days, he noticed sediment forming in the bottom. Thinking this meant the end of the process, he siphoned off some of the clear liquid. It tasted sweet. He left a few remaining bottles of fermenting juice to see what would eventually happen. Returning a week later he found the flasks brimming with froth. Dan just wiped off the outside of the flasks, replaced the cotton plugs and allowed the fermentation to continue. When the frothing stopped, he skimmed off any remaining foam, bottled the juice, and stored it with the other samples in the cool of the cider house. These latter samples were no longer sweet but had a definite kick. 

The cider did not age well. As time passed, the liquid became cloudy and developed a definite vinegar taste. Dan mentioned this to Belle. She, from time to time, had worked with Mrs Maclean in the kitchen, and had watched her making apple juice. After extruding the juice, she always heated it to just below boiling then allowed it to cool before pouring it into bottles for storage. Maybe he needed to treat the cider in the same way. 

This crude pasteurization seemed to work. By the end of the winter, Dan had mastered the art of producing drinkable samples of sweet and dry cider as well as apple vinegar. Unfortunately, his final yield was extremely small and the ciders seemed to deteriorate if not kept below freezing. He still wasn't ready to supply the tavern.