Green Spring Farm Apple Fermentation Tank (Site)

Here follows an excerpt from the Northern Virginia History Notes website:

Green Spring Farm's Apple Fermentation Tank
by Debbie Robison
July 25, 2006

SYNOPSIS
Across the lane from Green Spring Farm’s springhouse is a ruin that likely originally operated as a fermentation tank for Fountain Beattie’s apple cider, applejack, and apple brandy manufacturing. Beattie grew apples in orchards on both sides of Little River Turnpike and along the hillside leading to the springhouse and fermentation tank.

Fountain Beattie was formerly a Civil War lieutenant who rode as a guerilla-style raider with his friend, Captain John Singleton Mosby. After the war, Beattie was a government revenue officer who raided moonshiners, though he possessed his own government licensed still for distilling spirits.

John Mosby Beattie, Fountain Beattie’s son, noted that they had a large concrete tank for apple cider, jack, and apple brandy. The fermentation tank appears to be in new condition in a c.1900 photo; the whitewash is bright and clean.

When the Straights purchased the farm, the tank was a ruin, where all that remained were walls and painted beams that Michael Straight later learned was a brandy press.

SPACE FUNCTION
The Cider Makers’ Hand Book, A Complete Guide for Making and Keeping Pure Cider written by J. M. Trowbridge in 1890 was researched to provide information on contemporary cider making practices.

Trowbridge felt that the best apples for making cider were the Russet and Crab apples, though they were not the best table fruits. Apples mature through three periods: the growing, the ripening, and the sweating stages. The first two stages occur while the fruit is still on the tree, while the last stage occurs after the fruit is gathered. The sweating stage occurs when the starch in the apple is converted to sugar and is further beneficial because the volume of water in the apple is reduced due to evaporation.

Apples were harvested by shaking the apple tree so that the apples dropped onto a harvesting blanket that was raised off the ground with stakes. It was best, if there was no threat of frost, to leave the apples in small piles out in the open exposed to the air, wind, and sunshine rather than placed in large heaps or in closed sheds, barns, or bins where they would be subject to mustiness. The apples should have been raised from the ground on a floor of boards, cornstalks, or straw; and could have been protected from a light frost by covering them with straw or old newspapers.

After the apples had sweated, tests were performed to determine the correct mix of apple varieties to optimize the sugar to acid ratio. A saccharometer measured the proportion of dissolved saccharine (sugar) in a syrup.

There were various types of mills used for extracting the juice from apples and reducing the fruit to pulp. The larger manufacturers may have used steam-powered mills, while the family farm used a hand-operated mill. Alternatively, as was the case at Green Spring Farm, a press was used to extract the juice from the pulp.

Contemporary procedures indicate that apple juice was expressed:
"into large vats, or tanks, … where it is allowed to remain until the commencement of fermentation has thrown a tenacious, frothy scum to the surface. This is carefully skimmed off and removed as long as it continues to rise…"

Michael Straight commented in an interview that there was a brandy press at the ruin:
"When we got there the whole slope behind the house was dotted with very old and unproductive apple trees. And when we went down to the house by the river – which was not a house but just walls – we found within these walls we found very heavy and beautifully painted beams…It turned out to be a brandy press."

It is supposed that Beattie pressed the apple juice directly into the chambers of the fermentation tank. Fermentation involves a chemical reaction resulting in the release of carbonic acid gas. Thus the tanks could not be sealed and must, at a minimum, have allowed the release of the gas.

The partial below-grade location of the concrete tank provided the advantage of more constant and lower temperatures that would have resulted in a cider with less alcohol but more bouquet and flavor.

Green Spring Fermentation Tank Chambers
In an oral interview, John Mosby Beattie recollected a large concrete tank for apple cider, jack and brandy. Perhaps each of the four chambers was used to manufacture the different alcoholic beverages.

Following completion of fermentation, a process that converts saccharine to alcohol, the procedure must be halted or the result would be vinegar. Fermentation during the Beattie period was halted by Pasteurization, a method of heating the cider.

Apple jack was historically made by freezing apple wine (higher alcohol content than hard cider) and removing the water that freezes on the top, thus leaving a higher alcohol content beverage. Each day, less ice forms on the surface, until eventually no additional ice forms at that temperature. This process may have been accomplished in the fermentation tank during a cold weather season.

Apple brandy is made by distilling fermented apple juice (cider). Beattie is known to have had a government licensed still.

DESCRIPTION OF EXISTING CONDITIONS
The fermentation tank, now in ruin, measures 13’-6” square. The perimeter walls are approximately 10 ½” thick and are made up of varying sized cobblestones set in a mortar bed. The corners of the walls were formed with brick beginning about 1’-0” above grade.

The structure is nestled into the hill, 1’-0” above grade at the south façade and 5’-4 ½” above grade at the north façade. The top of the foundation wall, which was originally level, has crumbled in several areas.

The walls have a ½” finish coat of a concrete parging at the interior and exterior surfaces. Some whitewash remains on the parge. The structure is divided into 4 equal chambers separated by walls of the same construction and width as the perimeter walls. Archaeological investigations determined that the floor of the northeast chamber was constructed of cobblestone covered with a cement parge.

PRINCIPAL PHASES OF CONSTRUCTION
The fermentation tank appears to be relatively new in a c. 1900 photo. The top of the walls of the tank were level and were whitewashed on the interior and exterior. Cleanliness was necessary for the production of quality cider.

KEY INDICATORS
Oral history interviews note that the Beattie’s had a large concrete tank for apple cider, jack, and brandy. The 1890 book The Cider Makers’ Hand Book described the fermentation process occurring in tanks.

The structure at one time contained an apple press. In an oral interview, Michael Straight said that he was referring to the springhouse; however, the springhouse, in which he lived when he first arrived, had already been rehabilitated into a cottage and was not a ruin of only walls. The expanded and rehabilitated cottage appears in a 1937 aerial photo and on the 1942 Farrand landscape plans.

Green Spring Fermentation Tank Floor
Archaeological investigations determined that the tank had an impervious floor.


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Here follows an excerpt from the "Our Stories and Perspectives" website featuring articles of interest from the Fairfax County Park Authority:

Green Spring’s Mysterious Ruin
From the Great Sphinx in Egypt to prehistoric Stonehenge in England, many mysterious structures have stumped historians attempting to determine their origin and purpose. Green Spring has its own architectural mystery, which lies in ruin across the lane from the Spring House. It’s not an ancient monument, but the remains of a small cobblestone farm structure. Yet even modest vernacular structures can provide important records of everyday life. This one intrigues visitors and staff alike. Why and when was it built?

Nestled into the hillside, the thirteen foot square four-chambered structure is mortared cobblestone and brick with a thin coat of concrete. We’ve long referred to it as the “fermentation tank” because descendants of Fountain Beattie, who lived and farmed at Green Spring from 1878 to the early 1900s, described its use as a tank to ferment the juices of fruits grown on the farm.

Beattie’s 300-acre farm was a thriving concern with dairy cattle and orchards…. and a burgeoning liquor business! He operated a licensed still in the c.1830 Spring House, where he distilled fermented fruits into applejack and brandies. He also operated a cider mill. On September 12, 1895, the Alexandria Gazette reported: “Mr. Fountain Beattie at his farm in Fairfax county, west of this city, has a steam cider mill which is kept running constantly and farmers for miles around are taking their apples there to be ground into cider.”

At the time, most cider fermentation was done in wooden barrels. In his 1890 guide, “The Cider Makers’ Handbook,” J. M. Trowbridge suggests that American cider makers adopt the French fermentation method for champagne using “large vats or tanks…where such conveniences are at hand or attainable.” Beattie was enlightened and progressive and may well have decided to try this out in a four-chambered tank, with a different product fermenting in each chamber.

In a c.1900 photograph, the tank is in mint condition, its corners square and its walls smooth and pristine. In 1999, Fountain’s grandson Butler Beattie recalled: “My grandfather was much more interested in the future than in the past. He used concrete in the spring house at Green Spring Farm. I heard that was the first use of concrete in that way in Fairfax County and possibly in all of Virginia.” No evidence has been found of Beattie’s innovative use of concrete in the Spring House, but perhaps his experimental fermentation tank benefitted from it.

Yet it’s questionable whether Beattie built the structure from scratch for this express purpose. Its outdoor location and configuration weren’t entirely practical. So we wondered if he might have repurposed a structure that was already there. In 2010, we consulted archaeologist Dennis Pogue, then director of preservation at Mount Vernon and an expert in historical farm structures. Dr. Pogue examined our ruin and agreed that it could have been adapted for Beattie’s purposes but was more likely to have originated some time earlier…as a water cistern.

Cisterns were common in homes and on farms throughout the 19th century, providing collection and long-term storage of rainwater for domestic use, irrigation and animals. Early cisterns were simple, plaster-lined dugouts underneath houses. By the mid-1800s, many cisterns looked like our structure: large, semi-buried or above-ground tanks made from stone, brick and cement, with partitions within to filter out debris. Shapes varied, but some were square and flat-topped. Some examples have surviving fill pipes that delivered rainwater diverted from nearby roofs. (The source of water to ours is unknown.) Others still have iron bolts to attach a wooden cover, a necessary precaution to prevent drownings and to keep out pollutants. A vengeful neighbor might even throw an animal carcass into his enemy’s cistern or well.

We don’t know of anyone dumping anything nasty into Fountain Beattie’s fermentation tank, but in 1890 somebody did burn down his barn. Beattie’s second job as a revenue officer took him across the countryside to shut down illicit stills. A disgruntled bootlegger may have been out for revenge. The loss of the barn, along with stock and feed, put an end to dairy activities on the farm, but Beattie’s legal liquor enterprise flourished and our little ruin may be an inspiring example of adaptive reuse by this visionary farmer!

Adapting buildings for purposes other than those for which they were designed is meant to give them a new lease of life, but our ruin is deteriorating quickly. Remedial work is planned to help preserve what’s left of it. This will include protective fencing, a cover to keep out debris and re-pointing and stabilization of loose mortar. Analysis of the mortar may yield more information about the date of construction.

Interpretive signage will tell visitors as much as we know about it and we’ll continue to research its origin and purpose. It’s not a riddle on the scale of the Sphinx or Stonehenge, but our mysterious little ruin is still a carrier of the history of Green Spring and our community, our farming heritage and the ingenuity and resourcefulness of those who labored here.

Author Debbie Waugh is the Historic House Coordinator at Green Spring Gardens.