The American Practical Brewer and Tanner Part 4

process as follows: 60 Bushels of Pale Barley Malt.

20 Bushels of Pale Wheat Malt.

80 Bushels.

170 lb. of the best Hops, to be rubbed, salted, and steeped in one or more close vessels before mas.h.i.+ng, or the evening before brewing, still better.

54 lb. of lean Beef to be put into the copper with the worts, this will average two pounds to the barrel.

7 lb. of Rice, also, to be put in with the Beef.

1 lb. of ground Mustard to be put in with the Hops.

Cleansed 27 Barrels.

These worts are to be boiled one hour without the hops, in order to afford the greater facility of skimming the fat off the surface. After they have boiled the first half hour, the fire is damped, the boil left to subside, and the copper to be then carefully skimmed. (This points out the necessity of an open copper for this operation.) After which, the fire is started again, and the worts made to boil another half hour, and skimmed a second time in the same way; after which the hops and mustard are added with three gallons of the essentia bina, and then boiled for one hour and a half, as hard as the copper will allow without boiling over or wasting; the fire is then drawn, ash-pit and copper doors left open, the copper covered, and suffered to stand two hours, then struck off on the hop back. The temperature of the external air at the time you brew this quality of beer should not be higher than fifty degrees. Your first, or mas.h.i.+ng liquor, should boil, then run your whole complement into your mash tun, which when cooled down to one hundred and sixty-five, begin putting in your malt, one sack at a time, and mash for one hour and a quarter, stand one hour, run down as fine as you can, yet smartly; second mash one hundred and eighty-five, need not boil, but when brought to that heat in your copper, begin mas.h.i.+ng, and mash well for three quarters of an hour, stand two hours; boil, skim, and hop, as already directed. It is to be understood that the produce of these two mashes are to be boiled together, forming a clear length, when cleansed, of twenty-seven barrels; pitch your worts at sixty, previously mixing in a tub, fifteen gallons of your wort at seventy, with one gallon of solid yest, some time before pitching, which will give it time to catch before adding to the remainder of the wort. Twelve hours after another gallon of pure yest is to be added, and the tun well roused, then covered; the attenuation suffered to proceed to eighty degrees, but not higher. This mode of pitching worts might be successfully applied to other qualities of beer and ale, and will be found a safe and good process.

Filtering Operation.

(With a Plate.)

This simple operation, if my view of its effects on malt liquors, as well as other fermented liquors, be correct, will do more towards their improvement and preservation, than any thing hitherto attempted to be tried on them, after their fermentation has been completed; and for this plain reason, that it will at once disengage them from all fermentable matter, and render them transparently fine and preserving; thus immediately fitting them for the bottle, or putting up into tight casks, for home consumption or exportation, which will soon recover the beer or ale so treated from the flatness that will necessarily be induced by a long exposure to the air during the continuance of the operation; further to remedy which, I would recommend putting into each barrel, before the cask is filled with this beer, half a pound of ground rice, then fill, bung down tight, and in a short time briskness and activity will be restored to the liquor, whether intended for draft or bottle. This mode might, with equal success, be applied to every kind of fermented liquor, particularly to cider, wine, and perry, also to river and rain water. There are two modes of filtration, one by descent, the other by ascent; the latter operation seems to be the most perfect, though not the most economical or expeditious.

The preparation of the filtering medium is as follows. Your filtering vessel should be in proportion to the scale of work you intend operating on. The vessel containing the filter, should have the form somewhat of an inverted cone, in proportion wider at top than at bottom; over the bottom of this vessel should be placed a false one, about three or four inches distant from the other; this upper bottom should be perforated with holes, rather large bored, at the angles of every square inch of its surface; your fake bottom being laid, provide two pieces of clean thick blanketing the full size of the vessel, lay these pieces one over the other, over them a stratum six inches deep, of rather coa.r.s.ely pounded charcoal; this should be previously wetted with some of the beer or ale, till brought to the consistence of coa.r.s.e mortar; over this lay another stratum of fine clean pit sand, and so on, stratum super stratum, of sand and charcoal, till you have reached within six inches of the top; the cover of this vessel, which is also perforated with holes somewhat smaller than those of the bottom, is let down in the vessel to within one inch of the filtering medium, and in that position is well secured by b.u.t.tons, or otherwise. When you filter by descent, you run your liquor over this cover, which, by means of the holes, will be distributed evenly over the upper surface of the filter; and so you continue running on your liquor as fast as you see the operation will take it.

When you wish to filter by ascent, you introduce the liquor to be filtered between the two bottoms. As the fountain which supplies this liquor is higher than the filtering vessel, it will naturally force its way through the false bottom, filtering medium, &c., until it runs off pure at spout F into the receiver G. Those persons who live on the banks, or in the vicinity of our great rivers, such as the Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, &c., may purify their drinking water in this way, with great advantage to their health, and consequent increase of comfort to themselves and families. It is also well adapted to the use of those who navigate these waters, particularly such as proceed in steam-boats, where convenient room can be always found for such useful and salutary purposes, and to them I strongly recommend its use. It may also be advantageously applied to filtering rain water, which, to some const.i.tutions, may be more congenial than either spring or river water.

Returned Beer, to make the most of, and double its value.

Suppose, for example, you have one hundred and fifty barrels of this beer, (or in that proportion, adjust your mixing ingredients accordingly,) put the whole into one vat that it will fill; then take half a barrel of colouring, twenty-eight pounds cream of tartar, twenty-eight pounds of ground alum, one pound of salt of steel, otherwise called green copperas, with two barrels of strong finings; mix these ingredients well together, put them into your vat, and rouse well; after which, let the vat remain open for three days; then shut down the scuttle close, and sand it over; in one fortnight it will be fit for use; your own good sense will then direct its application.

To bring several sorts of Beer which have been mixed to one uniform taste.

example.

Suppose you have one hundred barrels of this description in your vat; take six pounds of porter extract, six pounds of orange peel, ground, one pound of heading, composed of half a pound of alum, with half a pound of green copperas mixed, six pounds of Indian bark; mix these ingredients with one b.u.t.t of finings, rouse your vat well, let it remain open three days, then close down your vat, and sand it over; it will be fit in one fortnight to use.

Finings, the best method of preparing them.

A very important object indeed, is finings in the management of porter and brown beers, and sometimes the paler kinds need their agency before they will become transparently fine: without this quality no beer can be acceptable to the consumer, and should be always a particular aim of the brewers to obtain. Take five pounds of isingla.s.s, beat each piece in succession on a stone or iron weight, until you find you can conveniently shred it into small pieces, and so treat every piece until you have got through the whole; thus shredded, steep it in sour porter or strong beer that is very fine, then set the beer and the isingla.s.s on the fire, and there let it remain till you raise the heat to one hundred and ninety, but no higher, keeping it, while on the fire, constantly stirring; then have your hogshead of clear beer ready, strain your dissolved isingla.s.s through a hair sieve into it, which you must take care to mix well; thus a.s.similated it will be fit for use in twelve hours.

It is worth remarking, that at the time of sending out porter or brown beer to your customers is the time to put in both your fining and heading, the jolting it then gets in the carriage will a.s.sist its fining more effectually, after it has rested a few days in the customer's cellar.

Heading.

Is variously composed, and differently prepared; what is here recommended will be found safe and effectual. Porter, or brown stout, when intended for draught, should never be sent out in the cask without fining and heading; the usual practice is to put your heading into your fining, and so both into the cask just before filling up and bunging down. The proportion for one hogshead of sixty-three gallons is three half pints of fining, with as much heading put into the fining as you can take up upon a cent piece; the heading here recommended is composed of equal parts of sal martus (or green copperas) and alum, both finely powdered and mixed in equal parts, so as to be intimately blended with each other before using. The advantages derivable from heading are merely apparent, giving a close frothy head to the beer in the quart or mug it is drawn in; supporting the vulgar prejudice, that such beer is better and stronger than that where no such appearance manifests itself.

Bottling Beer.

This is a branch of trade, that, under proper management, might be made very productive and profitable, whereas, in the manner it is now generally conducted, proves a losing one, occasioned by the great breakage of bottles, arising from the impure state of the beer at the time of putting into bottle. In consequence of this bad management, I have known a person, extensive in the trade, to lose on an average from two to three dozen bottles, as well as beer, on every hogshead he put up which happened to lie over till summer, or was bottled in that season; this loss was too heavy to expect much profit from a business so conducted; to obviate both these consequences, I would recommend beer, ale, and porter, intended for the bottle, to be carefully filtered through charcoal and sand, as directed in the operation of filtering; being thus purified from all its feculencies and fermentable matter, it will be in the best possible state for taking the bottle, in that mild and gentle way that will not endanger the loss of one or the other. It will further have the good effect of recovering the beer or ale, thus filtered, from the flatness that will necessarily be induced by that operation, giving the liquor all the briskness and activity that can be wished for. If beer, porter, or ale, be intended for exportation to a warmer climate than our own, the operation will be found particularly suited to it. Choose your corks of the best quality, and steep them in pure strong spirit from the evening before you begin your bottling operation; this precaution is essentially necessary to all beer intended to be s.h.i.+pped, or sent off to a warmer climate than our own, such as the East and West Indies, South America, &c. In more temperate climes, the simple precaution of filtering alone will be found to answer every necessary purpose, without steeping the corks in spirits. But suppose you bottle for home consumption, in that case you will naturally wish to have your beer, ale, and porter, get up in the bottle in as short a s.p.a.ce of time as possible, in that case you should pack away your bottles in dry straw in summer, in sawdust in winter, as your object at that season will naturally be rather to accelerate than r.e.t.a.r.d fermentation; here you should carefully watch its progress from day to day, by drawing a bottle from the centre of the heap, as nearly as you can get at it; place this bottle between you and the light, and if you perceive a chain of small bubbles in the neck of the bottle, immediately under the cork, you may conclude your beer is up in the bottle, then draw a few more bottles, and if the same appearance continues in them also, it is time to draw all your bottles from the heap they were originally packed in, and set them on their bottoms in a square frame ten inches deep, size optional; fill up this frame with the bottles of porter, or ale, so drawn in a ripe state, then get one or more bushels of bay salt, and scatter it as evenly as you can over the bottles, until the s.p.a.ce between their necks is nearly half filled; then another course of bottles may be sunk between these, with their necks down through the salt, so as to form an upper tier; thus treated, not a single bottle will be found to break from the force of fermentation, and the salt will answer for a fresh supply of bottles, as often as you may find it necessary to draw, or send them out, this quant.i.ty will answer your purpose for years, if you only keep it dry; another advantage, and no small one, derivable from a bottling operation conducted in this way, will be, that a loft will be found more convenient for the purpose than a ground floor, as less damp, and more likely to preserve the salt dry, which a more moist atmosphere would naturally dissolve. The practice here recommended may, with equal success, be applied to cider and perry.

Brewing Coppers, the best method of setting them.

This article, at a first view, may not appear to have much connexion with brewing, but, when attentively considered, it has a very material one, as also with economy, by saving nearly one half the fuel. It is a well-known fact in brewing, that the quicker and stronger the operation of boiling is performed, the better such beer will preserve, and the sooner it will become fine; although this opinion is combated by many, experience has proved it in my practice. I will suppose the copper you are about to set to contain two thousand gallons, the diameter of its bottom, five feet; let your fire blocks, if possible, be of soapstone, one for each side, and one for the end, of sufficient thickness and length, and full twelve inches deep, to the top of your sleepers; three courses of brick, sloped off from the top of the fire stone, with the usual quant.i.ty of mortar, and plastered over, will afford sufficient elevation for the fire to act on the bottom of the copper, leaving a s.p.a.ce of about eighteen or twenty inches from the bottom to the top of the sleepers; the breadth of the fireplace need not exceed twenty-six inches. When the copper is about to be placed on the blocks, by swinging, or otherwise, three feet of the bottom of the copper should be on one side from the centre of the furnace, and but two feet on the other; I would have but one flue or entrance for the fire to round this copper, which flue should be placed on the three feet side, twenty-four inches long at the mouth; distance of the brick work from the copper, six inches, to narrow to five at the closing; the first closing to be three feet high on the side of the copper; the second closing, to be two feet above that, leaving twenty-one inches clear flue, allowing three inches for the thickness of the brick and mortar; the throat of the first flue, leading into the second; twenty-four inches distance of upper flue from the copper, five inches closing into four and a half inches at top. A short distance above the top of your copper should be placed an iron register to regulate the fire, so contrived as to be handily worked backward and forward by the brewer, or the man tending the fire, as circ.u.mstances may direct. The furnace door should be in two parts, one to hang on each side of the frame, and so lap over a small round hole, with a sliding shut to it, should be fixed in one of these doors, to admit the iron slicer to stir the fire. The clear of the furnace frame need not exceed sixteen inches high, by eighteen inches wide. A copper so set and proportioned, by being kept close covered at top, might be expected to boil cold water in one hour and fifteen minutes, perhaps in one hour, and that with a great saving of fuel compared with the same sized copper set in the ordinary way.

Pumps, the best and most economical construction, also the most effectual, and least liable to fail or get out of order; how best treated in cold weather to prevent freezing, or when frozen to remove the inconvenience.

Freezing often r.e.t.a.r.ds the brewer's operations, and gives him considerable trouble and delay. To obviate these inconveniences, I would recommend having the rod of wood, instead of iron, so long as to work in a bra.s.s chamber, two feet above the lower box; if the pump be long, the rod may be made with joints of iron, and keys properly made, so as to have it in two, three, or four pieces, capable of being taken asunder; suppose the diameter of your chamber to be six inches, I would have the diameter of the rod five inches, which, being so much lighter than the column of water it displaces, will make the stroke comparatively light and easy to the horse, and not near so great a strain on the pump, delivering as much water or wort, it is expected, as will be found necessary for all the purposes of a brewery. But should it so happen, that any deficiency is found in the quant.i.ty of water and wort so delivered, it is only necessary to reduce the diameter of the wooden rod, from one quarter to half an inch more, and this will proportionably augment the quant.i.ty of water and wort delivered at each stroke. The water pumps, which in winter are exposed to the effects of the external air, should have a casing round them of boards from the level of the ground to half their height above it, which casing should be stuffed with dry hay, straw, or shavings, and well rammed; this casing should be water-tight round the pump, at the top, and a c.o.c.k placed over it on one side of the pump, to let off the standing water; then stuff the mouth of the pump with hay or straw, and so treated the remaining water in the pump will never freeze in the coldest winter.

But where these precautions have not been taken, and the charge in your pump becomes frozen, and you wish to clear it, get one quart of bay salt, throw it into your pump, stop the mouth of it at the top, and in the course of a few hours the salt will have dissolved the ice in your pump, and you may go to work; this is much more effectual and less troublesome than using hot water, which must be repeated in great quant.i.ties before it will produce its effect.

Cleansing Casks.

Trifling and simple as this operation may appear, it is still one that is highly important to the brewer, and requires minute and constant attention. Burning and steaming casks seems to be two most effectual modes of accomplis.h.i.+ng this important object. If your casks have been long in use, and thereby contracted any musty or bad smell, the best way is to open them; wash them well out with boiling water; set them to dry, and then fire them, after which, they may be washed out again with hot water, and, when dry, headed for use; every cask after emptying, that is not perfectly sweet, should be treated in this way, particularly when intended for stock or keeping beer. New casks that have never been used, are best prepared by steaming them, and a small boiler, containing from sixty to one hundred gallons will be best suited to this purpose. If you have tin pipes communicating from one cask to another, you can steam four or five at a time, and the work goes on expeditiously. Fresh emptied small beer, and single-ale casks, can be sufficiently cleansed by chaining them; after which, rincing them out with hot water will be found a sufficient cleansing for such casks, as they are generally but a short time on draught. The operation of chaining casks is performed by putting into them, with boiling water, a small iron chain, two or three yards long, and then tossing your cask several times round and round so as to get the chain to rub, and act upon every part of the inside head, &c., this will take off the yest, &c. The smoother and evener all brewers' casks are made on their inside the better, as they are thereby the more easily cleaned. Every brewer should be particular in recommending to his customers carefully to cork up every cask as drawn off-by this simple precaution they will be preserved sweet for months, while the neglect of it will cause them to get foul in a short time, to the great increase of trouble and expense to the brewer before he can sufficiently purify them. It is also a necessary precaution to keep casks, when brought home, from the action of the sun and weather, by placing them under proper sheds; where casks are supposed to occupy one fifth of the brewer's active capital, they should at all times be carefully looked after.

The following processes are given princ.i.p.ally for the use of gentlemen farmers, housekeepers, and others, who may occasionally wish, as well as find their account, in brewing their Mead or Metheglin.

the process.

For every pipe of mead allow one hundred and sixty-eight pounds of honey. On a small scale, take ten gallons of water, two gallons of honey, with a handful of raced ginger, and two lemons, cut them in slices, and put them, with the honey and ginger, into the water, boil for half an hour, carefully skimming all the time; use a strong ferment, and attenuate high, not under seventy-eight; in the boiling add two ounces of hops to the above ten gallons of water and two gallons of honey. In about three weeks, or one month, after cleansing and working off, this mead will be fit to bottle. This liquor, when thus made, is wholesome and pleasant, and little, if any, inferior to the best white wines. It is particularly grateful in summer, when drank mixed with water.

Ginger Wine.

Take sixteen quarts of water, boil it, add one pound of bruised ginger, infuse it in the water for forty-eight hours, placed in a cask in some warm situation; after which time strain off this liquor, add to it eight pounds of lump sugar, seven quarts of brandy, the juice of twelve lemons, and the rinds of as many Seville oranges; cut them, steep the fruit, and the rinds of the oranges, for twelve hours in the brandy, strain your brandy, add it to your other ingredients, bung up your cask, and in three or four weeks it will be fine; if it should not, a little dissolved isingla.s.s will soon make it so.

Currant Wine.

Take five gallons of currant juice, and put it into a ten gallon cask, with twenty pounds of Havanna, or lump sugar, fill the cask with water, let it ferment, with the bung out, for some days; as it wastes fill up with water; when done working, bung down; and in two or three months after it will be fit for use: two quarts of French brandy added, after the fermentation ceases, would improve the liquor, and communicate to it a preserving quality. Wine may be made from strawberries, raspberries, and cherries in the same way.

Yest, how prepared, so as to preserve sweet and good in any climate.

This operation, I apprehend, however simple it may appear, will have very important consequences, whether we consider it as a medicine (and in putrid fevers there is, perhaps, no better known) or a ferment. It will be well worth the attention of the physician, the brewer, the distiller, the merchant, and the housekeeper, whether resident in the temperate, or in the torrid zone.

Mr. Felton Mathew, merchant in London, obtained a patent for the above-mentioned object, which may be found in the Repertory of Arts, vol. V. page 73. Mr. Mathew used a press with a lever, the bottom made with stout deal or oak timber, fit for the purpose, raised with strong feet a convenient distance from the ground, so as to admit the beer to run off into whatever is prepared to receive it; into the back of it is let a strong piece of timber, or any other fit material, to secure one end of the lever, the top of which should work on an iron bolt or pin; when the lever is thus prepared, get your yest into hair-cloth bags, or, if not conveniently had, into coa.r.s.e canvas bags; when filled, tie them securely at the mouth, and place one bag at a time in a trough of a proper size with a false bottom full of holes, on this bottom should be placed an oblong perforated shape, about the form of a brick mould; in this oblong shape or box, without either bottom or top, is placed the bag containing the yest, on which the press is let down, and gradually forced, as the beer exudes, or gradually runs off; when no more liquid runs from the shape, the press is taken off, and the bag opened, its contents taken out, which will crumble to pieces; in this state it should be thinly spread on canva.s.s, previously stretched in frames, which will permit the heated air of the kiln to pa.s.s through it in all directions, and thus gradually finish the process to perfect dryness, which will be completely effected by ninety degrees of heat: at the commencement of the drying, it would be proper to pa.s.s the edge of a board over each frame, in order to reduce the lumps of yest, and thereby make them as small as possible. When completely dry, put it into tight casks or bottles so as to exclude air and moisture: thus secured, it will preserve good as long as wanted in any climate, and be found a valuable article of domestic economy, as well as medicine. When to be used, the necessary quant.i.ty should be dissolved in a little warm water, at the temperature of from eighty to ninety degrees of heat, with the addition of a proportionate quant.i.ty of sugar; the addition of sugar is only recommended when used to raise bread, but not when given as medicine; in the opinions of several intelligent men, this is considered the simplest and most effectual method of preserving yest, and, as such, is hereby strongly recommended.

To make a subst.i.tute for Brewer's Yest.

Take six pounds of ground malt, and three gallons of boiling water, mash them together well, cover the mixture, and let it stand three hours, then draw off the liquor, and put two pounds of brown sugar to each gallon, stirring it well till the sugar is dissolved, then put it in a cask just large enough to contain it, covering the bung hole with brown paper; keep this cask in a temperature of ninety-eight degrees. Prepare the same quant.i.ty of malt and boiling water as before, but without sugar, then mix all together, and add one quart of yest; let your cask stand open for forty-eight hours, and it will be fit for use. The quart of yest should not be added to these two extracts at a higher heat than eighty degrees.

Another method to make twenty-six gallons of the subst.i.tute.

Put twenty-six ounces of hops to as many gallons of water, boil it for two hours, or until you reduce the liquor to sixteen gallons; add malt and sugar in the proportion before mentioned, and mash your malt at the heat of one hundred and ninety degrees; let it stand two hours and a half, then strain it off, and add to the malt ten gallons more of water at the same degree of heat, and mash a second time; let it stand two hours, then strain it off as before; when your first mash is blood heat, or ninety-eight, put to it one gallon of the preceding subst.i.tute, mix it well, and let it stand ten hours; then take the produce of the second mash, and add it, at ninety-eight, to the rest, mix it well, and let it stand six hours, it will be then fit for use in the same manner, and for the same purposes as brewer's yest is applied; the advantages alleged in favour of this method are, that it will keep sweet and good longer than brewer's yest, and in any reason or temperature be fit for use.

Brewer's Yest.

May be generated in the following way: Take one pound of leaven, made with wheaten flour, such as the French generally use to raise their bread, dilute the pound of leaven with water or wort, the latter to choose at ninety degrees of heat, add it to your wort at the heat of sixty-five, supposing your barrel to be filled with wort at this heat; then add your leaven, diluted as mentioned, until your cask be full; to effect which, with less waste and more certainty, it may be better to put into your barrel the diluted leaven first, then fill up with wort at the temperature mentioned; after a day or two the beer will begin to work out yest, and will serve as a ferment for another brewing; thus, after three or four brewings, your yest will become so improved that it will be nearly equal to any brewer's yest, and the experiment in certain situations is well worth trying, when a proper ferment is wanted and cannot be otherwise procured.

Process for making and preparing Claret Wine for s.h.i.+pping; without which preparation such wines are considered unfit for exportation, being in its natural state about the strength of our common Cider.

Claret wine, before the French revolution, was the staple article of export from the great commercial City of Bordeaux, to every part of Europe. And, it may be presumed, will soon again rea.s.sume its wanted importance. The vintage generally begins, for making this sort of wine, about the middle or latter end of September, and is generally finished in all the month of October. The mode by which the juice is expressed from the grape, is by the workmen trampling them with their bare feet in a large reservoir or cooler, (not the cleanest operation in the world,) which has an inclination to the point where the spout or spouts are placed for taking off the expressed juice, which is conveyed to large open vats, that are thus filled with this juice to within ten or twelve inches of the upper edge; this s.p.a.ce is left to make room for the fermentation, which spontaneously takes place in this liquor. After the first fermentation is over, and the wine begins to purify itself, which is ascertained by means of a small c.o.c.k placed in the side of the vat, and takes place generally by the middle of February, or beginning of March, in the following year; it is then racked off into hogsheads, carefully cleansed, and a match of sulphur burned in each cask before filling; when thus racked off, it is bunged up, and immediately bought up by brokers for the Bordeaux merchants, and here it is made to undergo the second or finis.h.i.+ng fermentation, in the following manner: It may be proper here to remark, that claret wine is generally divided into three growths, first, second, and third; the first growths, namely, Latour, Lafeet, and Chateaux Margo, are uniformly rented for a term of years, at a given price, to English merchants, through whom, or their agents only is there a possibility of procuring any portion of this wine. The second growths are s.h.i.+pped to the different markets of Europe, North and South America; and the third growth princ.i.p.ally to Holland and Hamburgh. In order to strengthen the natural body of claret wine, and to render it capable of bearing the transition of the sea, the first and second growths are allowed from ten to fifteen gallons of good Alicant wine to every hogshead, with one quart of stum.[8] The casks are then filled up and bunged down. They are then ranged three tier high from one end of the cellar to the other, each tier about eighteen inches, with two stanchions of stout pine plank, firmly placed between the heads of each hogshead, from one end of the cellar to the other, until they have reached, and are supported by, the end walls of the building. This precaution is necessary to guard against the force of fermentation, which is often so strong as to burst out the heads of the hogsheads, notwithstanding the precautions taken to secure them in the situation during the summer heats. The wine cooper, who has the charge of these wines, regularly visits them twice a day, morning and evening, in order to see the condition of the casks, and when he finds the fermentation too strong, he gives vent, and thus prevents the bursting of the casks. The third, or inferior growth, is exactly treated in same way, with the single exception of having Benicarlo wine subst.i.tuted for Alicant in preparing them for their second fermentation, as cheaper and better suited to their quality; both these wines are of Spanish growth, and brought to Bordeaux by the ca.n.a.l of Languedoc: they are naturally of a much stronger body than native claret. Thus mixed and fermented, the claret becomes fortified, and rendered capable of bearing the transition of seas and climates. About the latter end of September, or beginning of October, the fermentation of these wines begins to slacken, and they gradually become fine; in this state they are racked off into fresh hogsheads carefully cleansed, and a match of sulphur burned in each before filling. After this operation, they are suffered to remain undisturbed (save that they are occasionally ullaged,) till about to be s.h.i.+pped, when they are racked off a second time, and fined down with the white of ten eggs to each hogshead; these whites are well beat up together with a small handful of white salt; after this fining, when rested, the hogsheads are filled up again with pure wine, and then carefully bunged down with wooden bungs, surrounded with clean linen to prevent leaking; in this state the wines are immediately s.h.i.+pped. Here it may be proper to state, that the lees that remain on the different hogsheads that have been racked off, are collected and put into pipes of one hundred and forty, or one hundred and fifty gallons each, and this lee wine, as it is termed, is fined down again with a proportionate number of eggs and salt. After which, it is generally s.h.i.+pped off as third growth, or used at table mixed with water. If at any time hereafter the method herein given of making and preparing claret wine for s.h.i.+pping, as practised in Bordeaux and its neighbourhood, should be applied to the red wines of this country, particularly those of Kaskaskias; it may be proper here to give a description of the mode in which these wines are racked, which will be found simple, effectual, and expeditious; I mean for the lower or ground tiers. The upper, or more elevated ones, rack themselves, without coercion of any kind. When you are about to rack a hogshead of wine upon the ground tier, you place your empty hogshead close to the full one, in which you then put your bra.s.s racking c.o.c.k; on the nozzle of which c.o.c.k you tie on a leather hose, which is generally from three to four feet long; on the other end of this hose is a bra.s.s pipe, the size of the tap hole, with a projecting shoulder towards the hose to facilitate knocking in this pipe into the empty hogshead, which is then removed a sufficient distance from the full hogshead in order to stretch the hose, now communicating with both. The c.o.c.k is then turned, and the wine soon finds its level in the empty hogshead; then a large sized bellows, with an angular nozzle, and sharp iron feet towards the handle, which feet are forced down into the hoops of the cask on which it rests, in order to keep this bellows stationary, whilst the nozzle is hammered in tight at the bung hole of the racking hogshead; the bellows is then worked by one man, and in about five minutes the racking of the hogshead is completed. The pressure of the air introduced into the hogshead, by the bellows, acts so forcibly on the surface of the liquor, that it requires but a few minutes to finish the operation; when the c.o.c.k is stopped, the hose taken off, and a new operation commences. This mode may possibly, in some cases, be advantageously applied to racking off beer, ale, and cider.

Brewing Company.

It is obvious to very slight observation, that the day is not distant when the brewing trade in this country will, as in England, become an object of great national importance, highly deserving the protection and encouragement of our general government, by freeing its produce from all duty, and thereby affording further inducements to the speculating and enterprising capitalists of this country to embark their funds in a trade that, above all others, is the best calculated to make them a sure and profitable return. In addition to the pleasing consideration that they are thereby combating and putting down the greatest immorality our country is chargeable with, namely, the too great use of ardent spirits, subst.i.tuting in their place a wholesome and invigorating beverage. The person, therefore, whoever he may be, who contributes his money, or his talents, to this useful and moral purpose, deserves to rank high among the best friends of his country.

Under these impressions it is that I beg leave to recommend to my fellow citizens the immediate establishment of a brewing company, with a capital of from thirty to forty thousand dollars, to be subscribed for in shares the most likely to be made up. With either of these sums a handsome beginning could be made, and the profits would in a few years encourage and justify enlargement to any prudent extent that could be reasonably wished for or required. In proof of the correctness of this opinion, I will beg leave to state a fact that has happened in my own time. When the mercantile house of Beamish & Crawford, of Cork, erected a porter brewery in that city, about twenty-five years ago, that establishment was the first of the kind in that town, and then stood alone, and notwithstanding that many large and rich ones in the same business have since been added, the original company have so progressed in fame and fortune, as to be now considered one of the first-rate breweries in Europe; and by the improved quality of their porter have, in a great degree, excluded the English from the West India market, their porter getting the preference there, as well as in Bristol and Liverpool, to which places large quant.i.ties are annually sent by that company. How much stronger inducements have we to form similar establishments in this country, where our excise on brewery produce bears no sort of proportion with that paid in England, and does not here exceed five per cent. on brewery sales. This being a war tax, it may be presumed it will not continue long. Our capacity to raise barley and hops, in as high perfection as in any part of Europe, is acknowledged; all then that is wanting is encouragement; afford this to our farmers, and they will soon convince you that no a.s.sertion is better founded. If so, the sooner a company of this description is formed the better for those who may be concerned; and for this plain reason, that notwithstanding the enormous excise chargeable on the raw materials and produce of the brewery in England, large fortunes have been, and are daily acc.u.mulating in that country by the judicious exercise of the brewing trade, as will appear by the following statement of the quant.i.ty of porter alone (beside other malt liquors) brewed by the twelve first breweries in London, in one year, ending 5th of July, 1810.

Barrels of Porter.

Barclay, Perkins & Co. 235,053 Read, Mecar & Co. 211,009 Trueman & Hanbury. 144,990 Felix, Calvert & Co. 133,493 Whitebread & Co. 110,939 Amery, Meux & Co. 93,660 Combe & Co. 85,150 Brown & Perry. 84,475 G.o.dwin, Skinner & Co. 74,223 Elliot & Co. 57,851 Taylor. 54,510 Cloyer & Co. 41,590 Total quant.i.ty of Barrels of Porter, 1,326,943 NOTICE.

The author informs those persons who may feel disposed to engage in the brewing and malting trades, that he can furnish them with ground plans, and sections of elevation, both of breweries and malt houses, on different scales, whether intended to be erected together, or separately, as will be found to unite, economy, convenience, and effect, joined to a considerable saving to those who are not themselves judges of such erections, or how they should be disposed. An experience of twenty-five years in both businesses, accompanied by a diligent and attentive practice, justifies these a.s.sertions.

His terms will be found reasonable, and all letters (post paid) addressed to Joseph Coppinger, 193 Duane-street, New-York, will receive attention.

A few copies of this work may be had by applying as above; but any number may be had at 45 John-street.

TANNING.

The following is the French mode of tanning all kinds of leather in a short time, highly important to the manufacturers of leather in this country, as it points out a secure and profitable mode of turning their capital twelve or thirteen times in a year, instead of once.

Was.h.i.+ng Hides.

The best method of was.h.i.+ng hides is to stretch them in a frame, and place them, thus stretched, in running water. If running water cannot be conveniently had, still water can be made to answer by frequent stirrings and agitations; the remainder of the operation of cleansing is performed as in the common way.

On taking off the Hair.

Begin by shaking some lime in a pit, to which put a great quant.i.ty of water, then stir this water well, that it may become saturated with the lime, then place your hides in the pit perpendicularly; for this purpose, several wooden poles should be fixed across the pit; to these poles the hides are to be fastened with strings at proper distances, each hide being first cut in two; whilst the hides were thus placed in the lime water, the lime itself, which had deposited on the bottom of the pit, was frequently stirred up to increase the strength of the water, and to make it more operative; the hair thus treated, will, in about eight days, come off the hide with great ease. A shorter and a better method may effect this purpose in two days; that is, to plunge the hides, after being washed and cleaned, into a solution of tan, which (having been already used) contains no longer any of the tanning principle, mixed with a five hundredth, or even a thousandth part of the oil of vitriol, commonly called sulphuric acid; this operation not only takes off the hair, but raises and swells the hide; as, in the old way, is generally effected by barley sourings. However, further swelling and raising is necessary, and the hides should again be plunged in another quant.i.ty of spent tan-water mixed with the one thousandth part of the oil of vitriol, and thus steeped a second time; their swelling and raising will be completed in about forty-eight hours; after this operation the hides will acquire a yellow colour, even to the interior part of their substance. To determine if the swelling and raising be sufficiently completed, let one of the corners of the hide be cut, and if it is in a proper state there will not appear any white streak in the middle, but the hide throughout its whole substance will have acquired a yellow colour, and semi-transparent appearance. Mr. S-- is of opinion, that swelling and raising hides is not necessary, and that the hides tanned without this operation are less permeable to water. On tanning on the new principle, as practised by Mr. S--, he places several rows of casks on stillings sufficiently elevated above the ground to place a can or tub under them; these casks were filled with fresh finely ground tan, then a certain quant.i.ty of water was poured into the first of them, which water, as it ran through the tan, exhausted and carried off the soluble part, and as fast as it ran into the vessels below, was taken away and poured on the second cask, and so on successively until the solution was sufficiently saturated, and thus it may have been brought to ten or twelve degrees of the arometer for salts. In order to exhaust the tan of the first cask, Mr. S-- continued pouring water on the first cask until it ran off clear; at which time the tan was deprived of its soluble part; these liquors, as it may be easily conceived, were carefully kept for future operations; large wooden vats are considered the best sort of vessels for holding this solution, as well as for making and preparing it; hogsheads, on a small scale, may be made to answer. It is particularly in the use of this solution that Mr. S--'s method consists; the quickness with which the solution acts is truly astonis.h.i.+ng, and when we see it, there is cause of surprise in thinking why it was not found out before. As soon as the hides are taken out of the water, impregnated with sulphuric acid, Mr. S-- puts them into a weak solution of tan, in which he leaves them for the s.p.a.ce of one or two hours; he afterwards plunges them into other solutions of tan, more or less charged with the tanning principle, in proportion to their strength, so that in the experiments at which we were present, some heavy hides were tanned in six or eight days, others in twenty and twenty-five days. In placing the hides in the solutions, some precautions are necessary; the hides should be suspended on a wheel, or in a frame where they should be stretched, and placed one inch apart, so as to admit the solution freely about them; Mr. S-- recommends cutting off the head and the neck of the hide, and a slip down each side, in which slip the feet and belly part are to be comprehended; and the circ.u.mstance which determines Mr. S-- to cut the hide in this manner is, that the feet, and the parts that are near the belly, are more spongy and more easily penetrated by the tan; and as they produce leather of an inferior quality they may be more advantageously tanned separately, than put promiscuously into the solutions of tan with the rest. The remaining part of the hide is to be divided into two or more parts or pieces, so as to be easily placed in the vats or casks.

Drying the Hides.

The hides, when taken out of the solution of tan, must be dried with the usual precautions, that is to say, so slowly, that the skin does not shrink on the flesh side. With respect to thinner hides, for the upper leather of shoes, Mr. S-- begins by was.h.i.+ng and taking off the flesh in the manner already described, or, as is done in the common way for strong soal leather; he then takes off the hair by means of clear lime-water; he does not make them undergo the operation of swelling, but puts them immediately into weak solutions of tan, the strength of which he gradually increases, but without ever bringing it to the degree of contraction, which he gives it when it is to be used in tanning thick leather; two, three, or four days, are enough for tanning the thinner kind of leather. Leather which is not sufficiently impregnated with the tanning principle, is generally known by a white speck or streak, which is observable in the middle of its substance. We can affirm that those hides which were tanned in our presence, in a few days, were completely tanned, as the above mentioned white streak was not perceivable; we may also add, that Mr. S--'s method has the advantage of affording the opportunity of observing and examining, from time to time, the progress of the operation; for this purpose nothing more is necessary but to take a slip off the hide out of the vat, and cut off a corner of it, the white streak already spoken of will appear more or less thick, until the tanning is completed; it has been generally supposed, that the tan in the tanpits had no other effect upon the leather than that of hardening and bracing the fibres of the skin, which has been relaxed by the preliminary of tanning. Mr. S--, however, examined the operation more closely, and discovered that there existed in the tan a principle which was soluble in water, by which the tanning was brought about. That this principle afterwards became fixed in the leather in consequence of a particular combination between the said principle and the skin; and this combination produced a substance that was not soluble in water; all this has been demonstrated by Mr. S--, in the most evident manner. It is well known that if leather, which has not been tanned, is boiled in water, it is in a short time almost entirely dissolved therein. This solution, by being concentrated, produces a jelly, or size, which, by farther evaporation, and being dried in the air, becomes what is called glue. Mr. S-- having, in the course of his experiments, examined the effects of a solution of tan upon a solution of glue, observed that they were hardly mixed together before a white felamentous precipitate took place, owing to a combination of the glue with the tanning principle contained in the solution of tan. This precipitate is insoluble in water, either hot or cold, and acquires colour by being exposed to the light. The foregoing experiment furnishes a true explanation of the process of tanning; for it will easily be conceived that the solution of tan acts upon the hides (from which glue is produced) in the same manner as it acts upon glue; this is what really happens in common tanpits, and Mr. S--'s new method, in which the solution of tan gradually penetrates the hides, and as it penetrates combines with it, producing a gradual change of colour that is very observable, till at last the colour of the hide is changed throughout, and it acquires a compact texture and marbled appearance, like that of a nutmeg: by this it plainly appears, that a precipitation also takes place in the action of tanning, although the hide is not dissolved, but merely swelled so as to enable the solution to penetrate it more easily. The property which animal jelly, or glue, possesses, of being precipitated by a solution of the tanning principle, furnishes a means of discovering what substances may be useful in tanning: nothing more is necessary than to make a solution or infusion of the vegetable substance supposed proper for that purpose, and that upon being mixed with a solution of glue, will show by the greater or less quant.i.ty of precipitate produced, what probability there is that such substance might be advantageously employed in tanning.

Another Remark.

Lime-water also offers an excellent means of discovering such substances. If lime-water be added to a solution of tan, the mixture instantly produces a copious precipitate; and if a sufficient quant.i.ty of lime-water be added to neutralize the whole of the tanning principle, then the supernatant liquor, although still possessing colour, will not form any precipitate with glue; I mean in solution. In like manner the liquor separated from a precipitation, caused by the mixture of a solution of tan with one of glue, will not produce any precipitate with lime-water, if, during the precipitation, the tanning principle has been completely neutralized. This shows evidently that Doctor M'Bride's method of exhausting the tan by means of lime-water is defective, and that by so doing a loss of the tanning principle takes place, in proportion to the quant.i.ty of it contained or combined with the lime dissolved in the lime-water.

Another Remark.

As in summer the solution of tan is disposed to run into the vinous fermentation, and, of course, from that into the acetous, and have its princ.i.p.al changed, no more of the solution of tan should be prepared in the summer season than is wanted for immediate use. In winter, this precaution in not necessary, as in that season it will keep, and may be then prepared for exportation to any part of Europe and thus converted into a profitable article of commerce.