inlay and line the whole where the pensstaff enters, to let the wort run off into the underback. The pensstaff should be also strongly ferrelled with the same metal; and both well and taperly finished, so that you can place it properly. By this method you have it run from the fineness of a thread to the fullness of an inch tube, &c. &c.
First dressing your musk-basket with straw, fern, or small bushy furze without items, fix eight inches in from the bottom of your basket, and set quite perpendicularly over the whole with the pensstaff, through the center of the basket, and the middle of the furze or ferns, and fastened to the hole of same tub. To steady it properly, you must have a piece of iron set into a staple fastened to the tub, at the nearest part opposite the basket; and to reach nearly to it; and from that piece another added on a jointed swivel, or any other contrivance, so as to be at liberty to let round the basket like a dog's collar, and to enter into the staple formed in the same to pin it fast, and by adding a half-circular turn in the collar, in which you have room to drive in a wedge, which will keep it safe down to the bottom, when there can be no danger of its being disturbed by stirring the math, which will otherwise sometimes be the case. When you let go, you will raise the pensstaff to your own degree of running, and then fasten the staff, by the help of two wedges tightened between the staff and the basket.
In process of time the copper-work, like every thing else, will become defective, and when this is the case, you may repair the imperfection by the following simple method. Work the pensstaff in the brass socket with emery and water, or oil, which will make it perhaps more perfect than when new. The like method is sometimes taken even with cocks just purchased, in order to prevent their decaying so soon as they otherwise would.
A very material addition may be made to the convenience of the underbacks, by having a piece of copper to line the hole in the bottom, which may be stopped with a cloth put singly round a large cock; and when it is fastened down for the wort to run, it will be necessary to put a large weight on the cock, which will prevent its
flying up-by-the heat. When the liquor is pumped clean out of the back, the cloth round the cock will enable you to take out the cock with ease; and there should be a drain below the underback to carry off the water, which will enable you to wash it perfectly clean with very little trouble. This drain should be made with a clear descent, so as no damp may remain under the back. With the conveyance of water running into your copper, you may be enabled to work that water in a double quantity, your underback being filled by the means of letting it in at your leisure, out of your copper, through a shoot to the math-tub, and so to the underback. Thus you will have a reserve against the time you wish to fill your copper, which may be completed in a few minutes, by pumping while the under cock is running.—Thus much for the principal utensils in brewing, which we again recommend to be always kept in a perfect state of cleanliness.
S E C T. IV.
Of the proper Time of Brewing.
THE month of March is generally considered as one of the principal seasons for brewing malt-liquor for long keeping; and the reason is, because the air at that time of the year is, in general, temperate, and contributes to the good working or fermentation of the liquor, which principally promotes its preservation and good keeping. Very cold, as well as very hot weather, prevents the free fermentation or working of liquors; so that, if you brew in very cold weather, unless you use some means to warm the cellar while new drink is working, it will never clear itself in the manner you would wish, and the same misfortune will arise if, in very hot weather, the cellar is not put into a temperate state; the consequence of all which will be, that such drink will be muddy and sour, and, perhaps, in such a degree, as to be past recovery. Such accidents often happen, even in the proper season for brewing, and that owing to the badness of the cellar;
cellar; for when they are dug in springy grounds, or are subject to damps in the winter, the liquor will chill, and become vapid or flat. When cellars are of this nature, it is advisable to make your brewings in March, rather than in October; for you may keep your cellars temperate in summer, but cannot warm them in winter. Thus your beer brewed in March will have due time to settle and adjust itself before the cold can do it any material injury.
All cellars for keeping liquor should be formed in such a manner, that no external air can get into them; for the variation of the air abroad, were there free admission of it into the liquors, would cause as many alterations in the liquors, and would thereby keep them in so unsettled a state, as to render them unfit for drinking. A constant temperate air digests and softens malt liquors, so that they taste quite soft and smooth to the palate; but in cellars, which are unequal, by letting in heats and colds, the liquor will be apt to sustain very material injury.
S E C T. V.
On the Quality of Water proper for Brewing.
IT has evidently appeared, from repeated experience, that the water best in quality for brewing is river-water, such as is soft, and has received those benefits which naturally arise from the air and sun, for this easily penetrates into the grain, and extracts its virtues. On the contrary, hard waters astringe and bind the power of the malt, so that its virtue is not freely communicated to the liquor. There are some, who hold it as a maxim, that all water that will mix with soap is fit for brewing, which is the case with most river-water; and it has been frequently experienced, that when the same quantity of malt has been used to a barrel of river-water, as to a barrel of spring-water, the brewing from the former has excelled the other in strength above five degrees in twelve months keep. It is likewise to be observed, that the malt was not only the same in quantity for one barrel as for
the other, but was the same in quality, having been all measured from the same heap. The hops were also the same, both in quality and quantity, and the time of boiling equal in each. They were worked in the same manner, and tunned and kept in the same cellar. This is the most demonstrable and undeniable proof that the difference took place from the difference of the water.
Various experiments have been tried, by gentlemen in different counties, to ascertain the truth of this very essential difference in malt liquors, arising from the quality of the water; but, after all, they have been left in a state of perplexity.
One circumstance has greatly puzzled the ablest brewers, and that is, when several gentlemen in the same town have employed the same brewer, have had the same malt, the same hops, and the same water, and brewed in the same month, and broached their drink at the same time, yet one has had beer exceeding fine, strong, and well-tasted, while the others have had hardly any worth drinking. In order to account for this very singular difference, three reasons may be advanced. First, it might arise from the difference of weather, which might happen at the several brewings in this month, and make an alteration in the working of the liquors. Secondly, the yeast, or barm, might be of different sorts, or in different states, wherewith these liquors were worked; and Thirdly, the cellars might not be equally adapted for the purpose. The goodness of such drink as is brewed for keeping, in a great measure, depends on the proper form and temperature of the cellars in which it is placed.
Beer made at Dorchester, which, in general, is greatly admired, is, for the most part, brewed with chalky-water, which is to be had in most parts of that county; and as the soil is generally chalk, the cellars, being dug in that dry soil, contribute to the good keeping of their drink, it being of a close texture, and of a drying quality, so as to dissipate damps; for it has been found by experience, that damp cellars are injurious to the keeping of liquor, as well as injurious to the casks.
S E C T. VI.
Of the Quality of the Malt and Hops most proper to be chosen for Brewing, with some necessary Observations on the Management of each.
THERE are two sorts of malt, the general distinction between which is, that the one is high, and the other low dried. The former of these, when brewed, produces a liquor of a deep brown colour; and the other, which is the low dried, will produce a liquor of a pale colour. The first is dried in such a manner as rather to be scorched than dried, and is much less wholesome than the pale malt. It has likewise been found by experience, that brown malt, although it may be well brewed, will sooner turn sharp than the pale; from whence, among other reasons, the latter is entitled to pre-eminence.
We have farther proofs of this distinction from various people, but particularly one:—A gentleman, who has made the Art of Brewing his study for many years, and who gives his opinion and knowledge in words to this purpose: He says, brown malt makes the best drink when it is brewed with a coarse river water, such as that of the Thames about London; and that likewise being brewed with such water it makes very good ale; but that it will not keep above six months without turning stale, even though he allows fourteen bushels to the hogshead. He adds, that he has tried the high-dried malt to brew beer with for keeping, and hopped it accordingly; and yet he could never brew it so as to drink soft and mellow like that brewed with pale malt. There is, he says, an acid quality in the high-dried malt, which occasions those