PART III
THE Housekeepers DIRECTOR.
FORCING for BEER.
There are two sorts of forcings for beer; for what will agree with one kind of beer will not serve for another. Some beer when kept twelve or fourteen months will taste as new and sweet as if not brew'd more than six or seven, nay a much shorter time, which must have a different forcing from that which is proper for beer that is ripe or less sweet.
Beers that are full and sweet must be forc'd in the following manner, viz.
For a hogshead, take a gallon of stale cyder, likewise one ounce of isinglass beat and pulled to small pieces, with an ounce of common allum ground to a fine powder, put them to the cyder; whisk it well together and let it stand 'till it's a jelly. Then break it in your can, and put one ounce of cream of tartar, and two pounds of stone-dust to it; whisk it well together, and dilute it with some of the beer till you have made the gallon five. Apply it to the hogshead, and stir it well about; and when the ferment is gone off (which will be in two or three hours) bung it up close. Leave out the vent-peg; and in a day or two you'll find it fine and bright.
Beers that are not Sweet are forced with stum, the same that is made for raisin wine, with this difference only, that you must take for one hogshead, three pints, and two pounds of alabaster; stir them well together, and dilute with beer as above. This will carry down all the foul particles, and make the beer fine in three or four hours.
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FORCING for ALE.
ALE that is brew'd in the winter to be drank in about two months is apt to get foul, occasion'd by the brewer's neglecting it when cooling. Sometimes it is left out in the frost, which will chill it, and make it curdy as it were, and and foul; to remedy this you must
Take two gallons of cyder, and put two ounces of insinglass to it. When it is a jelly, add to them two pounds of brick-rubbings; whisk them well together, and dilute with some of the ale. Put the whole in the hogshead, and stir all about very well. When the ferment is a little off, bung it close; the next day give it vent, and you'll find it fine.
ALE or BEER ACID.
If your beer or ale be a little prick'd, you must take for each hogshead a gallon of lac, boil it with an ounce of isinglass, drain it, and when cold, put to it two pounds of alabaster, two pounds of calcined chalk, and one ounce of salt of tartar. Stir them well together, and apply to the hogshead.
Mind that the cask be full, and this will immediately discharge the acid part from it, (as in page 12.) Bung it up for three or four days 'till it is settled; then rack it into a clean hogshead, and put two quarts of ale forcing to it, and bung it close.
BEER or ALE ROPY, to cure.
If beer or ale should at any time get ropy, as in other disorders, you must proportion the strength of your remedy to the degree of the disorder. But beer or ale is seldom known to be so ropy as cyder.
Take, for one hogshead, two pounds of common allum in one lump, if possible; put it into a clear fire, and burn it an hour, then pound it, and apply to the hogshead. Stir it well for half an hour. This will cut the rope in a day or two; then rack it and force it with the same stum forcing at is directed for beer that is not sweet, as in page 26. If the rope be but thin, one pound of allum will be sufficient. Hyssop will cut a thin rope in ale, but this always gives it a bad taste.
To make YEST, to ferment new BEER.
Many people that live at a distance from any town, are at a great loss, especially in the winter time, for yest to brew with; I shall therefore here give them directions to make an artificial yest that will answer the purpose altogether as well as the natural.
Take two quarts of small beer and one ounce of isinglass; boil them together five or six minutes; put it into a can or pail, and whisk it till it comes to the consistence of yest; let it stand an hour after, then put it to your wort in the same manner you were used to do the natural yest; this will be sufficient to ferment a hogshead.