Beer
Beer.—Owing in a great measure to Excise restrictions, very little home-brewed beer is made now in England; but a few notes may be useful.
Half-hogshead of Ale.—Take 5 bush. pale malt, 4 lb. best Worcester hops; put into mash tub 30 gal. hot water (202° F.), 13 gal. cold water (49° F.), mean heat 166° F.; shake the malt in and stir it well about, and let it stand 1½ hour; draw off the wort and mix it with the hops; pour over the grains sufficient hot water at 200° F. to fill your barrel, allowing some for waste in boiling and working. Boil the wort and hops for one hour. Put 1 pint yeast to 3 gal. wort, at 72° F., to begin to work, and add the remainder at 68° F.
Summer Beer.—Over 1 bush. (40 qt.) malt pour enough boiling water to enable you to draw off 100 qt. of wort. Put into the wort ½ lb. hops, and boil it an hour. Having washed your mashing tub well from the grains, pour the wort into it, and, when cooled to the temperature of new milk, add in summer ½ pint of yeast, in winter a little more. Cover the tub with a cloth, and let it work till next day; pour it into your barrel before it begins to sink, and rack it before the barrel is stopped up. It will be fit to drink in a fortnight or three weeks.
Champagne Beer.—According to Teltscher, of Breslau, this beer is prepared in the following manner:—A light, strongly hopped, bottom-fermentation beer is left in cask until fit for consumption, and is then mixed with 2 per cent. of “Krausen-beer” (that is to say, beer in the first stage of active fermentation), and bottled. The bottles are filled up, carefully corked, and racked with the necks downwards, in which position they are left for a fortnight. The mixture develops an amount of carbonic acid not obtainable in other light bottom-fermentation beers strongly hopped. The reversed position of the bottles causes the floating particles of yeast to settle inside the necks, and by drawing the bottles lengthwise through the hands daily, these particles are detached and settle down finally on the cork. When the beer has generated enough carbonic acid gas, as indicated by its paleness, which sometimes occurs as early as the eighth day, the bottles are taken one by one in the left hand, with the neck inclining outwards and downwards, and the cork being removed with the right, the internal pressure is allowed to blow away the sediment from the neck. The bottles are then carefully re-corked. In this way a light bottom-fermentation beer, strong of the hop, and perfectly free from yeast, is obtained, which, owing to the large proportion of carbonic acid it holds, retains its refreshing properties at temperatures as high as 18° C. (64° F.), whereas beers of a like character with little or no carbonic acid become flat at 8° C. (46° F.). That the beer can be drunk without artificial cooling is put forward as another recommendation.
Bottling Beer.—(a) The bottles should be clean, sweet, and dry, the corks sound and good, and the beer “fine.” When the bottles are filled, if for home consumption, they should not be corked till the day following, and if for exportation to a hot climate, they must stand 3 days or more (if the liquor is new); it should be well corked and wired, but for family use they may do without wiring, only they should be well packed in sawdust, and stand upright. But if some are wanted ripe, keep a few packed on their sides, so that the liquor may touch the corks, and this will soon ripen, and make it fit for drinking.
(b) Choose clear weather, and leave the bung out of the cask all night. Fill the bottles, throw sheets of paper over them to keep out the dust, let them stand 24 hours, then cork, wire, and pack away in a cool place. If for immediate use, ripen by adding a piece of sugar to each bottle before corking.
Brightening Cloudy Beer.—Add calcined oyster shells, but after the application of oyster shells the ale requires to be rapidly drunk, as it will not keep good for any length of time. At the time of being brewed, if it is rapidly cooled, it never will become cloudy. All depends upon the time it takes to cool.
Restoring Sour Beer.—When beer has once been sour, i.e. has once been through acetous fermentation, it never again will have its former brilliancy, liveliness, or full flavour; it will always remain acid. Procure a 4½ gal. cask (commonly called a pin), rack the ale into it, and get about 3 oz. of new hops, which put in the pin, bung it down tight, put it in a cellar, where let it remain six months at least; it may then be better.
If beer is sour in bottles, put ¼ teaspoonful of soda carbonate and a large teaspoonful of brown sugar into each bottle; then cork well, and tie it down the same as ginger beer, and place the bottles cork downwards for about 3 weeks, where it is not too cold.
Finings.—(a) Take 1½ pints water and 2 oz. unslaked lime, mixed well together; let them stand 4 hours, and when the sediment is settled pour it off clear and mix 2 oz. isinglass, cut small, in ½ pint water. When dissolved put it into a barrel of beer.
(b) Eggs, any quantity; beat them to a froth and expose them to a gentle heat or in the sun to dry; then powder. In some cases a little fine wheat flour is added, the paste made into balls, and dried in the sun or a warm room, and then powdered.
(c) Isinglass, 1 lb.; water, 8 gal.; vinegar, 4 gal. Mix the vinegar and isinglass, and macerate for 4 days, then add the water.
(d) Isinglass, 1 lb.; sour beer or cider, 5 gal.; water, 6 gal. Digest the first two until the isinglass is dissolved, then add the water, and strain.
Weevil in Malt.—This can be killed by heat or checked by cold. If the temperature is raised to 167°-190° F., the insects die; if cold air is introduced, they cease to breed. Frequent turning of the malt, careful whitewashing of the walls, and the introduction of cold air (leaving all the windows open for two or three frosty nights) are the best preventives.