Mash, run down, and boil in the usual way, suffer your worts, after drawing your fire, to remain on your copper two hours, doors and hatch open. If in winter, the deeper your worts lie on the cooler the better; when they have come down to the proper heat of pitching, give your yest to them on the cooler, mixing it gently with the whole guile, and when properly headed with yest, which will probably happen within twenty-four hours, run off your worts gently into barrels, leaving your top and bottom yest on the cooler undisturbed, till all the cooler is cleared; but previous to running your worts into the barrels, put half a pint of good solid yest into each, and when full, clap your tin workers into the bung holes, and so let it finish its fermentation for about a week longer, filling the casks occasionally as they work. When done working, bung down or vat them; if you wish to add any kind of flavouring substance to this beer, the best time to do it is at commencing the second fermentation, experience teaching that all fermented liquors should have such substances added to them during, or at the commencement of their fermentation, which is preferable to adding these substances in the boil; I mean spices, and delicate flavouring substances.
[ Process of Brewing Windsor Ale on a small scale. ]
Windsor ale is a very pale, light, agreeable ale, as fine as wine, and unquestionably the best fermented of any malt liquor sent to the London market.
Length drawn, three barrels per quarter of eight bushels, the malt pale, with two pounds of hops of the first quality; heat of the first liquor 182, two barrels of which is generally allowed to each quarter of malt, for the first mash; one barrel per quarter for the second; the same quantity for the third is as little liquor as can be dispensed with in three mashings; for short liquor and stiff mashes are essential to this quality of ale, in order to leave as little as possible in the copper for evaporation on account of the short boiling. Mash quick, run down quick, get your wort as fine as possible into your underbank; let your first mash stand two hours, your second one hour and three quarters. Give your second mashing liquor at 190; if you mash a third time, give your liquor at 175; stand half an hour; these worts should be pitched from 52 to 60, but not higher. The mode of doing so is also different from the generality of other malt liquor; your yest should be fresh, smooth, and solid. Begin yesting this ale a few barrels at a time, and when that has caught, add the remainder gradually, in about 48 hours, or from that to 60. This guile of ale will assume a close head of yest, which should be carefully skimmed off as fast as it forms after the first skimming: by this is not meant the first or worty head formed soon after the yest has taken, but the close yesty head already mentioned, which usually takes the time stated, say from 48 to 60 hours, when no more yest rises, and the guile remains quite flat; you will find the heat you pitched at, say 56, 58, or 60 degrees will by this time have increased to 80, or even more, and the specific gravity of the wort diminished from 26 or 27 pound per barrel, to six or seven pound per barrel; this attenuation will give it all the pungency and spirituosity it stands in need of. At this time your cleansing operation commences; after which it will work but little in the casks. It should be filled regularly every two or three hours, after cleansing, for the first twenty-four. After it has done working, you should immediately start it into an air-tight vat, with about one pound of hops well rubbed to every three barrels of ale in your brewing; if you use spent hops, such as has been boiled on the first mash, you may use a greater quantity, say half a pound more to each three barrels of beer, taking the precaution that they are become quite cool. This ale, thus treated, will be found glass fine in the course of a fortnight, and fit to be racked off into hogsheads or barrels. It will improve by age both in flavour and quality. But it should not be boiled more than fifteen minutes.
Reading beer is made in a town of that name about thirty miles distant from London; the quality of its beer is much spoken of, the mode of brewing it is stated to be as follows:
- Scale of Brewing, suppose 22 Barrels.
- 80 Bushels of Pale Malt.
- 98 lb. of Hops.
- 3 lb. of Grains of Paradise, pounded or ground.
- 5 lb. of Coriander Seed, do.
- 14 lb. of the best brown Sugar.
Your malt should be some days ground, and if exposed on an open loft, after grinding, so much the better. Boil your first copper, run on your mash tun till you have your complement, then occasionally rouse your water with your mashing oars, or dashers, till you get it down to 175: put your malt in slowly, for fear of setting; keep mashing all the time, which should be continued full one hour, stand two hours, run your worts, when you set tap, as fine as you can get them into your underbank; this you will effect by drawing off successively five or six buckets of the first run, and throwing them over your grains in the mash tun; when you perceive they come off glass fine, lay by your bucket. Give your second mashing liquor at 178 degrees, mash three quarters of an hour, stand one hour. Give your third liquor at 158, mash half an hour, stand one hour; boil your first copper of worts, which should take the half of your three runs, one hour as hard as you can; your second, two hours in the same way; run the two boilings into one cooler, and pitch at 64, giving one gallon of solid smooth yest; skim off the yest, as in the case of Windsor ale, until the attenuation rises to 80 degrees, which will have advanced it, from the pitching heat of 64, sixteen degrees. Before you commence the operation of cleansing, mix one quarter of a pound of bay salt, with half a peck of malted bean flour, scatter this mixture over the surface of your tun, rouse well, cleanse, and fill in the usual way.