(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 coarsely pounded charcoal; this should be previously wetted with some of the beer or ale, till brought to the consistence of coarse 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 buttons, 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 constitutions, 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.