But where these precautions have not been taken, and the charge in your pump becomes frozen, and you wish to clear it, get one quart of bay salt, throw it into your pump, stop the mouth of it at the top, and in the course of a few hours the salt will have dissolved the ice in your pump, and you may go to work; this is much more effectual and less troublesome than using hot water, which must be repeated in great quantities before it will produce its effect.
Trifling and simple as this operation may appear, it is still one that is highly important to the brewer, and requires minute and constant attention. Burning and steaming casks seems to be two most effectual modes of accomplishing this important object. If your casks have been long in use, and thereby contracted any musty or bad smell, the best way is to open them; wash them well out with boiling water; set them to dry, and then fire them, after which, they may be washed out again with hot water, and, when dry, headed for use; every cask after emptying, that is not perfectly sweet, should be treated in this way, particularly when intended for stock or keeping beer. New casks that have never been used, are best prepared by steaming them, and a small boiler, containing from sixty to one hundred gallons will be best suited to this purpose. If you have tin pipes communicating from one cask to another, you can steam four or five at a time, and the work goes on expeditiously. Fresh emptied small beer, and single-ale casks, can be sufficiently cleansed by chaining them; after which, rincing them out with hot water will be found a sufficient cleansing for such casks, as they are generally but a short time on draught. The operation of chaining casks is performed by putting into them, with boiling water, a small iron chain, two or three yards long, and then tossing your cask several times round and round so as to get the chain to rub, and act upon every part of the inside head, &c., this will take off the yest, &c. The smoother and evener all brewers' casks are made on their inside the better, as they are thereby the more easily cleaned. Every brewer should be particular in recommending to his customers carefully to cork up every cask as drawn off—by this simple precaution they will be preserved sweet for months, while the neglect of it will cause them to get foul in a short time, to the great increase of trouble and expense to the brewer before he can sufficiently purify them. It is also a necessary precaution to keep casks, when brought home, from the action of the sun and weather, by placing them under proper sheds; where casks are supposed to occupy one fifth of the brewer's active capital, they should at all times be carefully looked after.
the process.
For every pipe of mead allow one hundred and sixty-eight pounds of honey. On a small scale, take ten gallons of water, two gallons of honey, with a handful of raced ginger, and two lemons, cut them in slices, and put them, with the honey and ginger, into the water, boil for half an hour, carefully skimming all the time; use a strong ferment, and attenuate high, not under seventy-eight; in the boiling add two ounces of hops to the above ten gallons of water and two gallons of honey. In about three weeks, or one month, after cleansing and working off, this mead will be fit to bottle. This liquor, when thus made, is wholesome and pleasant, and little, if any, inferior to the best white wines. It is particularly grateful in summer, when drank mixed with water.