The encyclopædia of practical cookery

for eight or ten days. When the fermentation has ceased, draw off into a cask, add 1 pint of plain spirit mixed up with lib. of refined loaf sugar, and leave it to work for a fortnight longer. When it has ceased working, add a little of the liquor (which should have been kept back), put in 1 gill each of elder-flower water and orange-flower water, and 2oz. of gelatine soaked and dissolved in wine. Mix well, stirring from the bottom, bung up securely and let it stand three months. Care must be taken that the barrel is not shaken during this time. Mulled Claret. — Put into a saucepan with i pint of water, a little powdered ginger and grated nutmeg, a few cloves, and a small piece of cinnamon, and let them boil for a minute .or two ; then strain. Put the liquor back into the saucepan, and add £ pint of Claret and four or five lumps of sugar. Remove from the fire before it boils, serve hot. For details respecting Culinary Processes, Utensils, Sauces, &c., referred to, see under their special heads. CLARIFYING. — Every cook, confectioner, and liqueur-maker knows tlie importance of producing an attractive brightness in the liquid or syrup he is preparing. It may also he taken for granted that very few productions after undergoing boiling, fermentation, or combination, remain quite bright and clear. Straining through a fine cloth, or filtering through paper specially prepared for the purpose (see Filtering), although in a measure clarifying, do not embrace the extended meaning of the term; hence it follows that some other process is necessary to bring about that which straining or filtering cannot of themselves accomplish. Clarifying is, broadly speaking, a process by which some harmless matter is added to, or some harmless process acts upon, a liquid body in such a manner that a fine insoluble network is formed throughout, which either settles down or rises as scum, entangling the opaque particles, however minute, that are floating about and constituting the cloudiness ; these the network bears with it in its upward or downward progress. The process of clarifying is therefore purely mechanical. Whether the upward or downward process of clarifying should be adopted, depends upon the nature of the liquid requiring clarifying, but more especially upon its density, technically termed “specific gravity.” The operator must first ascertain or determine whether the density is so great that the downward process of clarification would be impeded or almost prevented by the resistance of the fluid. Some fluids are so thin, owing to the presence of a large proportion of alcohol, that if allowed to stand for a while any particles floating in them would settle unaided; but others again are so dense that the inclination of the floating particles is to rise to the surface, such as in brine, for instance, which will float an egg. These gummy, glutinous, gelatinous or syrupy liquids are the most difficult to clarify, and excite the ingenuity of the operator to an unlimited extent, especially when it is of importance that they should be bright and clear. Sometimes boiling and straining through a tammy-clotli will be sufficient for the purpose, or filtering ; but as these are treated under their own headings, our attention here is directed chiefly to clarifying by the use of clarifiers, or “ finings.”