Cassell's dictionary of cookery

The cask should lean a little on one side when filling it, because the beer will work again, and send more yeast out of the bunghole. Something will go off in this working, which may continue for two or three days, so that when the beer is putting into the cask, a gallon or two should be left, to keep filling up with as the working produces emptiness. At last, when the working is completely over, block the cask up to its level. Put in a handful of fresh hops ; fill the cask quite fuU, and bung it tight, with a bit of coarse linen round the bung. When the cask is empty, great care must be taken to cork it tightly up, so that no air gets in ; for, if so, the cask is moulded and spoiled for ever." Malt Liquor.— (To brew small beer). Thirty-six gallons of boiling water are to go into the mashing-tub [sec the preceding recipe) ; the grains are to be well stirred up, as in the process of brewing ale; the mashing-tub is to be covered over, and the mash is to stand in that state for an hour ; then draw it off into the tun-tub. By this time the copper will be empty again, b}^ putting the ale-liquor to cool. Now, put the small-beer wort into the copper with the hops used before, and with half a pound of fresh hops added to them ; and this liquor boil briskly for an hour. Take the grains and the sediment clean out of the mashing-tub, put the birch -twigs in again, and put down the stick as before. Put the basket over, and take the liquor from the copper (put the fire out first), and pour it into the mashing-tub through the basket. Take the basket away, throw away the hops, and leave the small-beer liquor to cool in the mashingtub. Here it is to remain to be set to working ; only, more yeast will be wanted in proportion ; and there should be, for thirty-six gallons of small beer, three half-pints of good yeast. Proceed now as with the ale, only, in the case of small beer, it should be put into the cask not quite cold, but a little warm, or else it will not work in the barrel, which it ought to do. It will not work so strongly nor so long as ale, and may be put in the barrel much sooner — in general, the next day after it is brewed. All the utensils should be well cleaned and put away as soon as they are done with. With care they wUl last a long time. " I am now," says Cobbett, when describing the above process, " in a farmhouse where the same set of utensils has been used for forty years, and the owner tells me that they may last for forty years longer." Malt, Quality of, To Ascertain.— Choose that which breaks soft, sifts full, smells sweet, has a thin skin, and tastes sweet and mellow. It should swim on water; should it sink, it contains unmalted barley. Pale malt, or that which is dried at a low temperature, produces the strongest wort, and is most wholesome. Brown malt, which is dried with more heat, gives a darker coloured wort, which is weaker, and takes a longer time fining, than if brewed with pale malt. Amber malt is between the two.