If wine does not become clear soon enough, for each forty gallons
dissolve an ounce of isinglass in a quart of water. Strain and mix
this with part of the liquor, beat it up to a froth, and pour it into
the rest; stir the whole well, and bung it up, except there should be
an appearance of fermentation; if so, leave the bung out till it has
ceased. Instead of isinglass, some use hartshorn shavings, in rather
larger quantities; red wines are fined with eggs, twelve to the pipe,
beaten up to a froth, mixed with the wine, _and well stirred in_.
Gypsum or alabaster is used to clear cloudy white wines; as also fresh
slaked lime; and the size of a walnut of sugar of lead, with a table
spoonful of sal enixum, is put to forty gallons of muddy wine, to
clear it; and hence, as the sugar of lead is decomposed, and changed
into an insoluble sulphat of lead, which falls to the bottom, the
practice is not so dangerous as has been represented.