above-mentioned object, which may be found in the Repertory of Arts,
vol. V. page 73. Mr. Mathew used a press with a lever, the bottom made
with stout deal or oak timber, fit for the purpose, raised with strong
feet a convenient distance from the ground, so as to admit the beer to
run off into whatever is prepared to receive it; into the back of it is
let a strong piece of timber, or any other fit material, to secure one
end of the lever, the top of which should work on an iron bolt or pin;
when the lever is thus prepared, get your yest into hair-cloth bags,
or, if not conveniently had, into coarse canvas bags; when filled, tie
them securely at the mouth, and place one bag at a time in a trough of
a proper size with a false bottom full of holes, on this bottom should
be placed an oblong perforated shape, about the form of a brick mould;
in this oblong shape or box, without either bottom or top, is placed
the bag containing the yest, on which the press is let down, and
gradually forced, as the beer exudes, or gradually runs off; when no
more liquid runs from the shape, the press is taken off, and the bag
opened, its contents taken out, which will crumble to pieces; in this
state it should be thinly spread on canvass, previously stretched in
frames, which will permit the heated air of the kiln to pass through it
in all directions, and thus gradually finish the process to perfect
dryness, which will be completely effected by ninety degrees of heat:
at the commencement of the drying, it would be proper to pass the edge
of a board over each frame, in order to reduce the lumps of yest, and
thereby make them as small as possible. When completely dry, put it
into tight casks or bottles so as to exclude air and moisture: thus
secured, it will preserve good as long as wanted in any climate, and be
found a valuable article of domestic economy, as well as medicine. When
to be used, the necessary quantity should be dissolved in a little warm
water, at the temperature of from eighty to ninety degrees of heat,
with the addition of a proportionate quantity of sugar; the addition of
sugar is only recommended when used to raise bread, but not when given
as medicine; in the opinions of several intelligent men, this is
considered the simplest and most effectual method of preserving yest,
and, as such, is hereby strongly recommended.
_To make a substitute for Brewer's Yest._
Take six pounds of ground malt, and three gallons of boiling water,
mash them together well, cover the mixture, and let it stand three
hours, then draw off the liquor, and put two pounds of brown sugar to
each gallon, stirring it well till the sugar is dissolved, then put it
in a cask just large enough to contain it, covering the bung hole with
brown paper; keep this cask in a temperature of ninety-eight degrees.
Prepare the same quantity of malt and boiling water as before, but
without sugar, then mix all together, and add one quart of yest; let
your cask stand open for forty-eight hours, and it will be fit for use.
The quart of yest should not be added to these two extracts at a higher
heat than eighty degrees.
_Another method to make twenty-six gallons of the substitute._
Put twenty-six ounces of hops to as many gallons of water, boil it for
two hours, or until you reduce the liquor to sixteen gallons; add malt
and sugar in the proportion before mentioned, and mash your malt at the
heat of one hundred and ninety degrees; let it stand two hours and a
half, then strain it off, and add to the malt ten gallons more of water
at the same degree of heat, and mash a second time; let it stand two
hours, then strain it off as before; when your first mash is blood
heat, or ninety-eight, put to it one gallon of the preceding
substitute, mix it well, and let it stand ten hours; then take the
produce of the second mash, and add it, at ninety-eight, to the rest,
mix it well, and let it stand six hours, it will be then fit for use in
the same manner, and for the same purposes as brewer's yest is applied;
the advantages alleged in favour of this method are, that it will keep
sweet and good longer than brewer's yest, and in any reason or
temperature be fit for use.
_Brewer's Yest._
May be generated in the following way: Take one pound of leaven, made
with wheaten flour, such as the French generally use to raise their
bread, dilute the pound of leaven with water or wort, the latter to
choose at ninety degrees of heat, add it to your wort at the heat of
sixty-five, supposing your barrel to be filled with wort at this heat;
then add your leaven, diluted as mentioned, until your cask be full; to
effect which, with less waste and more certainty, it may be better to
put into your barrel the diluted leaven first, then fill up with wort
at the temperature mentioned; after a day or two the beer will begin to
work out yest, and will serve as a ferment for another brewing; thus,
after three or four brewings, your yest will become so improved that it
will be nearly equal to any brewer's yest, and the experiment in
certain situations is well worth trying, when a proper ferment is
wanted and cannot be otherwise procured.
_Process for making and preparing Claret Wine for shipping; without
which preparation such wines are considered unfit for exportation,
being in its natural state about the strength of our common Cider._
Claret wine, before the French revolution, was the staple article of
export from the great commercial City of Bordeaux, to every part of
Europe. And, it may be presumed, will soon again reassume its wanted
importance. The vintage generally begins, for making this sort of wine,
about the middle or latter end of September, and is generally finished
in all the month of October. The mode by which the juice is expressed
from the grape, is by the workmen trampling them with their bare feet in
a large reservoir or cooler, (not the cleanest operation in the world,)
which has an inclination to the point where the spout or spouts are
placed for taking off the expressed juice, which is conveyed to large
open vats, that are thus filled with this juice to within ten or twelve
inches of the upper edge; this space is left to make room for the
fermentation, which spontaneously takes place in this liquor. After the
first fermentation is over, and the wine begins to purify itself, which
is ascertained by means of a small cock placed in the side of the vat,
and takes place generally by the middle of February, or beginning of
March, in the following year; it is then racked off into hogsheads,
carefully cleansed, and a match of sulphur burned in each cask before
filling; when thus racked off, it is bunged up, and immediately bought
up by brokers for the Bordeaux merchants, and here it is made to undergo
the second or finishing fermentation, in the following manner: It may be
proper here to remark, that claret wine is generally divided into three
growths, first, second, and third; the first growths, namely, Latour,
Lafeet, and Chateaux Margo, are uniformly rented for a term of years, at
a given price, to English merchants, through whom, or their agents
_only_ is there a possibility of procuring any portion of this wine. The
second growths are shipped to the different markets of Europe, North and
South America; and the third growth principally to Holland and Hamburgh.
In order to strengthen the natural body of claret wine, and to render it
capable of bearing the transition of the sea, the first and second
growths are allowed from ten to fifteen gallons of good Alicant wine to
every hogshead, with one quart of stum.[8] The casks are then filled up
and bunged down. They are then ranged three tier high from one end of
the cellar to the other, each tier about eighteen inches, with two
stanchions of stout pine plank, firmly placed between the heads of each
hogshead, from one end of the cellar to the other, until they have
reached, and are supported by, the end walls of the building. This
precaution is necessary to guard against the force of fermentation,
which is often so strong as to burst out the heads of the hogsheads,
notwithstanding the precautions taken to secure them in the situation
during the summer heats. The wine cooper, who has the charge of these
wines, regularly visits them twice a day, morning and evening, in order
to see the condition of the casks, and when he finds the fermentation
too strong, he gives vent, and thus prevents the bursting of the casks.
The third, or inferior growth, is exactly treated in same way, with the
single exception of having Benicarlo wine substituted for Alicant in
preparing them for their second fermentation, as cheaper and better
suited to their quality; both these wines are of Spanish growth, and
brought to Bordeaux by the canal of Languedoc: they are naturally of a
much stronger body than native claret. Thus mixed and fermented, the
claret becomes fortified, and rendered capable of bearing the transition
of seas and climates. About the latter end of September, or beginning of
October, the fermentation of these wines begins to slacken, and they
gradually become fine; in this state they are racked off into fresh
hogsheads carefully cleansed, and a match of sulphur burned in each
before filling. After this operation, they are suffered to remain
undisturbed (save that they are occasionally ullaged,) till about to be
shipped, when they are racked off a second time, and fined down with the
white of ten eggs to each hogshead; these whites are well beat up
together with a small handful of white salt; after this fining, when
rested, the hogsheads are filled up again with pure wine, and then
carefully bunged down with wooden bungs, surrounded with clean linen to
prevent leaking; in this state the wines are immediately shipped. Here
it may be proper to state, that the lees that remain on the different
hogsheads that have been racked off, are collected and put into pipes of
one hundred and forty, or one hundred and fifty gallons each, and this
lee wine, as it is termed, is fined down again with a proportionate
number of eggs and salt. After which, it is generally shipped off as
third growth, or used at table mixed with water. If at any time
hereafter the method herein given of making and preparing claret wine
for shipping, as practised in Bordeaux and its neighbourhood, should
be applied to the red wines of this country, particularly those of
Kaskaskias; it may be proper here to give a description of the mode in
which these wines are racked, which will be found simple, effectual, and
expeditious; I mean for the lower or ground tiers. The upper, or more
elevated ones, rack themselves, without coercion of any kind. When you
are about to rack a hogshead of wine upon the ground tier, you place
your empty hogshead close to the full one, in which you then put your
brass racking cock; on the nozzle of which cock you tie on a leather
hose, which is generally from three to four feet long; on the other
end of this hose is a brass pipe, the size of the tap hole, with a
projecting shoulder towards the hose to facilitate knocking in this pipe
into the empty hogshead, which is then removed a sufficient distance
from the full hogshead in order to stretch the hose, now communicating
with both. The cock is then turned, and the wine soon finds its level in
the empty hogshead; then a large sized bellows, with an angular nozzle,
and sharp iron feet towards the handle, which feet are forced down into
the hoops of the cask on which it rests, in order to keep this bellows
stationary, whilst the nozzle is hammered in tight at the bung hole of
the racking hogshead; the bellows is then worked by one man, and in
about five minutes the racking of the hogshead is completed. The
pressure of the air introduced into the hogshead, by the bellows, acts
so forcibly on the surface of the liquor, that it requires but a few
minutes to finish the operation; when the cock is stopped, the hose
taken off, and a new operation commences. This mode may possibly, in
some cases, be advantageously applied to racking off beer, ale, and
cider.
[8] Stum is a certain quantity of white wine, strongly impregnated
with sulphur. The mode of preparing it is as follows: A hogshead
half filled with good white wine, or what is termed in French _vin
de grave_; from fifteen to twenty long matches of sulphur are
successively burned to this hogshead, with the bunghole closed.
After this operation, the white wine becomes so impregnated with
sulphur, that it has acquired all its taste and flavour, and is
thus used as a ferment.
_Brewing Company._
It is obvious to very slight observation, that the day is not distant
when the brewing trade in this country will, as in England, become an
object of great national importance, highly deserving the protection
and encouragement of our general government, by freeing its produce
from all duty, and thereby affording further inducements to the
speculating and enterprising capitalists of this country to embark
their funds in a trade that, above all others, is the best calculated
to make them a sure and profitable return. In addition to the pleasing
consideration that they are thereby combating and putting down the
greatest immorality our country is chargeable with, namely, the too
great use of ardent spirits, substituting in their place a wholesome
and invigorating beverage. The person, therefore, whoever he may be,
who contributes his money, or his talents, to this useful and moral
purpose, deserves to rank high among the best friends of his country.
Under these impressions it is that I beg leave to recommend to my
fellow citizens the immediate establishment of a brewing company, with
a capital of from thirty to forty thousand dollars, to be subscribed
for in shares the most likely to be made up. With either of these sums
a handsome beginning could be made, and the profits would in a few
years encourage and justify enlargement to any prudent extent that
could be reasonably wished for or required. In proof of the correctness
of this opinion, I will beg leave to state a fact that has happened in
my own time. When the mercantile house of Beamish & Crawford, of Cork,
erected a porter brewery in that city, about twenty-five years ago,
that establishment was the first of the kind in that town, and then
stood alone, and notwithstanding that many large and rich ones in the
same business have since been added, the original company have so
progressed in fame and fortune, as to be now considered one of the
first-rate breweries in Europe; and by the improved quality of their
porter have, in a great degree, excluded the English from the West
India market, their porter getting the preference there, as well as in
Bristol and Liverpool, to which places large quantities are annually
sent by that company. How much stronger inducements have we to form
similar establishments in this country, where our excise on brewery
produce bears no sort of proportion with that paid in England, and does
not here exceed five per cent. on brewery sales. This being a war tax,
it may be presumed it will not continue long. Our capacity to raise
barley and hops, in as high perfection as in any part of Europe, is
acknowledged; all then that is wanting is encouragement; afford this to
our farmers, and they will soon convince you that no assertion is
better founded. If so, the sooner a company of this description is
formed the better for those who may be concerned; and for this plain
reason, that notwithstanding the enormous excise chargeable on the raw
materials and produce of the brewery in England, large fortunes have
been, and are daily accumulating in that country by the judicious
exercise of the brewing trade, as will appear by the following
statement of the quantity of porter alone (beside other malt liquors)
brewed by the twelve first breweries in London, in one year, ending 5th
of July, 1810.
_Barrels of Porter._
Barclay, Perkins & Co. 235,053
Read, Mecar & Co. 211,009
Trueman & Hanbury. 144,990
Felix, Calvert & Co. 133,493
Whitebread & Co. 110,939
Amery, Meux & Co. 93,660
Combe & Co. 85,150
Brown & Perry. 84,475
Godwin, Skinner & Co. 74,223
Elliot & Co. 57,851
Taylor. 54,510
Cloyer & Co. 41,590
---------
Total quantity of Barrels of Porter, 1,326,943
* * * * *
NOTICE.
The author informs those persons who may feel disposed to engage in
the brewing and malting trades, that he can furnish them with ground
plans, and sections of elevation, both of breweries and malt houses,
on different scales, whether intended to be erected together, or
separately, as will be found to unite, economy, convenience, and
effect, joined to a considerable saving to those who are not
themselves judges of such erections, or how they should be disposed.
An experience of twenty-five years in both businesses, accompanied by
a diligent and attentive practice, justifies these assertions.
His terms will be found reasonable, and all letters (post paid)
addressed to Joseph Coppinger, 193 Duane-street, New-York, will
receive attention.
A few copies of this work may be had by applying as above; but any
number may be had at 45 John-street.
TANNING.
The following is the French mode of tanning all kinds of leather in a
short time, highly important to the manufacturers of leather in this
country, as it points out a secure and profitable mode of turning their
capital twelve or thirteen times in a year, instead of once.
_Washing Hides._
The best method of washing hides is to stretch them in a frame, and
place them, thus stretched, in running water. If running water cannot
be conveniently had, still water can be made to answer by frequent
stirrings and agitations; the remainder of the operation of cleansing
is performed as in the common way.
_On taking off the Hair._
Begin by shaking some lime in a pit, to which put a great quantity of
water, then stir this water well, that it may become saturated with the
lime, then place your hides in the pit perpendicularly; for this
purpose, several wooden poles should be fixed across the pit; to these
poles the hides are to be fastened with strings at proper distances,
each hide being first cut in two; whilst the hides were thus placed in
the lime water, the lime itself, which had deposited on the bottom of
the pit, was frequently stirred up to increase the strength of the
water, and to make it more operative; the hair thus treated, will, in
about eight days, come off the hide with great ease. A shorter and a
better method may effect this purpose in two days; that is, to plunge
the hides, after being washed and cleaned, into a solution of tan,
which (having been already used) contains no longer any of the tanning
principle, mixed with a five hundredth, or even a thousandth part of
the oil of vitriol, commonly called sulphuric acid; this operation not
only takes off the hair, but raises and swells the hide; as, in the old
way, is generally effected by barley sourings. However, further
swelling and raising is necessary, and the hides should again be
plunged in another quantity of spent tan-water mixed with the one
thousandth part of the oil of vitriol, and thus steeped a second time;
their swelling and raising will be completed in about forty-eight
hours; after this operation the hides will acquire a yellow colour,
even to the interior part of their substance. To determine if the
swelling and raising be sufficiently completed, let one of the corners
of the hide be cut, and if it is in a proper state there will not
appear any white streak in the middle, but the hide throughout its
whole substance will have acquired a yellow colour, and
semi-transparent appearance. Mr. S---- is of opinion, that swelling and
raising hides is not necessary, and that the hides tanned without this
operation are less permeable to water. On tanning on the new principle,
as practised by Mr. S----, he places several rows of casks on stillings
sufficiently elevated above the ground to place a can or tub under
them; these casks were filled with fresh finely ground tan, then a
certain quantity of water was poured into the first of them, which
water, as it ran through the tan, exhausted and carried off the soluble
part, and as fast as it ran into the vessels below, was taken away and
poured on the second cask, and so on successively until the solution
was sufficiently saturated, and thus it may have been brought to ten or
twelve degrees of the arometer for salts. In order to exhaust the tan
of the first cask, Mr. S---- continued pouring water on the first cask
until it ran off clear; at which time the tan was deprived of its
soluble part; these liquors, as it may be easily conceived, were
carefully kept for future operations; large wooden vats are considered
the best sort of vessels for holding this solution, as well as for
making and preparing it; hogsheads, on a small scale, may be made to
answer. It is particularly in the use of this solution that Mr. S----'s
method consists; the quickness with which the solution acts is truly
astonishing, and when we see it, there is cause of surprise in thinking
why it was not found out before. As soon as the hides are taken out of
the water, impregnated with sulphuric acid, Mr. S---- puts them into a
weak solution of tan, in which he leaves them for the space of one or
two hours; he afterwards plunges them into other solutions of tan, more
or less charged with the tanning principle, in proportion to their
strength, so that in the experiments at which we were present, some
heavy hides were tanned in six or eight days, others in twenty and
twenty-five days. In placing the hides in the solutions, some
precautions are necessary; the hides should be suspended on a wheel, or
in a frame where they should be stretched, and placed one inch apart,
so as to admit the solution freely about them; Mr. S---- recommends
cutting off the head and the neck of the hide, and a slip down each
side, in which slip the feet and belly part are to be comprehended; and
the circumstance which determines Mr. S---- to cut the hide in this
manner is, that the feet, and the parts that are near the belly, are
more spongy and more easily penetrated by the tan; and as they produce
leather of an inferior quality they may be more advantageously tanned
separately, than put promiscuously into the solutions of tan with the
rest. The remaining part of the hide is to be divided into two or more
parts or pieces, so as to be easily placed in the vats or casks.
_Drying the Hides._