_Of Precipitation, and other remedies, applicable to the
diseases incident to Beers._
No accident can be so detrimental as leaky or stinking casks, which
lose or spoil the whole or part of the contained drink. The necessity
of having, on these occasions, a remedy at hand, was undoubtedly the
reason, why coopers were first introduced in store cellars. Constant
practice might have qualified their palates so as to make them
competent judges of the tastes of wines and beers, and to enable them
to know which were the fittest for immediate use. The preparing or
forcing them for this service, was a matter, which the profit gained
thereby made them ready enough to undertake. Chymists, whom they
consulted on this occasion, gave them some informations, from whence
the coopers became the possessors of a few nostrums, the effects of
which they were supposed to have experienced. But, ignorant of the
causes of most, if not all the defects they undertake to remedy, and
unacquainted with the constituent parts of beers, it is not to be
expected that their success should be constant and uniform. The brewer,
earnest to do his duty, and to excel, ought to keep a particular
account of every brewing; by this means he best can tell how he formed
the drink, and ought consequently, in any disorder, to be prepared to
direct the properest remedy.
The intent of this treatise has been to discover the means by which
errors may be avoided. Chymical applications are intended to remedy
those errors, which may be occasioned either by carelessness or
accident. The wholesomeness or propriety of the applications, which
will be indicated, must be left to the judgment of my readers; it is
most likely that there is sufficient room for improvement, and we might
expect it from those, whose profession it is to study every thing, that
may be conducive to the safety of mankind.
Whatever vegetables wines are produced from, whenever they deviate from
the respective perfection, a well-conducted fermentation might have
made them arrive at, they may be said to be distempered. Foulness, or
want of transparency, is not the least evil, but, according to its
degree, it obtains various appellations, and requires different helps.
From what has been said, nothing can be more plain, than that it is
always in our power to form beers and ales, which will be bright. Yet
porter or brown beer is constantly so brewed as to need precipitation:
the reasons for this management have before been offered. Were we to
wait till the liquor became transparent by age, a more real disorder
would ensue, that of acidity. Precipitation is then serviceable,
especially when beers are to be removed from one cellar to another,
a short space of time before they are to be used. By being shook,
and the lees mixed with the liquor, a strong acid taste is conveyed
therein, and the power of subsiding, which is wanted, renders the
forcing them, in that case, of absolute necessity. In beers brewed
with liquors sufficiently heated, no flatness is occasioned thereby;
as the case is, under like circumstances, with liquors produced by low
extracts, from grain not sufficiently dried. The degree of foulness in
porter should however be limited; its bounds ought not to exceed the
power of one gallon of dissolved isinglass, to a butt. Isinglass is
dissolved in stale beer, and strained through a sieve, so as to be of
the consistence of a jelly. The beer is set in motion with a stick,
which reaches one third part down the cask, before and after this
jelly is put in; and a few hours should be sufficient to obtain the
desired effect. We have before observed, that this quantity of jelly
of isinglass is equal to a medium of 10 degrees dryness in the malt,
and heat of the extracts. When the opacity exceeds this, the liquor is
termed _stubborn_; the same quantity of dissolved isinglass repeated,
is often sufficient, if not, six ounces of the oil of vitriol are
mixed with it. An effervescence is, by this addition, produced; the
oils of the drink become more attenuated, and the weight added to the
precipitating matter, is a means to render it more efficacious. Instead
of the oil of vitriol, six or eight ounces of the concrete of vitriol,
pounded and mixed with the isinglass, are sometimes used with success.
A foulness in beer beyond that which is called _stubborn_, gives to
the drink the denomination of _grey beer_. This arises from the oils
which float upon the surface, and which the liquor has not been able
to absorb. In this case, the same methods as before mentioned are
repeated; the quantity of dissolved isinglass is often increased to
three gallons, that of vitriol to more than 12 ounces, and sometimes a
small quantity of _aqua fortis_ is added to these ingredients.
The next stage of opacity is _cloudiness_; when the cooper confesses
that the distemper exceeds the power of his menstruums, and that
his attempts extend no farther than to hide the evil, tournsol and
cochineal, were they not so expensive, might in this case be used with
success; but what is less known, and would greatly answer the intent
of hiding the dusky colour of the drink, is madder;--about three
or four ounces of this is the proper quantity for a butt of beer.
Calcined treacle, by the coopers called blacking, from its acidity,
is of some small service, for, by coloring the drink, it somewhat
lessens the grey hue thereon; a quart is generally used in a butt;
and, to prevent the defect in the beer being noticed by the consumer,
the practice is to put thereon what is called _a good cauliflowered
head_. This might be done by using as much pounded salt of steel as
will lay upon a shilling; but the difference in price between this
salt and copperas makes the last generally to be preferred. The strong
froth on the top of the pot, and that which foams about it, together
with somewhat of a yellow cast, are often mistaken for the signs of a
superior merit and strength, though, in fact, they are those of deceit.
A little reflection that the natural froth of beer cannot be yellow,
nor continue a long time, especially if the liquor has some age,
would soon cure mankind of this prejudice. Cloudy beers, under these
circumstances, though not cured, are generally consumed.
Beers become _sick_, from their having so large a portion of oils, as
to prevent the free admission of the external air into them. The want
of this enlivening element makes them appear flat, though not vapid.
Such beers should not, if possible, be brought immediately into use,
as age alone would effect their cure. But when this cannot be complied
with, every means that will put the beer upon the fret, or under a new
fermentation, must be of service. By pitching a butt head over head,
the lees of the beer, which contain a large proportion of air, being
mixed again with the drink, help to bring on this action, and to remove
the _sickness_.
Burnt hartshorn shavings, to the quantity of two-penny-worth, put into
a butt, are often of use.
Balls made with eight ounces of the finest flower, and kneaded with
treacle, convey likewise air to the drink, and promote its briskness.
Beers, by long standing, often acquire so powerful an acid, as to
become disagreeable. The means of correcting this defect is by
alkaline, or testaceous substances, and in general by all those
which have the property of absorbing acids. To a butt of beer in
this condition, from four to eight ounces of calcined powder of
oyster-shells may be put, or from six to eight ounces of salt of
wormwood. Sometimes a penny-worth or two of whiting is used, and often
twenty or thirty stones of unslacked lime; these are better put in
separately, than mixed with the isinglass.
From two to six pounds of treacle used to one butt of beer, has a very
powerful effect, not only to give a sweet fulness in the mouth, but
to remove the acidity of the drink. Treacle is the refused sweet of
the sugar baker, part of the large quantities of lime used in refining
sugars, undoubtedly enter in its composition, and is the occasion of
its softening beers.
In proportion as beers are more or less forward, from two to four
ounces of salt of wormwood and salt of tartar, together with one ounce
of pounded ginger, are successfully employed. All these substances
absorb acids, but they leave a flatness in the liquor, which in some
measure is removed by the use of ginger.
Sometimes, in summer, when beer is wanted for use, we find it on the
fret; as it is then in a repelling state, it does not give way to the
finings, so as to precipitate. For this, about two ounces of cream of
tartar are mixed with the isinglass, and if not sufficient, four ounces
of oil of vitriol are added to the finings next used, in order to quiet
the drink.
Some coopers attempt to extend their art so far as to add strength to
malt liquors; but let it be remembered, that the principal constituent
parts of beer should be malt and hops. When strength is given to
the liquor by any other means, its nature is altered, and then it
is not beer we drink. Treacle in large quantities, the berries of
the _Cocculus Indicus_, the grains of paradise, or the Indian ginger
pounded fine, and mixed with a precipitating substance, are said to
produce this extraordinary strength. It would be well if the attempts
made to render beers strong by other means than by hops and malt, were
to be imputed to none but coopers; Cocculus Indicus, and such like
ingredients, have been known to be boiled in worts, by brewers who were
more ambitious to excel the rest of the trade, than to do justice to
the consumers. Were it not that pointing out vice is often the means
to forward the practice of it, I could add to this infamous catalogue,
more ingredients, it were to be wished practitioners never knew either
the name or nature of, for fining, softening, and strengthening.
Formerly brown beers were required to be of a very dark brown,
inclinable to black. As this color could not be procured by malt
properly dried, the juice of elder berries was frequently mixed with
the isinglass. This juice afterwards gave way to calcined sugar; both
are needless, as time and knowledge remove our prejudices, when the
malt and hops have been properly chosen; and applied to their intended
purpose.
Such are the remedies chiefly made use of for brown beers. Drinks
formed from pale malts are always supposed to become spontaneously
fine, and when they are so, by being bottled, they are saved from
any farther hazard. As it is impossible for any fermented liquor to
be absolutely at rest, the reason of beers being preserved by this
method, is, thereby they are deprived of a communication with the air,
and, without risk, gain all the advantages which age, by slow degrees,
procures, and which art can never imitate. Were we as curious in our
ales and beers as we are in the liquors we import, did we give to
the produce of our own country the same care and attendance which we
bestow on foreign wines, we might enjoy them in a perfection at present
scarcely known, and perhaps cause foreigners to give to our beers a
preference to their own growth.