To Fine Beer.
Draw out a gallon of ale, put to it 2 oz. isinglass, cut small and beaten; stir the beer, and whip it with a whisk, to dissolve the isinglass, then strain, and pour it back into the cask, stir well, a few minutes, and put the bung in lightly, because a fresh fermentation will take place. When that is over stop it close; let the vent-peg be loose. Fermentation is over, make the vent-peg tight; and in a fortnight the beer will be fine. Drink 3 parts, and bottle the rest.—A good way to fine new beer, is to run the wort through a flannel into the tun, before it has worked.
For Stale Small Beer.
Put 1 lb. chalk, in small pieces, into a half hogshead, and stop it close. It will be fit to drink on the third day.—Or: put half chalk, and the other half hops.
To Bottle Beer.
Stone bottles are best. The best corks the cheapest, put them in cold water half an hour before you use them. The bottles perfectly clean and sweet, fill them with beer, put in each bottle a small tea-spoonful of powdered sugar, and let them stand uncorked, till the next day: then cork, and lay the bottles on their sides; or, better still, stand them with the necks downwards.—When a bottle is emptied, the cork should be returned into it directly, or it will become musty.
To Make Cider.
The apples quite ripe, but not rotten. If the weather be frosty, gather the apples, and spread them from 1 to 2 feet thick, on the ground, and cover with straw; if mild, let them hang on the trees, or remain under, if fallen, until you are ready to make the cider. It should not be made in warm weather, unless they are beginning to rot, in which case you must not delay. Unripe fruit should be made by itself, as the cider never keeps.—Large cider mills will make from 100 to 150 gallons in a day, according to the difference in the quality of fruit, some sorts of apples being
