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Fining for Ale or Beer

It frequently happens that malt liquor, especially ration of clarifying. For this purpose 1 ounce | mix. Or, alum, copperas, and common salt, isinglass is put into 1 quart weak vinegar, or of each equal parts; mix. Used by brewers still better, hard beer, and when dissolved, a to make their beer keep its head. sufficient quantity of good beer may be added 877. To Remedy Mustiness in Beer. to make it measure 1 gallon. This mixture To each hogshead add 1 pound new hops is called finings, 1 to 2 pints of which is the boiled in a gallon of the liquor, along with 7 proper quantity for a barrel. The method of pounds newly-burnt charcoal coarsely bruised, using it, is to put the finings into a bucket, and a 4 pound loaf of bread cut into slices and to gradually add some of the beer, until and toasted rather black; rouse well every the bucket is three parts full, during which time it is violently agitated with a whisk, and this is continued until a good frothy head is raised upon it, when it is thrown into the barrel of beer, and the whole well stirred up, by means of a large stick shoved in at the bung-hole. In a few days the beer will usually become fine.

872. To Ascertain Whether Malt Liquor may be Clarified by Fining. In some bad sorts of beer, isinglass will have no effect. This may be ascertained beforehand, by trying some in a long glass tube, or vial, with a little of the finings. These should be well shaken together, and then set aside for a short time, when it will be found that the finings will rise to the top, leaving the central portion of the beer clear, if it be in a proper condition for clarifying; but if, on the contrary, they sink to the bottom, and the liquor still keeps foul, no quantity of finings, however great, will ever clarify it. day for one week, then stir in moist sugar 3 or 4 pounds, and bung down for 2 weeks.