Food

1860

Ale, Home-brewed, how it is made

The following formula for the manufacture of a famous home-brewed ale of the English yeomanry will convey a very clear idea of the components, and mixture of ordinary ales, which are, however, much more perfectly prepared under the elaborate system pursued in our extensive and well appointed breweries. It is taken from Homan's Cyclopedia of Commerce:

“Home-brewed Ale as brewed by the middle classes of England, is usually made in quanties of two barrels, i. e., seventy-two gallons. For this purpose a quarter of malt, obtained at the malt house or, if wished to be extra strong, nine bushels' of malt,-are taken, with twelve pounds of hops. The malt, being crushed or ground, is mixed with seventy-two gallons of water at the temperature of 160 degrees, and covered up for three hours, when 40 gallons are drawn off, into which the 12 pounds of hops are put and left to infuse. Sixty gallons of water at a temperature of 170 degrees are then added to the malt in the mash tub, and well mixed, and after standing two hours, sixty gallons are drawn off. The wort from these two mashes is
boiled with the hops for 2 hours, and, after being cooled down to
65 degrees, is strained through a flannel bag into a fermenting
tub, where it is mixed with 1 1-4 gallons of yeast, and left to
work for twenty-four or thirty hours. It is then run into barrels to cleanse, a few gallons being reserved for filling up the
casks as the yeast works over."

Of course when the yeast is worked out it must be bunged.
If 1-2 a pt. of this was taken with each meal by men, and half
that amount by females, and no other spirits, tea nor coffee, during
the day, I hesitate not in saying that I firmly believe it would
conduce to health. I know that this which a man makes him-.
self, or some of the wines mentioned in this work, home- made,
are all that any person ought to allow themselves to use in these
days when dollars and cents are the governing influences of all,
who deal in such articles.