It will also be indispensably necessary, in the preparation of your utensils, that the coolers be well scoured with cold water two or three times; cold water being more proper than hot to effect a perfect cleansing, especially if they are in a bad condition from the undiscovered filth that may be in the crevices. The application of hot water will drive the infection further ; or if your drink be let into the coolers, and if any remain in the crevices, as before mentioned, the heat will collect the foulness, and render the whole unwholesome.

Some pretended judges of this matter absurdly argue, that ropiness in beer proceeds from the want of a sufficient quantity of hops to dispel the glutinous richness arising from the superiority of malt, which is a manifest mistake, except when it is too much boiled, and receives bad management afterwards. Others say, that it is by applying the water too sharp, that is, too hot to mash with; but, if the water did not produce that fault, it has another equally as dangerous; and that is, when you mash with water so exceedingly hot, it is liable to set the malt; which is clogging it up to such a degree, that it is almost impossible to get it to run off; and when by art you have accomplished the difficulty, it never answers your wishes in point of goodness.

To show, by an experiment, the disagreements of heats and colds, which must be applicable in the case of brewing, proceed thus: Take a pail of cold water, and throw it on a quantity of grains, and it will almost immediately become ropy There are, however, some brewers so curious as to put cold water on the mash, and vainly imagine that it gets out the whole of the strength ; but this is a ridiculous notion, which cannot get a favourable reception, notwithstanding they say it makes excellent toplash, or rather rot-gut small beer.

It is very singular, that some families should have such an aversion to the thoughts of brewing, which probably arises from the terrible apprehensions they conceive of the expense and incumbrance attending the fitting up of a brewhouse, which is an ill-founded conception, and ought to have no weight in a rational mind. It is not from being sufficiently competent to know better, that people set their faces against brewing ; but it is from pride, that bane of all good, that sets them above so inconsiderable a thought, as they deem it, and a total negligence of their own and their country's welfare. A whole set of coolers, properly made, may be removed from house to house with great facility and little expense, and with less injury than other furniture, provided they are made according to the following; directions:

Let strong frames be constructed for each cooler, in such a manner, that they may be unwedged and taken asunder when occasion requires. The outside frame should turn up pretty high, that is, sufficiently thick and strong, to cut a proper inlet to receive wedges for the purposes hereafter mentioned. Form your coolers, which are to consist of only common planed deal boards, and lay them even to fit on this frame, which, from a projection and inlet, you can set the side to the bottom, and it will be necessary that the inlet should be a little lower than where the bottom rests. By these means, the wedges will have full power to tighten the sides to as great an extremity as a hooped barrel; and these wedges should be in three regular directions on the sides, and at two places at each end, which will form perfect firmness. If the coolers are made in regular sizes under each other, you may set strong casters in mortices under the legs, by which means you can drive them under each other, so as the whole to go under the uppermost, which is a good method of setting them out of harm's way. By this method of construction, the chief of your brewing utensils,the copper excepted, may be unwedged, and with little trouble packed into a waggon, in the space of two hours, and set up in another brewhouse in the like proportionable time. If you should afterwards choose to dispose of the materials, that may be done without loss, as the boards will not be damaged by either pins, nails, or screws. When a small quantity, such as a hogshead only, is required, they may be made like drawers, pulling out in grooves, and resting on tressels, which may be very conveniently put out of danger in the manner before directed.

Be particularly careful that the mash-tub be kept perfectly clean : nor must the grains be left in the tub any longer than the day after brewing, lest it should sour the tub ; for if there be a sour smell in the brewhouse before your beer is tunned, it will be apt to infect your liquor and worts.

To render your tub the more perfect and lasting you should have a circular piece of brass or copper, to inlay and line the hole where the penstaff enters, to let the wort run off into the under back. The penstaff should be also stoutly ferrelled with the same metal, and both well and taperly finished, so that you can place it properly. By this method you may have it run from the fineness of a thread to the fulness of an inch tube, etc. first dressing your muck-basket with straw, fern, or little bushy furze without stems, six or eight inches in from the bottom ofyourbasket, and set quite perpendicularly over the whole, with the penstaff through the centre of the basket, and the middle of the furze or fern, and fastened into the hole of the tub. To steady it properly, you must have a piece of iron let into a staple fastened to the tub, at the nearest part opposite to the basket, and to reach nearly to it; and from that place another added on a jointed swivel, or any other contrivance, so as to be at liberty to let round the basket like a dog-collar, and to enter into the staple formed in the same to pin it fast, and by adding a half-circular turn in the collar, in which you have room to drive in a wedge, which will keep it safe down to the bottom, when there can be no danger of its being disturbed by stirring the mash, which will otherwise sometimes be the case. When you let go, you will raise the penstaff to your own degree of running-, and then fasten the staff by the help of two wedges tightened between the staff and the basket.