This section is from the "Encyclopedia Of Practical Receipts And Processes" book, by William B. Dick. Also available from Amazon: Dick's encyclopedia of practical receipts and processes.
878. To Remedy Flatness in Beer. Stir a few pounds of moist sugar into each hogshead; fermentation will ensue in a few days, and the liquor become brisk. On the small scale, the addition of a few grains carbonate of soda or prepared chalk to each glass will make the liquor brisk and carry a head ; but it must be drunk within a few minutes, else it becomes again flat. This is an excellent method when home-brewed beer becomes sour and vapid.
879. To Recover Frosted Beer. Frosted beer is best recovered by the addition of a few hops boiled in a little sweet wort; or by adding a little moist sugar or molasses to induce a fresh fermentation.
880. Foxing or Bucking Beer. Add some fresh hops, along with some bruised mustard seed, to the beer. Some persons add a little made mustard, or solution of alum or catechu, or a little diluted sulphuric acid, and stir it well; and in a week or 10 days afterwards, further add some bean-flour, molasses, or moist sugar.
881. To Remedy Ropiness in Beer. Add a little infusion of catechu and some fresh hops to the beer, and in a fortnight stir well, and the next day fine it down.
882. German Beer Bouquet. According to Dr. Boettger, this liquor consists of a solution of the essential oil of lemons in light petroleum oil, and a coarse fusel oil, containing spirit colored by turmeric.
883. Spring Beer. Boil down 3 small bunches each of sweet fern, sarsaparilla, win-tergreen, sassafras, prince pine, spice wood, in 8 gallons water to 6 gallons of decoction or extract; strain; 4 gallons of water boiled down to 3 gallons of decoction, with 1/2 pound hops; strain; mix the two extracts or decoctions together; dissolve in them 1 gallon of molasses, and, when cooled to 80° heat, 11/2 pound of roasted bread soaked in fresh brewers' yeast; fill up a 10-gallon keg; when fermentation is over mix with it the white of 1 egg beaten to froth; bung it, and bottle when clear.
884. Spruce Beer. Boil 91/2 gallons of water; let it cool down to 80° Fahr., and then dissolve 9 pounds of sugar in it, having pre- viously mixed with it 1 ounce of essence of spruce; then add 1 pint of good brewers' yeast, and pour it in a 10-gallon keg until fermentation is over; then add a handful of brick powder and the white of 2 eggs beaten to a froth ; mix with the beer, and let it stand till clear, then bottle.
885. To Make White Spruce Beer. Dissolve 10 pounds loaf sugar in 10 gallons boiling water, add 4 ounces essence of spruce; when nearly cold add 1/2 pint yeast. Keep in a warm place. Next day strain through flannel, put into bottles and wire the corks.
 
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