The racking of beer is an operation nearly obsolete in England and Scotland, and, when followed, is employed only from the necessity of supplying small purchasers. As a rule, racked beer becomes stale and unpalatable before the barrels are emptied. But any attempt to deal with porter without racking would prove a failure, as its lees are very bitter and nauseous. The turning over of these lees when the casks are moved to be sent out is certain to impair the flavour. To produce the head, which is an essential feature of draught porter, as without it the beer is unpalat able, the porter is mixed, previously to being sent to the consumer, with new unfermented wort, and the mixing is most conveniently effected on the racking system. The mixing material has technically the name of fillings, and is wort taken from the cooler at the same time that the fer menting vat is filled. This wort is put into open-ended .punchcons, and lightly harmed with a quart of yeast a puncheon, to prevent spontaneous fermentation until required for use. The pun cheon first required for use is given extra barm in the quantity of about half a gallon, and all the puncheons, in their successive order of use, arc given as much additional yeast on the night before they 8,rc required as will make them ready for the next day's use. lf the fillings vessels are in underground cellars, their temperature will not need raising altificially, but in winter, if exposed, the temperature of small quantities will become too low to form a head without pan-heating to 18° or 19° (64° or 66° F.). In Ireland, where a brisk porter is in demand, small service vats are filled in the night with proper proportions of new and old porters, ready for the next day's demands. A similar procedure is followed by the London retailers. Fillings are used principally for draught porter, and the allowance ranges from 10 to t20 per cent., as the stock is new or old. The best draught porter is obtained from matured, well-attenuated old porter, mixed with 15 to 20 per cent. of rich unfermented raw wort or fillings.
Cellaring in England, as compared with Continental storing, hss a disadvantage in the want of ice ; and the ice machine, the substitute for ice, ought to be in every brewery, so as to afford the brewer the means of readily lowering the temperature to a point of comparative safety. Ice itself is not a necessity ; water at 4° (40° F.) is fully effective, and not very costly to produce. It would be advantageous to employ some special means of cooling transit casks before they are sent out in the hot weather, as their contents, however good before leaving the brewery, often refuse to fine, and even if they do line, become tart.
Beers for use at the end of the season should be deposited in the cellars of the publican in the spdeg, before the frost has left the atnaosphere. Such beer ought to be set apart, and the beers required up to the commencement of August taken in the meantime from the brewery. Beer deposited in a cool state in a cool cellar with the publican, and not disturbed, has the advantage over that coming direct from the brewer's cellar, that it is not remixed with its yeast deposits, and then heated by the summer's sun. All beers ought to go out to the consumer when cleansed, and be used in the first fining down, for once fined in the brewery, and turned over in summer, and heated in transit, it is improbable that beer will fine again before acetification sets in.
Brewers on this account should not set up store in spring or summer, after the hot weather baa commenced, but the brewing should stop on the first appearance of heat. It is very bad policy to brew in May or June the stock of beer to go out in August or September, with risk of souring, when beers can be brewed as well at the end of summer as at the beginning, if the malt is in order. A good brewer will clear out his stock in July or August. It is advisable in eellaring to send out the best beers first, as in waiting to get rid of inferior beers both may be lost.
Export beers are made of gravities from 0.40 upwards, rising in stages of 0.5 to 0.115. Exports so low as of 0.40 a.re very rare, and the principal article of so low a gravity is a light porter for storing in the West Indies and in Nova. Scotia. Its specific gravity is generally 0.47, and it is made of a well-dried malt, one half pale the other half amber and black, and hopped with l2 lb. of good Bavarian or American, double boiled. It is sent out in hogsheads from London, Edinburgh, and Bottled beer generally has a gravity of 0.70. Beer for bottling should be kept nine to twelve months at least, and should be 'brewed from October to May ; it ia laid down as an imperative rule that anch beer should undergo a summer's heat and autumn's fermentation in cask in England before bottling to be sent abroad. The most economical method of bottling is to run the store hogs heads and butts off, dry to the hop, into vats containing about two days' aupply, and there fine it down a week before it is wanted. These vats ought always to be well sulphured before filling. Casks for export are always now steam seasoned, being set on end with the steam jet iu the tap hole ; the bung-hole ia filled up with an old shive having an open spile-hole in it by which to learn the pressure of the steam. This method is preferable to that of steaming casks on their sideg through the bung-hole, a system that is the cause of breaking large quantities of bung staves. Old casks should not be steamed, but should be filled with water to which a handful of quick lime is added. E. S.
Cider. (Fa., Cidre ; GER., Apfetwein.)—Cider is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting the juice of the apple. It is largely prepared in different parts of England, France, and the United States, where the fruit is chiefly cultivated.
Cider, like wine, is the product of the juice of a sweet fruit ; it contains alcohol, extractive matters, acids, and salts, and it possesses a flavour and aroma which are agreeable to nearly every taste. Cider, as usually made, contains a much smaller proportion of alcohol than most wines, and a much larger proportion of gummy and nitrogenous substances ; the acids, while they impart to it refreshing properties, are more enfeebling to the system than tartaric acid ; its taste is not so pleasant to the palate as that of wine, and its effects are not nearly so powerful. The nitrogenous substances, although making the drink more nutritive, render it liable to decompose and be spoiled.