l practice is to put your heading into your
fining, and so both into the cask just before filling up and bunging
down. The proportion for one hogshead of sixty-three gallons is three
half pints of fining, with as much heading put into the fining as you
can take up upon a cent piece; the heading here recommended is composed
of equal parts of sal martus (or green copperas) and alum, both finely
powdered and mixed in equal parts, so as to be intimately blended with
each other before using. The advantages derivable from heading are
merely apparent, giving a close frothy head to the beer in the quart or
mug it is drawn in; supporting the vulgar prejudice, that such beer is
better and stronger than that where no such appearance manifests
itself.

_Bottling Beer._

This is a branch of trade, that, under proper management, might be made
very productive and profitable, whereas, in the manner it is now
generally conducted, proves a losing one, occasioned by the great
breakage of bottles, arising from the impure state of the beer at the
time of putting into bottle. In consequence of this bad management, I
have known a person, extensive in the trade, to lose on an average from
two to three dozen bottles, as well as beer, on every hogshead he put
up which happened to lie over till summer, or was bottled in that
season; this loss was too heavy to expect much profit from a business
so conducted; to obviate both these consequences, I would recommend
beer, ale, and porter, intended for the bottle, to be carefully
filtered through charcoal and sand, as directed in the operation of
filtering; being thus purified from all its feculencies and fermentable
matter, it will be in the best possible state for taking the bottle, in
that mild and gentle way that will not endanger the loss of one or the
other. It will further have the good effect of recovering the beer or
ale, thus filtered, from the flatness that will necessarily be induced
by that operation, giving the liquor all the briskness and activity
that can be wished for. If beer, porter, or ale, be intended for
exportation to a warmer climate than our own, the operation will be
found particularly suited to it. Choose your corks of the best quality,
and steep them in pure strong spirit from the evening before you begin
your bottling operation; this precaution is essentially necessary to
all beer intended to be shipped, or sent off to a warmer climate than
our own, such as the Eas