brewing, that the quicker and stronger the operation
of boiling is performed, the better such beer will preserve, and the
sooner it will become fine; although this opinion is combated by many,
experience has proved it in my practice. I will suppose the copper you
are about to set to contain two thousand gallons, the diameter of its
bottom, five feet; let your fire blocks, if possible, be of soapstone,
one for each side, and one for the end, of sufficient thickness and
length, and full twelve inches deep, to the top of your sleepers; three
courses of brick, sloped off from the top of the fire stone, with the
usual quantity of mortar, and plastered over, will afford sufficient
elevation for the fire to act on the bottom of the copper, leaving a
space of about eighteen or twenty inches from the bottom to the top of
the sleepers; the breadth of the fireplace need not exceed twenty-six
inches. When the copper is about to be placed on the blocks, by
swinging, or otherwise, three feet of the bottom of the copper should
be on one side from the centre of the furnace, and but two feet on the
other; I would have but one flue or entrance for the fire to round this
copper, which flue should be placed on the three feet side, twenty-four
inches long at the mouth; distance of the brick work from the copper,
six inches, to narrow to five at the closing; the first closing to be
three feet high on the side of the copper; the second closing, to be
two feet above that, leaving twenty-one inches clear flue, allowing
three inches for the thickness of the brick and mortar; the throat of
the first flue, leading into the second; twenty-four inches distance of
upper flue from the copper, five inches closing into four and a half
inches at top. A short distance above the top of your copper should be
placed an iron register to regulate the fire, so contrived as to be
handily worked backward and forward by the brewer, or the man tending
the fire, as circumstances may direct. The furnace door should be in
two parts, one to hang on each side of the frame, and so lap over a
small round hole, with a sliding shut to it, should be fixed in one of
these doors, to admit the iron slicer to stir the fire. The clear of
the furnace frame need not exceed sixteen inches high, by eighteen
inches wide. A copper so set and proportioned, by being kept close
covered at top, might be expected to boil cold water in one hour and
fifteen minutes, perhaps in one hour, and tha