and you must not put the malt in
before. Now put in the malt and _stir it well in the water_. To perform
this stirring, which is very necessary, you have a stick, somewhat bigger
than a broom-stick, with two or three smaller sticks, eight or ten inches
long, put through the lower end of it at about three or four inches
asunder, and sticking out on each side of the long stick. These small
cross sticks serve to search the malt and separate it well in the stirring
or _mashing_. Thus, then, the _malt is in_; and in this state it should
continue for about a quarter of an hour. In the mean while you will have
filled up your copper, and made it _boil_; and now (at the end of the
quarter of an hour) you put in boiling water sufficient to give you your
eighteen gallons of _ale_. But, perhaps, you must have thirty gallons of
water in the whole; for the grains will retain at least ten gallons of
water; and it is better to have rather too much wort than too little. When
your proper quantity of water is in, stir the malt again well. Cover the
mashing-tub over with _sacks_, or something that will answer the same
purpose; and there let the mash stand for _two hours_. When it has stood
the two hours, you draw off the wort. And now, mind, the mashing-tub is
placed on a _couple of stools_, or on something, that will enable you to
put the _underbuck_ under it, so as to receive the wort as it comes out of
the hole before-mentioned. When you have put the underbuck in its place,
you let out the wort by pulling up the stick that corks the whole. But,
observe, this stick (which goes six or eight inches through the hole) must
be raised by degrees, and the wort must be let out _slowly_, in order to
keep back the _sediment_. So that it is necessary to have something to
_keep the stick up_ at the point where you are to raise it, and wish to
fix it at for the time. To do this, the simplest, cheapest and best thing
in the world is a _cleft stick_. Take a _rod_ of ash, hazel, birch, or
almost any wood; let it be a foot or two longer than your mashing-tub is
wide over the top; _split_ it, as if for making hoops; tie it round with a
string at each end; lay it across your mashing-tub; pull it open in the
middle, and let the upper part of the wort-stick through it, and when you
raise that stick, by degrees as before directed, the cleft stick _will
hold it up_ at whatever height you please.

44. When you have drawn off the _ale-wort_, you proceed to put int