The brewery, when possible, should be a separate apartment, as nothing is worse for the beer than to allow the place in which it is made to be used for washing, etc.

Any place well-covered in and ventilated will do for a brewhouse, but the bottom should be paved with brick or stone, that it may always be well cleansed. Bad smells in the neighbourhood will spoil the beer, for the proper making of which pure air and soft water are most essential.

Proper Management Of Vessels For Brewing

The utensils for brewing should never be used for any other purpose except perhaps for home-made wines, and when so used should be most carefully cleansed. They should be kept in a very clean place.

The casks should be cleaned before using with boiling water, the heads taken out, and the inside scrubbed with sand and fuller's earth. When this is done the head is to be put on again, and the cask scalded well; then a piece of unslacked lime should be thrown into it, and the bung stopped close. When the casks have stood thus for some time, they must be rinsed well with cold water, they will then be fit for use.

The greatest attention must be paid to the coolers, for if they are not quite pure and sweet they will communicate a most unpleasant taste to the home-brewed. Our readers may have occasionally detected in it a flavour like snuff; this proceeds from coolers which have contracted a mustiness or smell, which no Washing will remove, when wet has long lodged in the wood of the cooler. When the coolers are being prepared, the water used for cleaning should never be suffered to stand too long in them, or it will soak in and produce this taint - for this reason it is better to have coolers lined with lead; they are very clean, and expedite the cooling of the liquor, thus saving a good deal of waste of the liquor by evaporation.

If the coolers are of wood, it is best to scrub them well over with cold water; hot water, old housekeepers say, is more likely to develop the evil taint.

The mash tub also must be kept perfectly clean; nor must the grains be left in the tub longer than the day after brewing, lest they should sour it A sour scent in the brewhouse will be likely to infect the liquor and worts.

The brewhouse floor should be washed down, so as to insure cleanliness.