Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Malmsey. — The genuine malmsey wines of commerce possess a luscious sweetness, and a most peculiar bouquet. They are mostly the produce of Sardinia, Sicily, Provence, Teneriife, the Madeiras, the Azores, and the Lipari Isles. Malmsey wine is made from grapes grown on rocky ground, and exposed to the full light and heat of the sun ; the fruit is allowed to hang on the vines for a month longer than if required for making dry wines, by which time it is partially withered. I Malmsey, Scotch. — This is a good homemade wine. Get from a strong beer brewer six gallons of sweet fresh worts, or the same quantity of pot ale from a distiller. To this add as much water, and to every gallon of liquor put two pounds of sugar, or one of sugar and one of good honey. Ferment, after mixing in the sugar well, and let the liquor remain a month in the cask, keeping it full. In the meantime, soak four pounds of the best raisins, and twelve pounds of bitter almonds, both chopped, in a a part of flavourless whiskey ; add this, and an ounce of isinglass melted in wine, to the liquor in the cask when it is cleared by fermentation. Mix well, and put into bottles after a month or six weeks. Malt Liquor. — (To brew ale). The utensils required are, first, a copper that will contain at least forty gallons. Second, a mashingtub, to contain sixty gallons ; for the malt is to be put into this along with the water. It must be a little broader at top than at bottom, and not quite so deep as it is wide at the bottom. In the middle of the bottom there is a hole about two inches over, to draw the wort ofi. Into this hole goes a stick, a foot or two longer than the tub is high. This stick is to be about two 'inches through, and tapered for about eight inches upwards at the end that goes into the hole, which at last it fills up as closely as a cork. Before anything else is put into the tub, lay a little bundle of fine birch, about half the bulk of a birch-broom, and well tied at both ends. This being laid over the hole (to keep back the grains as the wort goes out), put the tapered end of the stick down through it into the hole, and thus cork the hole up. Then have something of weight sufficient to keep the birch steady at the bottom of the tub, with a hole through it, to slip down the stick; the best thing for this purpose will be a leaden collar for the stick, with the hole large enough, and it should weigh three or four pounds. Third, an underback, or shallow tub, to go under the mash-tub for the wort to run into when drawn from the grains. Fourth, a tun-tub, that will contain thirty gallons, to put the ale into to work, the mash-tub serving as a tun-tub for the small beer. Besides these, a couple of coolers, or shallow tubs, about a foot deep ; or if three or four it may be as well, in order to effect the cooling more quickly. The following is the process of brewing ale as described by the celebrated William Cobbett: — "Begin to brew by filling the copper with water, and next by making the water boil. Then put into the mashing-tub water sufficient to stir and separate the malt. The degree of heat that the water is to be at, before the malt is put in, is 1 70 degrees by the thermometer ; but, without one, take this rule; when you can, looking down into the tub, see your face clearly in the water, the water is hot enough.