difficulties. A common eye will see when it is well placed;
and, at any rate, any little vacant space that may be left is not at an
_end_ of the cask, and will, without great carelessness, be so small as to
be of no consequence. We now come to the act of putting in the beer. The
cask should be placed on a stand with legs about a foot long. The cask,
being round, must have a little wedge, or block, on each side to keep it
steady. _Bricks_ do very well. Bring your beer down into the cellar in
buckets, and pour it in through the funnel, until the cask be full. The
cask should _lean a little on one side_, when you fill it; because the
beer will _work again_ here, and send more yeast out of the bung-hole;
and, if the cask were not a little on one side, the yeast would flow over
both sides of the cask, and would not descend in _one stream_ into a pan,
put underneath to receive it. Here the bell-cask is extremely
inconvenient; for the yeast works up all _over the head_, and _cannot run
off_, and makes a very nasty affair. This _alone_, to say nothing of the
other disadvantages, would decide the question against the bell-casks.
Something will _go off in this working_, which may continue for two or
three days. When you put the beer in the cask, you should have a _gallon
or two left_, to keep filling up with as the working produces emptiness.
At last, when the working is completely over, _right_ the cask. That is to
say, block it up to its level. Put in a handful of _fresh hops_. Fill the
cask quite full. Put in the bung, with a bit of _coarse linen_ stuff round
it; hammer it down tight; and, if you like, fill a coarse bag with sand,
and lay it, well pressed down, over the bung.

50. As to the length of time that you are to keep the beer before you
begin to use it, that must, in some measure, depend on taste. _Such beer_
as this _ale_ will keep almost any length of time. As to the mode of
_tapping_, that is as easy almost as _drinking_. When the cask is _empty_,
great care must be taken to cork it _tightly up_, so that no air get in;
for, if it do, the cask is _moulded_, and when once moulded, it is
_spoiled for ever_. It is never again fit to be used about beer. Before
the cask be used again, the grounds must be poured out, and the cask
cleaned by several times scalding; by putting in _stones_ (or a _chain_,)
and rolling and shaking about till it be quite clean. Here again the round
casks have the decided advantage; it being almos