The Art of Making Whiskey | Page 8

must be built with care. The parts most exposed to the action of the fire must be built with soft bricks and potters' clay: soap stone would be preferable, if easy to procure. The brick separating the kettle and chimney, must be supported with flat bars of iron, as well as the part over the door.
CHAPTER IX.
USE OF THE KETTLE.
The kettle is destined to make the infusion of the grain, and boil it so as to convert it into wort. By that operation I make the liquor richer, which I intend for fermentation, and bring it to divers degrees of strength.
I put into the kettle 100 gallons of water, and 4 bushels of corn, broken, as I said before, at the mill. I light a small fire, which I increase gradually, until the water begins to boil; during that time, the grain is stirred with a paddle. As soon as the ebullition is established, the grain is taken up with a large skimmer, and put to drain into a large basket hanging over the kettle; and when the grain has been totally taken up, the fire is increased so as to bring the water to boil again, until reduced to two-fifths, which degree of concentration is not rigorous, and the distiller may augment it as his experience shall direct. When thus concentrated, the liquor is drawn off through the pipe, and received into a tub or vat containing 130 or 140 galls.
100 gallons more of water are put into the kettle, with 4 bushels of corn; the fire conducted slowly, as before, until the degree of ebullition; the corn is taken off, and the liquor concentrated in the same proportions; then drawn off as above, in the same tub.
The same operation is repeated for the third time; the three united liquors are slightly stirred, and, still warm, transported into one of the hogsheads of fermentation, which it nearly fills up.
As there must be four of these hogsheads filled up daily, the work at the kettle must be kept going on, without interruption, until that quantity is obtained, which may be done in about twelve hours. The grain which has been drained is carried to dry, either in the open air, or in a granary, and spread thin. When dry, it is excellent food for cattle, and highly preferable to the acid and fermented mash, usually used by distillers to feed cattle and hogs: they eat the corn dried in the above manner as if it had lost nothing of its primitive qualities and flavor.
CHAPTER X.
THE ROOM FOR FERMENTATION.
The room destined to the fermentation must be close, lighted by two or three windows, and large enough to contain a number of hogsheads sufficient for the distillery. It may be determined by the number of days necessary for the fermentation; 30 or 40 hogsheads may suffice, each of 120 or 130 gallons.
In the middle of the room must be a stove, large enough to keep up a heat of 75° to 80°, even in winter. A thermometer placed at one end of the room, serves to regulate the heat.
As soon as the liquor is in the hogshead, the yeast, or fermenting principle, is put into it, stirred for some moments, and then left to itself. A liquor as rich as the above described ferments with force, and runs with rapidity through all the periods of fermentation. It is fit to distil as soon as that tumultuous state has subsided and the liquor is calm.
The essential character of the spirituous fermentation, is to exhale the carbonic acid gaz in great quantity. This gaz is mortal to mankind, and to all the living creation. Thirty hogsheads of fermenting liquor producing a great deal of this gaz, the room should be purified of it by opening two opposite windows several times a day. This is the more essential, as the pure air, or oxigen, contributes to the formation of the spirit, of which it is one of the constituting principles. A short time, however, suffices to renew the air of the room.
It is useless to remark, that the hogsheads must be open at one end, and rest upon pieces of wood elevating them some inches from the ground. They must remain uncovered during the fermentation; and afterwards be covered with a flying lid, when the liquor is calm.
CHAPTER XI.
OF THE ROOM FOR DISTILLATION.
We have hitherto considered the liquor as containing only principles upon which the air has no action, and from which it can only extract some watery vapors; and, in fact, all those principles contained in the liquor are fixed. The action of the fire may concentrate, but not volatilize them.
The liquor is now changed by the fermentation; it contains no longer the same principles, but has acquired those which it had not, which