weight enough on the birch to keep it from moving. Now, then, you are ready to begin brewing. I allow _two bushels_ of malt for the brewing I have supposed. You must now put into the mashing-tub as much boiling water as will be sufficient to _stir the malt in_ and _separate it well_. But here occur some of the nicest points of all; namely, the _degree of heat_ that the water is to be at, before you put in the malt. This heat is _one hundred and seventy degrees_ by the thermometer. If you have a thermometer, this is ascertained easily; but, without one, take this rule, by which so much good beer has been made in England for hundreds of years: when you can, by looking down into the tub, _see your face clearly in the water_, the water is become cool enough; 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