Observations On Wood For Hogsheads
The cheapest and easiest wrought wood is generally most used for making
mashing tubs, or hogsheads, and very often for dispatch or from
necessity, any wood that is most convenient is taken, as pine or
chesnut; indeed I have seen poplar tubs in use for mashing, which is
very wrong, as a distiller by not having his hogsheads of good wood, may
lose perhaps the price of two sets of hogsheads in one season. For
instance, a
armer is about to erect a distillery, and is convenient to
a mountain, abounding in chesnut or pine, which from its softness and
the ease with which it may be worked, its convenience for dispatch sake,
is readily chosen for his mashing hogsheads.--To such selection of wood,
I offer my most decided disapprobation, from my long experience, I
know that any kind of soft wood will not do in warm weather. Soft porus
wood made up into mashing tubs when full of beer and under fermentation,
will contract, receive or soak in so much acid, as to penetrate nearly
thro' the stave, and sour the vessel to such a degree, in warm weather,
that no scalding will take it out--nor can it be completely sweetened
until filled with cold water for two or three days, and then scalded; I
therefore strongly recommend the use of, as most proper