1885 New Guide Hotel Bar Restaurant

CELLARAGE, STORAGE, RACKING.

17

CHAPTER IL

Cellarage, Storing, Racking, and Management of Ales, Beers and Porters. GOOD CELLARAGE is half the battle in the keeping of ales. The soil should be a sandy one or dry chalk. The cellar itself should be well ventilated and the tempera- ture easily regulated so that the air may be of an equal heat throughout the vault. Draughts are to be avoided, also ex- cessive heat. In cold cellars I strongly advocate for winter use one of Fletcher's 50s. Hot Air gas ovens. They will at a small cost of gas diffuse an equal heat through the cellar and in the summer time can be utilized in the kitchens as cookers and savers of fuel. This I have found to be one of the few stoves that radiates heat without poisoning the air with sul- phurous fumes and wasting gas. Now that it has become the custom for certain large bottling firms such as Barrett and Elers — Barnett and Foster, &c., to send out compartment cases — to hold ale, beer, porter and serated water bottles, it is certainly one item less of cellar expenditure for the hotel keeper. The system of screw stoppered bottles is superior to the rotten cork system that spoils both the customer s beer and temper, which is pursued by certain bottling firms with whom I have dealt. If the cellar is too hot during the summer, if possible, pro - cure a free current of air, and stretch lines from one end of the cellar to the other, more especially against a souther;) Dip sacking in water, and hang from these lines, and — the prices running from Is. 6d. per cwt. for foreign ice in blocks of 2 or 3 cwt. each, an 1 the Aylesbury Dairy Co. will supply, for cellar purposes, i.t about Is. per cwt. I should advise one of these blocks beh^g B wall. as ice is so cheap now in bulk