The Hocking sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1871-1906, 1894-08-09
RESIN IN BEER KEGS.
Why It Is Ussd as Inside Coating
Of Kegs and Vats.
Why the Liquids Is Never Allowed to Come
Into Contact with Wood The OPP
erations Necessary In Coat
Ing n Kcr.

Ii you should happen to get o
smack of resin in your glass of beer,
as it is quite likely you may, don't
imagine that the brewers are SUBJ
stituting pine shavings for malt and
hops to make the beer from. The
reason why you may detect resin
flavor is that this is the season when
the brewers pitch their kegs.
1t may interest you to know beer
never comes into contact with
wood, either in the kegs in which it
is delivered or in the great watts in
which it is fermented. If it did, the
wood would sour and spoil the beer.
The vats are protected on the inside
with repeated coatings of shellac
varnish, renewed whenever it is nee
essary. This used to be an exceed
ingly dangerous operation. before
the general introduction of incan-.
descent electric lights, for any open
light was liable to set fire to the
fumes of the alcohol used in the var
nish and produce disastrous explo-
sions in which mca were manned or
killed.
The pitching of the kegs is an in
teresting process. When keg is
empty and the bung and vent plugs
are out, stick a lighted candle into
the bung and look into the vent hole.
You will think you are looking into
q glass barrel. Every part of the
inside glistens. The keg has a COM
plete coat of resin. After q years
use this gets many minute cracks in
it and needs to be renewed, and the
springtime is the brewers favorite
time for doing this.
Before the new resin is put in, the
old coating is to be melted out. A
curious machine with two arms is
the first of the devices that comes
into use.
The kegs are hung on this, with
an arm of fire thrust into the vent
hole. Presently stream of boiling
resin comes from the open tap. The
keg is taken off, tipped over a bar
rel, where the waste resin is poured
out, and passed to q cooper He
sounds the heads, discards the keg if
it is defective, but if not drives a
plug of wood home in the vent, and
passes the keg on. One man now
pokes a long-handled funnel into
the tap hole, and another pours a
ladleful of boiling resin into the keg
from the kettle
A cooper seizes the keg, drives an
other wooden plug home into the
top hole, and gives the keg some
curious twirls which spread the
resin over every part of its interior.
Then he knocks both plugs out and
tosses the keg upon set of rollers
going slowly around by steam
power. Here the surplus resin runs
out and the keg rolls until the resin
which remains cools and sets.
The kegs are now rolled into the
wash house, ranged up upon end,
the resin burned out of the vent and
tap holes, new plug put in the
vent, and the kegs filled with water.
The water is meant to soak out the
resin taste. As fast as these opera
tions are finished a man with paint
pot and brush follows along the line
and puts dab of paint on the front
of each keg. If the kegs were
marked with white at the last pitch
ing time he uses red, or white if it
was red before. IN. Y. Sun.
Various Grades of Salt.
There is an old boarding-house Joke
to the effect that chronic grumbler on
leaving once said to his landlady that
she provided her boarders with the
very best salt he had ever tasted.
This was supposed to be funny, but as
q matter of fact there is as much differ
ence between different grades of salt
as between different grades of sugar.
Because salt is nearly as cheap as sand,
people are apt to consider that it is of
very little Importance anyhow, but the
trade in it is very extensive one, al
though it does not yield much profit.
This universal condiment can be
and. prepared for the ia BILE SO
Is to make it quite ornamental as well
Is useful, or it can be served up in a
shape unpleasant to the eye and almost
to the taste-St Louis
lobe-Democrat