The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years, 2nd ed.

The bottles being well stopped up, I then fasten the cork down with a couple of iron wires crossed: this is an easy operation, and any one can do it, who has once seen it done.

I then put each bottle in a bag of canvass or coarse linen cloth, made for the purpose, sufficiently large to wrap up the whole of the bottle up to the very cork. These bags are made in the shape of a muff, open alike at both ends: one of these ends is drawn with a string running in a gutter, leaving an opening of about the width of a crown piece; the other end is provided with a couple of small strings, in order to tye the bag round the neck of the bottle.

By means of these bags, I can dispense with the use of hay or straw in packing up the bottles in the water-bath; and, whenever any one of them breaks, the fragments are preserved in the bag. I am spared a great deal of trouble and a number of inconveniences which I had formerly to sustain, in picking up the pieces of the bottle out of the straw or hay I then made use of.

After having spoken of bottles, their form and quality; of stoppers, and the length of the fine cork of which they ought to be composed; of the corking and tying; of bags, their form and utility; I proceed to give an idea of vessels with large necks, that is, glass jars, which I make use of for preserving solid and bulky substances, such as poultry, game, meat, fish, &c.

These jars have necks of two, three, or four inches diameter, and are of a larger or small size; like bottles, they are furnished with a projecting rim, not only in order to strengthen the neck, but also for receiving the iron wire destined to bind the corks. I have not yet been able to procure from the glass-houses a similar projecting rim in the interior of the neck of these jars, as I have in that of the bottles. The completely corking up these vessels, is, from this circumstance, rendered more difficult, and demands especial care.

I met with another obstacle in the cork itself, from its thinness (more especially when the cork was very fine), and also from its ascending pores being against the grain. I was therefore obliged to form stoppers of three or four pieces of cork, from twenty to twenty-four lines in length, placed together the way of the grain, the pores of the cork being placed horizontally, by means of isinglass prepared in the following manner.

I melted over the fire four drams of well beaten isinglass, in eight ounces of water: when melted, I caused it to run through fine linen; and then put it again over the fire in order to reduce it to one third of its volume. After which I added an ounce of good full-proof brandy. I then left the whole on the fire till it became reduced to about three ounces. I then put the glue thus prepared in a little pot over live coals, and took care to warm my pieces of cork. I then slightly smeared over the pieces of cork with a brush, in order to glue them together. When the pieces composing the stopper were well fixed and glued together, I then fixed a tight thread to the two extremities of the stopper, in order to keep the pieces together, and let them dry, either in the sun or in a gentle heat for about a fortnight. At the end of this time I took a cork-maker’s knife and cut my stoppers of a proper shape; and having always fitted them to the mouth of the jar, they have never proved defective.

Having corked my jars, and driven in the stopper by means of the bat, the bottles being always placed upright in the bottle-boot, I made use of a compound luting. This luting (communicated to me by Mr. Bardel) is made of quick lime, which is slaked in the air by being sprinkled with water, till it becomes reduced to a powder. The powder to be kept in this state in corked bottles ready for use. This lime mixed with a cheese made of skimmed milk (fromage à la pie), and formed to the thickness of paste, produces a luting which hardens rapidly, and which withstands the heat of boiling water.

I besmear the whole of the outside of the stopper with this luting, and I cover the edge of the jar with hemp and strips of linen placed above and close to the stopper, and hanging down to the rim.

Farther, that the iron wire may have force enough to keep down the stopper, I put a piece of cork seven or eight lines high, and sixteen or eighteen lines in diameter, in the middle of the large stopper which is itself too big to allow the wire to have any effect upon it. By means of this second cork, placed in the middle of the large stopper, I am able to make the wire take a proper hold of the cork and give due strength and solidity to the stopper.

When every thing has thus been foreseen and prepared, and, above all things, well corked, tied, and wrapped up in bags, there remains nothing to be done, but to apply the preserving principle, that is, heat, to the substances duly arranged, and this is the most easy part of the operation.

I place all the vessels, bottles or jars, upright in a boiler, which I then fill with cold water up to the necks of the vessels; I then cover the boiler with its lid, which is made to rest upon the vessels. I cover the upper part of the lid with a piece of wet linen, in order that the sides of the lid may exactly fit, and all evaporation from the water-bath be impeded as much as possible.

When the boiler has been thus filled and adjusted, I light the fire beneath. When the water-bath begins to boil, I take care to maintain the same degree of heat for the greater or less quantity of time required by the substances exposed to its influence. When this time has elapsed, I then instantly put out the fire by means of a coal extinguisher (étouffoir).

After the fire has been put out a quarter of an hour, I let out the water of the bath by means of the cock; after the water has been withdrawn half an hour, I uncover the boiler, and I do not take out the bottles till one or two hours after the uncovering; and this terminates the operation.

The next day, or a fortnight afterwards, for that is immaterial, I place my bottles on shelves, as I do wine, in a cool and shady place. If I purpose sending them a great distance, I think it worth while to pitch them before I place them on the shelves; otherwise this last operation is not absolutely necessary. I have now by me, bottles which have been three years lying under a stair-case, the substances contained in which retain as much flavour as if they were just prepared, and yet they were never pitched.