Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/101

Rh forms a desirable addition to the utensils of the kitchen. These are made in different forms, the ordinary poacher being in the form of a circular tin plate, with three or four depressions, to contain the eggs, and with an upright handle rising from the centre. The plate is supported by feet, on which it stands when lowered into the saucepan. Poachers for three eggs are sold for 1s. 4d.; for four eggs at 1s. 11d.

Cask Stand.—For beer it is desirable to have a stand by which the cask may be raised or lowered without shaking its contents. The lever cask stand will be found most useful for this purpose. This stand is, perhaps, the best that has yet been produced, its action being very simple and easy to understand. The price of stand for a 9-gallon cask is 6s.; for an 18-gallon cask, 8s.

Beer Tap.—The best kind of tap for home use is the brass syphon beer tap, which requires no vent-peg, and is fitted with a protector in front, to receive the blows of the mallet in tapping a cask. The protector may be unscrewed to clean the syphon tube when it is in the cask. Another improvement consists in the self-acting tube being brought down close to the mouth of the jug, glass or vessel into which the beer is drawn. Directions for keeping the tap in order are given to the purchaser. This tap is sold at 3s. 6d.

The Corrugated Kettle.—The chief feature of this kettle is the fluted form of the bottom, which not only adds considerably to its strength, but increases the heating surface about 20 per cent., thereby causing the water to boil in a very much shorter time than in an ordinary flat-bottomed kettle. The peculiar form of this kettle, both as regards the fluted bottom and dome top, renders it especially suitable for use on gas or petroleum stoves or spirit lamps. This kettle is made in polished steel in nine sizes, holding from 1 to 12 pints, and sold at prices ranging from 1s. 6d. to 4s. 3d., according to size. It is also made in polished copper or brass in the four smaller sizes, from 1 to 3 pints, sold at from 5s. to 7s. 6d. with ordinary handle. In the five larger sizes, holding from 4 to 12 pints, it is made in polished copper with turned handle and spout, and sold at prices ranging from 8s. to 18s.

Coffee-pot.—When well made, coffee, perhaps, is the most delicious and refreshing of all the infusions that are made for household use, but the goodness of coffee very often depends on the construction of the vessel in which it is made, and it is most desirable to use one in which the aromatic oil of the berry developed in the process of roasting is not driven off by boiling, on the one hand, which invariably spoils coffee, and not made sufficiently perceptible by the endeavour to make it at too low a temperature, which is too often the case. In one of the Patent Coffee Cans either contingency is happily avoided by the peculiar construction of this coffee-pot, in which the coffee, when making, is surrounded by a jacket of boiling water, and thus kept at such a temperature that the valuable principle in which the aroma lies is not driven off, but gradually and continuously brought out,