The American Practical Brewer and Tanner
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Joseph Coppinger >> The American Practical Brewer and Tanner
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_Malt House, the best construction of, with proper Barley Lofts,
Dropping Room, and Flooring, how, and in what manner made, and best
likely to last._
Malt houses intended to be annexed to breweries, should not be on a
less scale than sixty feet long, by twenty-five feet wide. Unless there
be a proper proportion of flooring to work the grain kindly and
moderately, good malt is not to be expected. Two-floored houses are
generally preferred to any other construction; would recommend placing
the steep outside the house, to be communicated with from the lower
floor by means of an arch way or window; the steep so placed should be
covered with a tight roof; the best materials for making a steep are
good brick, well grouted; the wall should be fourteen inches thick at
least; this kind of steep will be found far superior to wood, as not
liable to leak, or be worked on by rats; the sides and ends of this
steep should be carefully plastered with tarrass mortar; the bottom may
be laid with flag, tiles, or brick.[2] Two barley lofts, the whole
length of the malt house, will be found highly convenient, as affording
sufficient room to different large parcels of barley, and screening the
same from loft to loft as it descends into the steep over wire screens;
a contrivance I have found of great advantage in the malting operation,
as finishing the cleaning of the barley before getting into the steep,
a precaution that should never be omitted. The bottom of the screen
should be cased with wood, communicating from loft to loft with a sack
fastened to hooks at the lower end to receive all the dirt and
screenings that may pass through the screens. The Dutch and German
maltsters generally prefer having their lower or working floor under
ground; but this I take to be a bad plan, unless in elevated
situations, or where the soil is dry and gravelly; for if any spring of
water or damp arises in the malt-house floor, or walls so placed, the
injury to the malt is very great, and should be carefully guarded
against. It is also very important to lay a solid foundation for your
lower floor with stones, brick bats, or coarse gravel, which should be
solidly compacted by ramming for the whole length, then levelled off by
stakes, with a ten-foot level, to the thickness you would wish to give
your floor--say three or four inches: the former thickness, say three
inches, will be found sufficient. Lay your first coat on two inches
thick with hair mortar; when this coat becomes sufficiently stiff,
which will happen within twenty-four hours, you are to begin to lay
your second or last coat of one inch thick over the first, to be
prepared as follows: Take Roche, or unslaked lime, one part, by
measure; fine pit sand, one part; clinker, or forge dust, finely
powdered, two parts; clay or lome, by measure also, one part: let these
different ingredients (taking the precaution of first slaking the Roche
lime) be well mixed together, and then screened by a wire screen,
carefully keeping out of the mixture all lumps and stones; the whole
may be then worked up with a due proportion of water, observing that
this kind of mortar cannot be too much worked or mixed together, nor
too little wetted, just sufficient to work freely with the plastering
trowel; the whole floor should, if possible, be laid in one day, and
for this purpose several hands should be employed; in which case it
will dry more equally and firmly. As soon as the floor begins to set,
and that it will bear a board on it, without sinking in, you should
begin to pound it in all directions, from end to end, with pounders
made of two-inch plank, sixteen inches long, and from nine to twelve
inches wide, with a long handle reaching breast high, and to be placed
in the middle of this board; thus the operation of pounding will
proceed without stooping or much labour. One or two men, with
plastering trowels, should follow the pounders, wetting it with skimmed
milk as they go, and set the floor as even and close as possible. If
these two operations be well conducted there will not be found a single
crack in the whole floor from end to end, which is of great importance
to secure the making of good malt. Each loft should have uprights under
the centre of all the beams from end to end of the house; this
precaution is necessary to prevent the swagging or cracking of the
upper floor. Trap doors should be placed at proper distances in the
upper malt-house floor, to facilitate the shovelling of the couches
from the lower to the upper floor. A well constructed kiln is of great
importance to insure a successful result to the malting operation, and
if large enough to dry off each steep at _one cast_ so much the better.
The most approved covering for malt kilns in England (although not the
most economical) is hair cloth, as it is asserted, it dries the palest
and sweetest malt. Many prefer tiles, as less expensive and more
lasting; others dry on boarded floors, and if this construction be well
managed, I take it to be as good as any, and much cheaper than either
tiles or hair cloth. (See description page 23.) The dropping room for
receiving the malt as it comes off the kiln may be constructed
different ways; but I take it that a ground floor covered with a two
inch plank well jointed, and properly laid, is preferable to a loft for
keeping malt, and in this situation might be heaped to any depth
without injury or danger of breaking down. Malt thus kept, if well
dried before coming off the kiln, is never in danger of heating or
getting slack. The common mode of keeping malt is in bins situated on
upper lofts, often injured by leaks from the roof, and at all times
liable to the depredations of rats, which in the other way can be
effectually guarded against, and is a highly important object of
precaution to be taken by the brewer. Should weevils at any time get
into, or generate in your malt, which is common when held over beyond
twelve or eighteen months, the simplest and easiest way of getting rid
of them, is to place four or five lobsters on your heap of malt, the
smell of which will soon compel the weevils to quit the malt, and take
refuge on the walls, from which they can be swept with a broom into a
sheet or table cloth laid on the malt, and so taken off. It is
asserted, that by this simple contrivance not one weevil will remain in
the heap. Malt intended for brewing should be always screened before
grinding; and for this purpose it is a good contrivance to screen it by
means of the horse mill, as it runs from the hopper to the rollers or
stones to be ground, the expense of which apparatus is comparatively
nothing when compared to the advantages arising from it.
[2] By some this construction of a steep may be thought too dear;
in that case, a rough wooden one may be substituted, which,
instead of placing outside the house, I would place on the upper
floor of the malt house, so as to afford the opportunity of
getting down its contents to the lower floor by means of a plug
hole, which will save the labour of shovelling; but in summer,
when this steep is not employed, it should be filled with lime
water to prevent leaking, and to keep it sweet.
_Wooden Kilns, how constructed._
The best form for these kilns is the circular. I will suppose the
diameter sixteen feet; you construct your fire-place suitably to the
burning of wood at about ten feet outside your kiln house, sufficiently
elevated on iron bars to secure the draft of the fire place, from which
runs a proportionate sized flue into the kiln, communicating with a
circular flue which is close covered at top, and rounds the kiln on the
inside at the distance of two feet from the wall; on both sides of this
circular flue holes are left, at the distance of twelve or sixteen
inches apart, on both sides, to let out the smoke and heat; the
platform or floor of this kiln is raised about four or five feet above
the top of the flue, and is made of three quarter inch boards, tongued
and grooved, supported by joists two inches broad, and nine inches
deep, placed at proportioned distances, to give solidity to the floor.
The floor or platform of this kiln should be carefully laid, and well
nailed; in this floor should be placed a wooden chimney, nine inches
square, on the most convenient part of the inside next the wall, with a
wooden register at a convenient distance: this chimney is intended to
let off the great smoke that arises in the kiln at first lighting fire,
particularly if the wood be moist or green. When this has gone off, and
the fire burns clear, the register may be shut within a few inches, in
order to keep up a small draft. It would have been proper to state that
joists, intended to support the floor of this kiln, should be levelled
off to one inch, top and bottom, so as give the fire a better chance to
act upon the malt; these joists should be further paid as soon as, or
before, laying down, with a strong solution of alum water; as also the
bottom face of the boards laid on them, which should be first planed;
the inside of the chimney and register should be also paid with the
alum solution. On the top of the kiln should be placed a ventilator to
draw off the steam of the malt, this may be done by means of a loover
or cow; the latter turns with the wind, the former is stationary.
There should be skirting boards, nine inches deep, to lie close to the
floor and walls of the kiln, plastered with hair mortar on the top.
This construction of kiln has been introduced by the Dutch, and will be
found the most economical of any, joined to the peculiar advantage of
being capable of drying malt with any kind of fuel, without danger of
communicating any sort of bad flavour to the grain, while the heat can
be securely raised to 120 degrees without any danger of ignition or
burning; a higher heat is not wanted to dry pale malt. Of this,
however, I have some doubts, as wood is a non-conductor of heat, and
possibly is not susceptible of transmitting such a heat to the malt
without danger of ignition. I should think that thin metal plates, one
foot square, cast so as to lap on each other, or tiles, of the same
make or form, would be a better covering; they certainly would convey
the heat more rapidly and securely to the malt or grain intended to be
dried on it, never requiring less fuel than the wooden covering, and
precluding all danger of fire.
[Illustration:
A A A A A ground section of the vats.
B the section of elevation.]
_A new and economical construction of Vats for keeping Beer, which,
in this way, may be rendered fire proof, whilst, at the same time, it
secures a temperature for the liquor equal, it is expected to the best
vaults: it further affords the convenience of having them above
ground._
These vats may be constructed in different forms, either square, oval,
or round; the latter I should prefer, as stronger, and less liable to
leak. These circular vats, to save expense, may be bound with wood
hoops instead of iron ones the splay to be given them as little as
possible barely sufficient to have the hoops tight, and the vessel
staunch. The bottoms of these vats should be elevated at least three
and a half, or four feet from the ground, and solidly bedded in clay,
earth, or sand; the clay, if convenient, to be preferred. As the earth
rises, at every five or six inches, around these vats, it should be
firmly pounded down and compressed, as in the case of tanners' vats;
and this mode of surrounding the vats with dry earth well pounded and
rammed is continued to the top; a stout, close, well-fitted cover of
two inch plank is then placed on each vat, with a hole sixteen inches
square, to let a man down occasionally; this hole should have a short
trunk of an inch and a half plank firmly nailed to its sides, and about
fourteen inches high; then a covering of earth, twelve inches deep,
should be placed all over the tops of these vats, and this earth well
rammed and compacted together; and when levelled off, covered with
composition or a floor of tiles. Each of the trap doors should have a
well-fitted, wooden cover on the top, with a ring of iron in the
centre; this cover should be made fire proof on the outside. The brick
wall in front of these vats need not, I apprehend, exceed fourteen
inches thick, if of brick, just sufficient to resist the force of
pressure from ramming the clay; vats thus placed, with their contents,
may be considered fire proof, and possessing as cool a temperature as
if placed fifteen feet under ground; joined to this, they will last six
times as long as those in cellars or vaults, although bound in iron, at
a considerable higher expense. Two ranges of these vats may be placed
in one house, leaving a sufficient space for a passage in the centre,
with a window at each end to light it. I have never before either heard
or read of this construction; but I have little hesitation in saying it
will in many cases be found preferable to the present mode of placing
vats--it being more convenient, cleanly, economical, and secure, and,
to all intents and purposes, as effectual in point of temperature as
those expensively placed deep under ground. Under the inside of the
head of these vats, and across the joints, should run a piece of
scantling six inches wide, and four inches deep, with an upright of the
same dimensions in the centre, in order to support the covering on the
head, and to prevent sinking, or swagging, from the weight of the
covering that will be necessarily placed over them, which will be from
six to ten inches thick.
_Grinding, how substituted for._
Malt, for brewing, may be prepared in three different ways, by
grinding, bruising, or pounding; modern practice, however, almost
universally gives the preference to bruising between metal rollers.
This preference, where malt is of the very first quality, may be
justified; but where it is of an inferior quality, which is but too
generally the case, grinding with stones is preferable, as more capable
of producing a fine grist, which, with indifferent malt, is important,
as it will always produce a richer extract, by being finely, rather
than coarsely ground; and it is more soluble in water of suitable
temperature than that malt which is only bruised or cracked, and for
this simple reason, that all imperfect-made malt has a great proportion
of its bulk unmalted, and, of course, in a crude hard state, which will
partially dissolve in water if ground fine, but will not dissolve at
all if only cracked or bruised. A further object of the brewer's
attention should be to prevent the dispersion, or waste, of the finer
parts of the malt, so apt to fly off in the grinding, if not prevented
by having the malt bin close covered, as well as the spout leading into
it from the stones; trifling as this precaution may seem, it is well
worth the brewer's attention. Here it may not be improper to observe,
that in all cases of horse, or cattle mills, where the shaft of the
main wheel is perpendicular, no better ingredient can be placed in the
chamber of the lower box than quick silver, which is far superior to
oil or grease, and will not require renewing for a long time. The brass
of a mill, managed in this way, might be expected to last twenty years,
and the movement smoother and easier. This economical substitute for
oil and grease can, with equal advantage, be applied to water mills,
whether their shafts be horizontal or perpendicular; in a word, to all
kinds of machinery, where the preservation of the gudgeons and brasses
are an object.
_Malting._
The production of good malt is, without question, the key-stone of the
arch of brewing; therefore the brewer's attention should be invariably
directed to this point, as the most difficult and important part of his
operations. The process of making malt is an artificial or forced
vegetation, in which, the nearer we approach nature in her ordinary
progress, the more certainly shall we arrive at the perfection of which
the subject is capable. The farmer prefers a dry season to sow his
small grain, that the common moisture of the earth may but gently
insinuate itself into the pores of the grain, and thence gradually
dispose it for the reception of the future shower, and the action of
vegetation. The maltster cannot proceed by such slow degrees, but makes
an immersion in water a substitute for the moisture of the earth, where
a few hours infusion is equal to many days employed in the ordinary
course of vegetation, and the grain is accordingly removed as soon as
it appears fully saturated, lest a solution, and, consequently, a
destruction of some of its parts should be the effect of a longer
continuance in water, instead of that separation, which is begun by the
introduction of watery particles into the body. Were it to be spread
thin after this removal, it would become dry, and no vegetation would
ensue; but being thrown into the couch, a kind of vegetative
fermentation commences, which generates heat, and produces the first
appearance of a vegetation. This state of the barley is nearly the same
with that of many days continuance in the earth after sowing, but being
in so large a body, it requires occasionally to be turned over and
spread thinner; the former, to give the outward parts of the heap their
share of the acquired warmth and moisture, both of which are lessened
by exposure to the air; the latter, to prevent the progress of the
vegetative to the putrefactive fermentation, which would be the
consequence of suffering it to proceed beyond a certain degree. To
supply the moisture thus continually decreasing by evaporation and
consumption, an occasional, but sparing, sprinkling of water should be
given to the floor, to recruit the languishing powers of vegetation,
and imitate the shower upon the cornfield; but this should not be too
often repeated; for, as in the field, too much rain, and too little
sun, produces rank stems and thin ears, so here would too much water,
and, of course, too little dry warmth, accelerate the growth of the
malt, so as to occasion the extraction and loss of such of its valuable
parts as, by a slower process, would have been duly separated and left
behind. By the slow mode of conducting vegetation here recommended, an
actual and minute separation of the parts takes place; the germination
of the radicles and acrospire carries off the cohesive properties of
the barley, thereby contributing to the preparation of the saccharine
matter, which it has no tendency to extract, or otherwise injure, but
to increase and meliorate, so long as the acrospire is confined within
the husk; and by as much as it is wanting of the end of the grain, by
so much does the malt fall short of perfection; and in proportion as it
is advanced beyond, is that purpose defeated.
This is very evident to the most common observation, on examining a
kernel of malt, in the different stages of its progress. When the
acrospire has shot but half the length of the grain, the lower part
only is converted into that mellow saccharine flour we are solicitous
of, whilst the other half exhibits no other signs of it than the whole
kernel did at its first germination: let it advance to two thirds of
the length, and the lower end will not only have increased its
saccharine flavour, but will have proportionably extended its bulk, so
as to have left one third part unmalted. This, or even less than this,
is contended for by many maltsters, as a sufficient advance of the
acrospire, which, they say, has done its business, so soon as it has
passed the middle of the kernel. But we need seek no further for their
conviction of error, than the examination here alluded to.
Let the kernel be slit down the middle, and tasted at either end whilst
green, or let the effects of mastication be tried when it is dried off;
when the former will be found to exhibit the appearances just
mentioned, the latter to discover the unwrought parts of the grain, in
a stony hardness, which has no other effect in the mash tun, than that
of imbibing a large proportion of the liquor, and contributing to the
retention of those saccharine parts of the malt which are in contact
with it; whence it is a rational inference, that three bushels of malt,
imperfect in their proportion, are equal but to two of that which is
carried to its utmost perfection. By this is meant the farthest advance
of the acrospire, when it is just bursting from its confinement, before
it has effected its enlargement. The kernel is then uniform in its
internal appearance, and of a rich sweetness, in flavour equal to any
thing we can conceive obtainable from imperfect vegetation. If the
acrospire be suffered to proceed, the mealy substance melts into a
liquid sweet, which soon passes into the blade, and leaves the husk
entirely exhausted. The sweet thus produced by the infant efforts of
vegetation, and lost by its more powerful action, revives, and makes a
second appearance in the stem, but is then too much dispersed and
altered in its form to answer any of the known purposes of art.
The periods of its perfect appearance are in both cases remarkably
critical. It is at first perfect at the instant the kernel is going to
send forth the acrospire, and form itself into the future blade; it is
again discovered perfect when the ear is labouring at its extrication,
and hastening the production of the yet unformed kernels; in this it
appears, the medium of nature's chemistry, equally employed by her in
her mutation of the kernel into the blade, and her formation thus of
other kernels, by which she effects the completion of that circle to
which the operations of the vegetable world are limited. Were we to
inquire by what means the same barley, with the same treatment,
produces unequal portions of the saccharine matter in different
situations, we should perhaps find it principally owing to the
different qualities of the water used in malting, some of which are so
much better suited to the quality of the grain than others, that the
difference is truly astonishing. Hard water is very unfit for every
purpose of vegetation, and soft will vary its effects according to the
predominating quality of its impregnations. Pure elementary water is in
itself supposed to be only the vehicle of the nutriment of plants,
entering at the capillary tubes of the roots rising into the body, and
here depositing its acquired virtues, perspiring by innumerable fine
pores at the surface, and thence evaporating by the purest distillation
into the open atmosphere, where it begins anew its rounds of collecting
fresh properties, in order to its preparation for fresh service. This
theory leads us to the consideration of an attempt to increase the
natural quantity of the saccharum of malt by adventitious means; but it
must be observed, on this occasion, that no addition to water will rise
into the vessels of plants, but such as will pass the filter, the pores
of which appearing somewhat similar to the fine strainers of absorbing
vessels employed by nature in her nicer operations; we by analogy
conclude, that properties so intimately blended with water as to pass
the one, will enter and unite with the economy of the other, and vice
versa.
Supposing the malt to have obtained its utmost perfection, according to
the criterion here inculcated, to prevent its further progress, and
secure it in that state, we are to call in the assistance of a heat,
sufficient to destroy the action of vegetation, by evaporating every
particle of water, and thence leaving it in a state of preservation fit
for the present or future purpose of the brewer. Thus having all its
moisture extracted, and being by the previous process deprived of its
cohesive property, the body of the grain is left a mere lump of flour,
so easily divisible that, the husk being taken off, a mark may be made
with the kernel, as with a piece of soft chalk. The extractable
qualities of this flour are saccharum, closely united with a large
quantity of the farinaceous mucilage peculiar to bread corn, and a
small portion of oil enveloped by a fine earthy substance, the whole
readily yielding to the impression of water, applied at different
times, and different degrees of heat, and each part predominating in
proportion to the time and manner of its application. In the curing of
malt, as nothing more is requisite than a total extrication of every
watery particle, if we had in the season proper for malting a sun heat
sufficient to produce perfect dryness, it were practicable to produce
beer nearly colourless; but that being wanting, and the force of custom
having made it necessary to give our beers various tinctures and
qualities resulting from fire, for the accommodation of various tastes,
we are necessitated to apply such heats in the drying as shall not only
answer the purpose of preservation, but give the complexion and
property required; to effect this with certainty, and precision, the
introduction of the thermometer is necessary, but the real advantages
of its application are only to be known from experiment, on account of
the different construction of different kilns, the irregularity of the
heat in different parts of the same kiln, the depth of the malt, the
distance of the bulb of the thermometer from the floor; for though
similar heats will produce similar effects in the same situation, yet
the distribution of heat in every kiln is so irregular, that the medium
spot for the local situation of the thermometer as a standard, cannot
be easily fixed for ascertaining effects upon the whole. That done, the
several degrees, necessary for the purposes of porter, amber, pale
beers, &c. are easily discovered to the utmost exactness, and become
the certain rule of future practice.
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