The American Practical Brewer and Tanner

J >> Joseph Coppinger >> The American Practical Brewer and Tanner

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Though custom has laid this arbitrary injunction of variety on our malt
liquors, it may not be amiss to intimate the losses we often sustain,
and the inconvenience we combat in our obedience to her mandates.

The further we pursue the deeper tints of colour by an increase of
heat, beyond that which simple preservation requires the more we injure
the valuable qualities of the malt. It is well known that scorched oils
turn black, and that calcined sugar assumes the same complexion;
similar effects are producible in malts, in proportion to the increase
of heat, or the time of their continuing exposed to it. The parts of
the whole being so intimately united by nature, an injury cannot be
done to the one without affecting the other; accordingly we find that
such parts of the subject as might have been severally extracted for
the purpose of a more intimate union by fermentation, are, by great
heat in curing, burned and blended so effectually together, that all
discrimination is lost--the unfermentable are extracted with the
fermentable, the integrant with the constituent, to the very great loss
of spirituosity and transparency. In paler malts the extracting liquor
produces a separation, which cannot be effected in brown, where the
parts are so incorporated, that unless the brewer is very acquainted
with their several qualities and attachments, he will bring over with
the burned mixture of saccharine and mucilaginous principles, such an
abundance of the scorched oils, as no fermentation can attenuate, no
precipitants remove; for being themselves impediments to the action of
fermentation, they lessen its efficacy; and being of the same specific
gravity with the beer, they remain suspended in, and incorporated with,
the body of it--an offence to the eye, and nausea to the palate, to the
latest period. From this account it is evident the drying of malt is an
article of the utmost consequence concerning the proper degree of heat
to be employed for this purpose. Mr. Combrune has related some
experiments made in an earthen pan, of about two feet diameter, and
three inches deep, in which was put as much of the palest malts, very
unequally grown, as filled it to the brim. This being placed over a
charcoal fire, in a small stove, and kept continually stirred from
bottom to top, exhibited different changes according to the degrees of
heat employed on the whole. He concludes, that true germinated malts
are charred in heats between one hundred and seventy-five, and one
hundred and eighty degrees, and that as these correspond to the degrees
in which pure alcohol, or the finest spirit of the grain itself boils,
or disengages itself therefrom, they may point out to us the reason of
barley being the fittest grain for the purpose of brewing.

From these experiments, Mr. Combrune has constructed a table of the
different degrees of the dryness of malt, with the colour occasioned by
the difference of heat. Thus, malt exposed to one hundred and nineteen
degrees, is white; to one hundred and twenty-four, cream colour; one
hundred and twenty-nine, light yellow; one hundred and thirty-four,
amber colour; one hundred and thirty-eight, brown; one hundred and
fifty-two, high brown; one hundred and fifty-seven, brown, inclining to
black; one hundred and sixty-two, high brown speckled with black; one
hundred and seventy-one, colour of burned coffee; one hundred and
seventy-six, black. This account not only shows us how to judge of the
dryness of malt by its colour; but also, when grist is composed of
several kinds of malt, what effect the whole will have when blended
together by extraction. Experience proves that the less heat we employ
in drying malt, the shorter time will be required before the beer that
is brewed from it is fit to drink, and this will be according to the
following table:

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_A table giving the heats of different coloured malts, and the time
beer takes to ripen when brewed from them._
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124 Degrees 1 Month. | 138 Degrees 6 Months. | 152 Degrees 15 Months.
130 Degrees 3 Months. | 143 Degrees 7 Months. | 157 Degrees 20 Months.
134 Degrees 4 Months. | 148 Degrees 10 Months. | 162 Degrees 32 Months.

_The plain practical process of Malting pale Malt, according to the
most approved English method._

Suppose you are about to malt spring or summer barley, and that your
steep contains sixty bushels. The time generally allowed for this kind
of grain to remain in steep is from forty to forty-eight hours, taking
care to give two waters; the first water is to continue on the grain
twenty-four hours, then run off, and fresh water put on. This
precaution is essentially necessary, in order to make clean bright
malt, and should never be omitted. It is further right, at each
watering, to skim off the surface of the water the light grain, chaff,
and seed weeds, that are found floating on it; all this kind of trash,
when suffered to remain in the steep, is a real injury to the malt, and
considerably depreciates its value when offered for sale, and not less
so when brewed. The depth of water over the barley in the steep need
not exceed two or three inches, but should not be less. When the barley
has remained in steep the necessary time, the water is let off by a
plug hole at the bottom of the steep, with a strainer on the inside of
the hole; when the barley is thus sufficiently strained, it should be
let down by a plug hole in the bottom of the steep into the couch frame
on the lower floor, (or adjoining to it, which would be the better
construction,) which is no more than a square or oblong inclosure of
inch and a half boards ledged together, and about two feet deep, of
sufficient capacity to hold the contents of the steep, and so placed,
in upright grooves, as to ship and unship in this frame. The steeped
barley is to remain for twenty-four hours in the frame, when it should
be broke out, and carefully turned from the bottom to the top, nearly
of the same thickness it was in the frame, not less than sixteen or
eighteen inches, where it should be suffered to remain twenty-four
hours longer, or until the germination begins to appear: but this will
be always shorter or longer, according to the temperature of the
season, and is generally ascertained by sinking your hand towards the
middle of the heap, and bringing up a handful of the grain, which, if
regularly germinated, will make its appearance in every grain of
barley, by appearing white at one end; at this stage of the process,
(supposing the temperature of your malt house sixty degrees,) the heap
should be extended on the floor, to the thickness of eight inches;
after which it should be turned three or four times a day, according to
the season, and the progress of vegetation; gradually reducing the
thickness of the couch to four or five inches; but it should be
remarked, that as soon as the root begins to dry and wither, the
watering pot is to be used; the judicious management of which is one of
the most important parts of the process of malting, and should be paid
particular attention to. One watering, well applied, will, in most
cases, answer the purpose. Two thirds of the whole quantity of water
should be given to the upper surface of the couch, then turn it, and
give the remaining third of the water to the couch when turned. The
whole quantity of water to be used for sixty bushels of American spring
barley, may be averaged at fifty-four gallons; this quantity will,
consequently, allow thirty-six gallons to be as evenly distributed over
the surface of the couch for the first water, as possible; the
remaining eighteen gallons to be put on in the same way: when the couch
is turned after this last watering, the whole couch should be turned
back again; thus, in every turning, the bottom and top should always
exchange places. In this stage of the process, care should be taken to
turn the couch frequently, to prevent the growth of the root, in order
to give the greater facility to the growth of the blade, it being
essentially requisite to keep that of the root stationary, to prevent a
waste of strength in the grain. Three or four days after watering, is
generally found a sufficient time for the blade to grow fully up to the
end of the grain; farther than which it should not be suffered to
proceed. The couch should be now checked in its growth, and thrown on
the second or withering floor, where it should be laid thin, and
frequently turned; this continued operation will bring it dry and sweet
to the kiln, to which it may be committed without further delay.
Although the common practice is to throw it up into what is commonly
termed a sweet-heap, and so remain from twelve to twenty-four hours, or
until you can hardly bear your hand in it; then, and not before, is it
considered fit to go on the kiln. This is a practice that cannot be too
much condemned, or too generally exploded, as producing the very worst
consequences; a few of which I will mention. Green malt, thus treated,
becomes in a manner decomposed; and beer brewed from such malt will
never keep long, acquiring a disagreeable, nauseous flavour, rapidly
tending to acidity, beside becoming unusually high coloured. Although
the malt, before grinding, will have all the appearance of pale malt,
this quality can be easily accounted for by the high heat the malt is
suffered to acquire in the heap before putting it on the kiln. What I
have here mentioned will, I trust, suffice to recommend a more
judicious mode of practice. Forty-eight hours for malt to remain on the
kiln is enough, as pale malt can be completely dried in that time, if
frequently turned, and properly attended to. It is further worthy of
remark, that barley malt should in no case exceed fifteen or sixteen
days from the steep to the kiln, and is often more successfully
effected in twelve or thirteen days. The common practice of maltsters
is to allow twenty one days, which generally brings the green malt in a
mouldy state to the kiln, to the great injury of flavour and
preservation in beer brewed from such malts; whereas, the grain should
be brought as sweet and dry as circumstances will allow of to this last
and important operation of malting, every part of which requires minute
and continued attention. When you suppose your malt sufficiently dry,
make a round space in the centre of your kilncast by shovelling the
malt to the extremities; after which, sweep this space, and shovel back
again your malt from the walls and angles into it; make a round heap of
the whole on the centre of your kiln, sweep your kiln all round the
foot of your heap; so let it stand two hours, then throw it off; this
last operation is performed to give every chance for equal drying. The
practice of many maltsters is to take seventy two hours to dry their
pale malt, keeping all the time a very slow and slack fire, this is
another capital error, and should be corrected with the former ones.
Various are the opinions entertained, as to the best mode of preserving
malt after coming off the kiln: some are of opinion that the
circumambient air should have a free access to it; this opinion, I
admit, might have weight if such malt was to be immediately brewed; but
where it is allowed to remain in heap for four or five months, and
gradually become cool, the less air admitted to have access to it the
better; this has been the practice and opinion of the most judicious
maltsters I have been acquainted with, and, consequently, is what I
would recommend, except in the case of immediate use, where exposure
becomes necessary, particularly after grinding, as malt so treated will
bear a higher liquor, and yield a more preserving extract.

_Winter Barley._

To avoid useless and unnecessary repetitions, it is enough simply to
state, that winter barley, being a weaker bodied grain than summer,
requires less watering, consequently, a less time in steep, say 36 to
40 hours, and about 32 gallons of water to sixty bushels will be
sufficient on the floor; the other treatment the same.

_Oats the same_,

with about 24 gallons of water on the floor, for sixty bushels, divided
as directed in the case of summer and winter barley; the remaining part
of the process the same.

_Rye Malt._

Rye may be steeped 48 hours, with 48 gallons of water on the floor; the
remainder of the process the same, quantity of grain sixty bushels.

_Wheat._

The above time in steep, and same proportion of water on the floor,
will answer to make wheat malt, suppose 60 bushels, varying somewhat
according to season, the time of steeping, and bringing to the kiln;
the remainder of the process the same.

_Indian Corn Malt, a valuable auxiliary to Brewing materials._

This species of grain well managed, and made into malt, will be found
alike useful to the brewer and distiller, but it is peculiarly adapted
to the brewing of porter; further, it is known to possess more
saccharine matter than any other grain used in either brewing or
distilling, joined to the advantage of not interfering with the season
for malting barley, as this should commence when the former ceases. The
summer months are the fittest for malting this kind of grain, and can
be only very defectively made at any other season, as it requires a
high temperature to force germination, and cause it to give out all its
sweet. The following process, it is expected, will be found to answer
every purpose wished for: suppose your steep to contain sixty bushels,
after you have levelled it off, let on your water as directed in
malting barley; you should give fresh water to your steep at the end of
twenty-four hours. If it is southern corn you are malting, it will
require to remain in steep seventy-two hours in the whole; if it be
northern corn, it will require ninety-six hours, there being a
considerable difference in the density of these two kinds of grain; the
hardest, of course, requires the most water; and, in all cases, the
fresher Indian corn is from the cob the better it will malt. When you
have accomplished the necessary time in your steep, you let off your
water; and, when sufficiently drained, let it down in your couch frame,
where it will require turning once in twelve hours, in order to keep it
of equal temperature; the depth of the grain should be about two feet
and a half in the frame; as it begins to germinate and grow, open your
frame, and thin it down at every turning, until you reduce its
thickness to six or seven inches; thus extending it on your lower
floor, turning it more frequently, as the growth is rapid. The
vegetation of the grain, together with the turning, will by this time
make the watering pot necessary; the criterion by which you will judge
of its fitness for the water, is as soon as you perceive the root or
acrospire begins to wither. Two thirds of your water is to be
distributed over the surface of your couch for the first watering,
which will require thirty-two gallons, and when turned back again,
sixteen gallons for the second watering, making in the whole
forty-eight gallons of water to sixty bushels of corn. This water
should be put on with a gardener's watering pot, as equally as
possible. Supposing this pot to contain four gallons, it will make
eight pots for the first watering, and four for the second. In this
stage of the operation the turnings on the floor should be very
frequent, in order to keep the grain cool, as the heat of the weather,
at this season, will be sufficient to promote and perfect the
vegetation. The second day after the first watering, if the blade is
not sufficiently grown, water again, but in less quantity, say one
half. It will be now four or five days more before the couch is ready
for the kiln, which will be ascertained by the blade becoming the full
length of the corn. After this it should be thrown on the upper floor,
and suffered to wither for a couple of days, turning it frequently; by
this time the blade will have a yellow appearance, the grain will
become tender, and, if tasted, be found uncommonly sweet; in this state
it may be committed to the kiln, and dried in the usual way.

N. B. It will generally take ten days after it is out of the steep to
perfect the malting of southern corn, and twelve days for northern.

_Fermentation._

Notwithstanding that progress of improvement in the doctrine of
fermentation has, in the last twenty years, far surpassed any thing in
the same period that preceded it, we have still much to learn.
Fermentation is the instrument or means which nature employs in the
decomposition of vegetable and animal bodies, or reduction of them to
their original elements, or first principles. Fermentation is,
therefore, a spontaneous separation of the component parts of these
bodies, and is one of those processes that is conducted by nature for
their resolution, and the combination and fermentation of other bodies
out of them; therefore, it is one of these operations in which nature
is continually present, and going on before our eyes; this may be one
reason that a very critical observance of it has escaped our attention.
Fermentation brings us acquainted with this unerring axiom; that
nothing in nature is lost; or that matter, of which all things are
composed, is indestructible. For instance, the vinous process of
fermentation, succeeded by distillation, produces ardent spirits, or
alcohol, the elements of which are here described. If we pass this
alcohol, or spirits of wine, through a glass, porcelain, or metallic
tube, heated right hot, provided with a suitable condenser and
apparatus to separate and contain the parts or products, it will be
decomposed and resolved into its primitive elements, carbonic acid gas,
or fixed air, and hydrogen gas, or inflammable air; the oxygen being
decomposed and united with the oxygen, or vital air, into carbonic acid
gas; the water of the spirit of wine being also decomposed, or resolved
into its first principles as herein is stated, forms a part of the
produce before mentioned.

Hence spontaneous fermentation, vinous, acetous, and putrefactive, is
the natural decomposition of animal and vegetable matters, to which a
certain degree of fluidity is necessary; for where vegetable and animal
substances are dry, as sugar and glue for instance, and are kept so, no
fermentation of any kind succeeds.

There can be no doubt that spontaneous fermentation first taught
mankind the means of procuring wine and other agreeable beverage;
observation and industry the means of making spirit and vinegar, the
first of which is evidently the produce of art, combined with the
operations of nature.

With nature for our guide, and our own ingenuity, fermentation has been
made subservient to the various products we now obtain from saccharine
and fermentable matters, such as sugar, molasses, grain, with which we
have made wine, spirits, bread, beer, malt, &c.; which last has much
facilitated our practice in fermentation, but proved the tide-ending,
or point of stagnation to its further improvement. Relying too much on
malted grain in the operation of fermentation, we are presented with
some of the most pleasing and instructive phenomena of nature; the
resolutions and combinations that are formed during the process of the
vinous and acetous stages of fermentation, are interesting, beyond
comparison, to the brewer, malt and molasses distillers, vintager,
cider and vinegar maker, &c. The elastic fluids and volatile principles
that are extricated and escape, formerly so little attended to, are now
better understood. The method of commodiously saving, and
advantageously applying them, and other volatile products, to the
improvement of the fermenting and other fluids, will, I hope, not only
form a new era in the progress of fermenting, brewing, distilling, &c.
but a new source of profit, that may, in time, lead to a recomposition
of those elements from which they were produced, or, at least, the
fermentation of vinous fluids, vinegar, spirit, &c. by resorting to an
inexhaustible source supplied by nature, of these important materials,
and their application to the uses that may be made of that abundance so
easily procurable, and at present so unprofitably wasted. But to
continue our views to the business immediately before us, let us begin
with the several products, by stating that carbonic acid gas, or fixed
air, is copiously extracted from fluids in a state of vinous
fermentation, and sundry mineral and vegetable substances, easily
procurable, for which we have the testimony of our own senses; the same
may be said of hydrogen gas, oxygen gas, &c. Presuming these positions
granted, let us make a short inquiry into the composition of vinous
fluids, &c. Apprehending there are but few people to whom these
observations will be useful, but what will allow that all vinous
fluids, whether intended for beer, wine, cider, &c. are the produce of
saccharine matter, or fermentable matter obtained from the sugar cane,
grain, fruit, &c. and the part which art at present takes in this
beautiful process of nature, is to facilitate her operations in
proportion to observation and experience, in conformity to the object
in view, in making wine, beer, cider, spirit, &c.; or, subsequent to
the vinous, to forward the progress of the acetous fermentation for the
production of vinegar. The saccharine or fermentable matter of
vegetables, consists in what is chemically called hydrogen gas, or
inflammable air; carbonic acid gas, or fixed air; oxygen gas, or vital
air; which last forms nearly one third part of the whole atmosphere,
circumvolving our globe in which we breathe; or, more exactly,
thirty-seven parts of oxygen, and seventy-three of azotic gas, are the
component parts of our atmosphere, except the small proportion of
undecomposed carbonic acid gas there may be found in it.

Beer, wine, cider, malt and molasses wash, and other product by
distillation; spirit consists of these three elastic fluids or airs, in
composition with various proportions of water. Water itself is a
compound of vital and inflammable air; a proof of this, and of the
indestructibility of matter, these two elastic fluids burned together,
in certain proportions, and in a proper apparatus, reproduce water. By
another chemical process, this very water is reducible to these two
substances, vital and inflammable air; hence, we see, that all
saccharine and fermentable matter, and their products, by fermentation,
are composed of the same materials, and resolvable into the same
elements.

It is scarcely necessary to give any definition of spontaneous
fermentation, after what has been said on the subject; if it was, I
would say it is that tendency which all fermentable matter has to
decomposition, attended with intestine motion or ebullition, when
sufficiently diluted with water, under a certain temperature of the
atmosphere, the rapidity of which motion is always accompanied by an
increase of temperature, or the change to a greater degree of heat
generated within the body of the fermenting fluid, in proportion to the
rapidity or augmentation of motion or ebullition excited. Fermentation
produced by the addition of yest, or any other suitable ferment, in a
fluid duly prepared, is governed by the same laws, and under the same
influence of temperature, except when it is accelerated or protracted
by the management of the operator, or by the changes induced by the
influence of the atmosphere, rendered more or less subservient to his
purposes, and produces a similar kind of spirit by distillation,
possessing in common the properties of vinous spirit, or is converted
to vinegar by the subsequent process of acetous fermentation, but much
more productive in quantity and quality, so as to answer commercial
purposes. In both spontaneous and excited fermentation, there is a
similar escape of a large quantity of elastic fluid, or carbonic acid
gas, with a considerable proportion of spirit, and some of the water of
the fermented fluid. This gas is known to form a considerable part of
mucilaginous substances, as sugar, molasses, honey, malt, and other
saccharine and fermentable matter.

Although the doctrine of fermentation, as a science, does not enable us
to alter the spontaneous course of nature; yet if, by the assistance of
the instruments, and means recommended, we are enabled to foresee and
provide for the changes induced by the alterations of the atmosphere,
we can guard against the inconveniences in some cases, and make them
subservient to our purpose in others; so as more securely to conduct
the process in each to advantage; and that with unusual facility;
complex as it at present appears: it will not only be a great
improvement in the present mode of fermentation; but facilitate our
progress to still greater improvements in the doctrine of fermentation.
Therefore, the rule of our conduct, in these pursuits, should be to
watch the operations of nature with the closest attention, and assist
her when languid, and control her when too violent; that is, by
spurring in one instance, and bridling in the other, and accurately and
undeviatingly apply the means proposed in the manner recommended, until
experience enables us to improve it; otherwise, we shall only admire,
without improving or profiting by her choicest phenomena.

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