the operation of preparing ale or beer from MALT.

Though the art of brewing is undoubtedly a part of chemistry, and certainly depends upon fixed and inviolable principles, as well as every other branch of that science, these principles have never yet been thoroughly investigated. For want of a settled theory, therefore, the practice of this art is found to be precarious; and to succeed unaccountably with some, and misfire as unaccountably with others. Some few hints, however, have been thrown out, in order to establish a regular theory of brewing; the principal of which we shall lay before our readers.

The usual process of brewing is as follows: A common quantity of water being boiled, is left to cool till the height of the steam be over; when so much is poured into a quantity of malt in the mashing tub, as makes it of a confidence stiff enough to be just well rowed up: after standing thus a quarter of an hour, a second quantity of the water is added, and rowed up as before: lastly, the full quantity of water is added; and that in proportion as the liquor is intended to be strong or weak.

—This part of the operation is called mashing.—The whole now stands two or three hours, more or less, according to the strength of the wort or the difference of weather, and is then drawn off into a receiver; and the mashing repeated for a second wort, in the same manner as for the first, only the water must be cooler than before, and must not stand above half the time. The two worts are then to be mixed, the intended quantity of hops added, and the liquor closely covered up, gently boiled in a copper for the space of an hour or two; then let into the receiver, and the hops strained from it into the coolers. When cool, the barm or yeast is applied; and it is left to work or ferment till it be fit to turn up. For small beer there is a third mashing with the water near cold, and not left to stand above three quarters of an hour; to be hopped and boiled at discretion. For double beer or ale, the liquors resulting from the two first maltings must be used as liquor for the third mashing of fresh malt.

From considering this process, and the multiplicity of circumstances to be attended to in it, we may easily attending see that it must be a very precarious one. The success of the operation, i.e. the goodness of the beer, must depend upon the quality of the malt from which it is made; on that of the water with which it is infused; on the degree of heat applied in the infusion; on the length of time the infusion is continued; on the proper degree of boiling, the quantity and quality of the hops employed; on the proper degree of fermentation, &c.: all which, as already observed, have never yet been thoroughly investigated and ascertained.

The manner of making malt Sir Robert Murray describes as follows.—Take good barley newly thrashed, method of &c.; put about six English quarters in a stone trough malt-malting full king. Brewing, full of water, where let it steep till the water be of a bright reddish colour; which will be in about three days, more or less according to the moisture or dryness, smallness or bigness, of the grain, the season of the year, or the temperature of the weather. In summer, malt never makes well; in winter it requires longer steeping than in spring or autumn. It may be known when it is steeped enough by other marks besides the colour of the water; as by the excessive swelling of the grain, if it be over-steeped, and by too much softness; being, when it is in a right temper, like the barley prepared to make broth of. Where it is sufficiently steeped, take it out of the trough, and lay it in heaps to let the water drain from it; then, after two or three hours, turn it over with a scoop, and lay it in a new heap, 20 or 24 inches deep. This is called the coming heap, in the right management whereof lies the principal skill. In this heap it may lie 40 hours, more or less according to the forementioned qualities of the grain, &c., before it come to the right temper of malt; which that it may do equally, is mainly desired. While it lies in this heap, it must be carefully looked to after the first 15 or 16 hours: for about that time the grains begin to put forth roots; which, when they have equally and fully done, the malt must, within an hour after, be turned over with a scoop; otherwise the grains will begin to put forth the blade and spire also, which must by all means be prevented. If all the malt do not come equally, but that which lies in the middle, being warmest, come the soonest; the whole must be turned, so that what was outmost may be inmost; and thus it is managed till it be all alike. As soon as the malt is sufficiently come, turn it over, and spread it to a depth not exceeding five or six inches; and by the time it is all spread out, begin and turn it over again three or four times. Afterwards turn it over in like manner once in four or five hours, making the heap deeper by degrees; and continue to do so for the space of 48 hours at least. This frequent turning it over, cools, dries, and deadens the grain; whereby it becomes mellow, melts easily in brewing, and separates entirely from the hull. Then throw up the malt into a heap as high as you can; where let it lie till it grow as hot as your hand can endure it, which usually happens in about the space of 30 hours. This perfects the sweetness and mellowness of the malt. After it is sufficiently heated, throw it abroad to cool, and turn it over again about five or eight hours after; and then lay it on a kiln with a hair-cloth or wire spread under it; where, after one fire which must last 24 hours, give it another more slow, and afterwards, if need be, a third: for if the malt be not thoroughly dried, it cannot be well ground, neither will it dissolve well in the brewing; but the ale it makes will be red, bitter, and unfit for keeping.

From this account of the process of malting, it appears, that, besides the proper management in wetting, turning, &c., the drying is an article of the utmost consequence; and concerning the proper degrees of heat to be employed for this purpose, Mr Combrune has related the following experiments. "In an earthen pan, of about two feet diameter, and three inches deep, I put as much of the palest malts, very unequally grown, as filled it on a level to the brim. This I placed over a little charcoal lighted in a small stove, and kept continually stirring it from bottom to top; at Brewing, first it did not feel so damp as it did about half an hour after.

"In about an hour more, it began to look of a bright orange colour on the outside, and appeared more swollen than before. Every one is sensible how long-continued custom alone makes us sufficient judges of colours. Then I macerated some of the grains, and found they were nearly such as are termed brown malts. On stirring and making a heap of them towards the middle, I placed therein at about half depth the bulb of my thermometer, and found it rose to 140 degrees: here the malt felt very damp, and had but little smell.

"At 165 degrees I examined it in the same manner as before, and could perceive no damp: the malt was very brown; and, on being macerated, some few black specks appeared.

"Now many corns, nearest the bottom, were become black and burnt; with all the diligence I could use, I placed my thermometer nearly there, and it rose to 175 degrees. But the particles of fire, arising from the stove, act on the thermometer in proportion to the distance of the situation it is placed in; for which, through the whole experiment, an abatement of 5 degrees should be allowed, as near as I could estimate; so, a little after, putting my thermometer in the same position, where nearly half the corns were black, it showed 180 degrees. I now judged that the water was nearly all evaporated, and the heap grew black asleep.

"Again, in the centre of the heap raised in the middle of the pan, I found the thermometer at 180 degrees; the corn tafted burnt; and the whole, at top, appeared about one half part a full brown, the rest black: on being macerated, still some white specks appeared; which I observed to proceed from the barley corns which had not been thoroughly germinated, and whose parts, cohering more together, the fire, at this degree of heat, had not penetrated them: their taste was insipid, the malts brittle, and readily parting from the skin: but the thermometer was now more various, as it was nearer to or farther from the bottom; and here I judged all the true malt to be charred.

"However, I continued the experiment; and, at 190 degrees, still found some white specks on macerating the grain; the acrospire always appearing of a deeper black or brown than the outward skin: the corn now fried at the bottom of the pan.

"I next increased the fire; the thermometer, placed in the mean between the bottom of the pan and the upper edge of the corn, showed 210 degrees. The malt hissed, fried, and smoked abundantly; though, during the whole process, the grain had been kept stirring, yet, on examination, the whole had not been equally affected with the fire. I found a great part thereof reduced to perfect cinders, easily crumbling to dust between the fingers, some of a very black hue without globs, some very black with oil shining on the outside. Upon the whole, two-thirds of the corn were perfectly black; the rest were of a deep brown, more or less so as they were hard, feely, or imperfectly germinated; which was easily discovered by the length of the shoot. Most of them seemed to have lost their cohesion, and had a taste resembling that of high roasted coffee." Brewing.

"In the last stage of charring the malt, I let thereon a wine glass inverted, into which arose a pinguous oily matter, which tasted very salt. Perhaps it may not be unnecessary to say, that the length of time this experiment took up was four hours, and that the effect it had both on myself and the person who attended me was such as greatly resembled the case of inebriation.

"Though, from hence, it is not possible to fix the exact degree of heat in which malts char, yet we see some black appeared when the thermometer was at 165 degrees, that some were entirely black at 175 and at 180 degrees, that the grains thus affected were such as had been perfectly germinated, and that those which bore a greater heat were defective in that point; whence we may conclude, with an exactness that will be sufficient for the purposes of brewing, that true germinated malts are charred in heats between 175 and 180 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 purposes of brewing."

From these experiments, our author has constructed the following table of the different degrees of the dryness of malt, with the colour occasioned by each degree.

| Deg. | Colour of malt | |------|---------------| | 119 | White | | 124 | Cream colour | | 129 | Light yellow | | 134 | Amber colour | | 138 | High amber | | 143 | Pale brown | | 148 | Brown | | 152 | High brown | | 157 | Brown inclining to black | | 162 | Brown speckled with black | | 167 | Blackish brown speckled with black | | 171 | Colour of burnt coffee | | 176 | Black |

"The above table (says he) not only shows us how to judge of the dryness of malt from its colour, but also when a grit is composed of several sorts of malt, what effect the whole will have when blended together by extraction; and although possibly some small errors may arise in judgments thus formed by our senses, yet as malts occupy different volumes in proportion to their dryness in the practice of brewing, if the result of the water coming in contact with the malt show the degree expected, such parcel of malt may be said to have been judged of rightly in the degree of dryness it was estimated at; so that the first trial either confirms, or sets us numerically right as to our opinion thereof."

It is found by experience, that the less heat employed in drying the malt, the shorter time will be required before the beer is fit to be used; and of this our author has given the following table.

| Deg. | Duration | |------|--------------| | 119 | 2 weeks | | 124 | a month | | 129 | 3 months | | 134 | 4 months | | 138 | 6 months | | 143 | 8 months | | 147 | 10 months | | 152 | 15 months | | 157 | 20 months | | 162 | two years |

Lastly, Mr Combrune hath given the following table, showing the tendency beers have to become fine, when properly brewed from malts of different degrees of dryness.

| Deg. | Colour of malt | |------|---------------| | 119 | White | | 124 | Cream colour | | 129 | Light yellow | | 134 | Amber colour | | 138 | High amber | | 143 | Pale brown | | 148 | Brown | | 152 | High brown | | 157 | Brown inclining to black | | 162 | Brown speckled with black | | 167 | Blackish brown speckled with black | | 171 | Colour of burnt coffee | | 176 | Black |

These when properly brewed, become spontaneously fine, even as far as 135°; when brewed for amber by repeated fermentations, they become pellucid.

By precipitation these grow bright in a short time.

With precipitation these require 8 or 10 months to become bright.

With precipitation these may be fined, but will never become bright.

These with difficulty can be brewed without letting the goods, and will by no means become bright, not even with the strongest acid menstruum.

In a pamphlet entitled "Theoretic hints on improved practice of brewing malt-liquors, &c. by John Richardson," we have the following observations on the nature and properties of malt.

"The process of making malt is an artificial or forced vegetation, in which the nearer we approach the footsteps of nature in her ordinary progress, the more certainly shall we arrive at that perfection of which the subject is capable. The farmer prefers a dry season to sow his corn in, that the common moisture of the earth may but gently infuse 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 corn is accordingly removed as soon as it appears fully saturated, left 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 this introduction of aqueous particles into the body of the grain.

"We are 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 germination. 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 required 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 Brewing. sparing sprinkling of water should be given to the floor to recruit the languishing powers of vegetation, and imitate the shower upon the corn-field. But this should not be too often repeated; for, as in the field, too much rain, and too little sun, produce 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 much 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 how much it is wanting of the end of the grain, by so much does the malt fall short of perfection, and in proportion as it has 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 yellow saccharine flour we are solicitous about, whilst the other half affords 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 proportionally extended its bulk, so as to have left only a 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 as soon as it has passed the middle of the kernel. But we need seek no farther 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 maturation 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 body of flaky hardness, which has no other effect in the malt-tun than that of imbibing a large portion 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 this proportion, are but equal 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 anything 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.

"We were to enquire, 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. Hard water is very unfit for every purpose of vegetation, and soft will vary its effects according to the predominating qualities of its impregnations. Pure elementary water is in itself supposed to be the only vehicle of the nutriment of plants, entering at the capillary tubes of the roots, rising into the body, and there dispersing 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 round 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 or 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 farther 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 extractible qualities of this flour are, a 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 aqueous particle, if we had in the season proper for malting, a solar heat, sufficient to produce perfect dryness, it were practicable to reduce beers nearly colourless; but that being wanting, and the force of custom having made it necessary to give our beers various tints 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 preserving, but give the complexion and property required.

"To effect this with certainty and precision, the introduction Brewing. Introduction of the thermometer is necessary; but the real advantages of its application are only to be known by 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, &c., &c., for though similar heats will produce similar effects in the same situation, yet is the dispersion of heat in every kiln so irregular, that the medium spot must be found for the local situation of the thermometer ere a standard can be 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.

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

"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 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 purposes of a more intimate union by fermentation, are, by great heat in curing, burnt and blended so effectually together, that all discrimination is lost, the unfermentable are extracted with the fermentable, the integrant with the constituent, to a very great loss both of spirituality 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 well acquainted with their several qualities and attachments, he will bring over, with the burnt mixture of saccharine and mucilaginous principles, such an abundance of the scorched oils, as no fermentation can attenuate, no precipitants remove; for, being in 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 a nausea to the palate, to the latest period."

The next consideration is the quality of the water to be employed in brewing; and here soft water is universally allowed to be preferable to hard, both for the purposes of mashing and fermentation. Transparency is, however, more easily obtained by the use of hard than soft water: first, from its inaptitude to extract such an abundance of that light mucilaginous matter, which, floating in the beer for a long time, occasions its turbidity; secondly, from its greater tendency to a state of quietude after the vinous fermentation is finished, by which those floating particles are more at liberty to subside; and, lastly, from the mutual aggregation of the earthy particles of the water with those of the materials, which by their greater specific gravity thus aggregated, not only precipitate themselves, but carry down also that lighter mucilage just mentioned. For these reasons, hard water is not well adapted to the brewing of porter, and such beers as require a fulness of palate, when drawn to the greatest lengths of the London brewery, and of some country situations.

The purity of water is determined by its lightness; and in this, distilled water only can claim any material degree of perfection. Rain water is the purest of all naturally produced; but by the perpetual exhalations of vegetables, and other fine substances floating in the atmosphere, it does not come down to us entirely free from those qualities which pond and river waters possess in a greater degree. These, especially of rivers running through fens and marshes, from the quantity of grass and weeds growing therein, imbibe an abundance of vegetable solutions which occasions them to contain more fermentable matter, and consequently to yield a greater portion of spirit; but at the same time induces such a tendency to acidity as will not easily be conquered. This is more to be apprehended towards the latter end of the summer than at any other time; because these vegetable substances are then in a state of decay, and thence more readily impart their pernicious qualities to the water which passes over them.

At such an unfavourable time, should the brewer be necessitated to pursue his practice, it will behove him to pay the utmost attention to the cause of this disposition in his liquor, and thence endeavour to prevent the ill consequences, by conducting his process to the extraction and combination of such parts of the materials as his judgment informs him will best counteract its effects.

Where there is the liberty of choice, we would recommend the use of that water which, from natural purity, equally free of the austerity of imbibed earths, and the rankness of vegetable saturation, has a soft fulness upon the palate, is totally flavourless, inodorous, and colourless; whence it is the better prepared for the reception and retention of such qualities as the process of brewing is to communicate and preserve.

The next thing to be considered is the proper degree of heat to be employed in making the infusion; and here it is evident, that though this must be an object of the utmost importance to the success of the operation, it is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to fix upon a precise standard that shall at all times fully answer the purpose. On this subject Mr Richardson presents us with the following observations.

"The quality of the saccharine part of malt resembles that of common sugar, to which it is practicable to reduce it; and its characteristic properties are entirely owing to its intimate connexion with the other parts of the malt, from which such distinguishing flavours of beers are derived as are not the immediate result of the hop. Were it not for these properties, the brewer might adopt the use of sugar, molasses, honey, or the sweet of any vegetable, to equal advantage; which cannot now be done, unless an eligible succedaneum be found to answer that purpose. As we are at present circumstanced, a search on the other side would turn more to the brewer's account. We have in malt a superabundance of the groser principles; and would government..." government permit the introduction of a foreign addition to the saccharine, which is too deficient; many valuable improvements might be made from it; as we could, by a judicious application of such adventitious principle, produce a second and third wort, of quality very little inferior to the first.

"But in these experiments a very particular attention would be necessary to the solvent powers of the water at different degrees of heat, and to the inquiry how far a menstruum saturated with one principle may be capable of dissolving another. Such a consideration is the more necessary on this occasion to direct us clear of two extremes equally disagreeable: the first is, that of applying the menstruum pure, and at such a heat as to bring off an over proportion of the oleaginous and earthy principles, which would occasion in the beer, thus wanting its natural share of saccharum, a harshness and austerity which scarce any time the brewer could allow would be able to dissipate: the other is, that of previously loading the menstruum with the adopted sweet in such an abundance as to destroy its solvent force upon the characteristic qualities we wish to unite with it, and thereby leave it a mere solution of sugar. The requisite mean is that of considering what portion of the saccharine quality has been extracted in the first wort, according to the quantity of water and degree of heat applied; and then to make such a previous addition of artificial sweet as will just serve to counterbalance the deficiency, and affiliate with that portion of the remaining principles we are taught to expect will be extracted with the succeeding wort.

"From the nature of the constituent principles of malt, it is easy to conceive, that the former, or saccharine or mucilaginous parts, yield most readily to the impulsion of water, and that at so low a degree of heat, as would have no visible effect upon the latter. If, therefore, we are to have a certain proportion of every part, it is a rational inference, that the means of obtaining it rest in a judicious variation of the extracting heat according to the several proportions required.

"A low degree of heat, acting principally upon the saccharum, produces a wort replete with a rich soft sweet, fully impregnated with its attendant mucilage, and in quantity much exceeding that obtainable from increased heat; which by its more powerful infusion into the body of the malt acting upon all the parts together, extracts a considerable portion of the oleaginous and earthy principles, but falls short in fulness, sweetness, and quantity. This is occasioned by the coagulating property of the mucilage, which, partaking of the nature of flour, has a tendency to run into paste in proportion to the increase of heat applied; by which means it not only locks up a considerable part of the saccharum contained therein, but retains with it a proportionate quantity of the extracting liquor, which would otherwise have drawn out the imprisoned sweet, thence lessening both the quantity and quality of the worts. And this has sometimes been known to have had so powerful an effect, as to have occasioned the setting of the goods, or the uniting the whole into a pasty mass; for though heat increases the solvent powers of water in most instances, there are some in which it totally destroys them. Such is the presence of flour, which it converts into paste; besides those of blood, eggs, and some other animal substances, which it invariably tends to harden.

"From a knowledge of these effects, we form our ideas of the variations necessary in the heat of the extracting liquor: which are of more extensive utility than has yet been intimated, though exceedingly limited in their extent from one extreme to the other.

"The most common effects of too low a heat, besides sometimes producing immediate acidity, are an insipidity of the flavour of the beer, and a want of early transparency, from the superabundance of mucilaginous matter extracted by such heats, which, after the utmost efforts of fermentation, will leave the beer turbid with such a cloud of its lighter feculencies as will require the separation and precipitation of many months to disperse.

"The contrary application of too much heat, at the same time that it lessens this mucilage, has, as we have seen before, the effect of diminishing the saccharum also; whence that lean thin quality observable in some beers; and, by extracting an over proportion of oleaginous and earthy particles, renders the business of fermentation difficult and precarious, and impresses an austerity on the flavour of the liquor which will not easily be effaced.

"Yet the true medium heat for each extract cannot be universally ascertained. An attention not only to the quality of the malt, but to the quantity wetted, is absolutely necessary to the obtaining every due advantage; nor must the period at which the beer is intended for use be omitted in the account. The quality of the water also claims a share in the consideration, in order to supply that deficient thinness and want of solvent force in hard, and to allow for the natural fulness and fermentative quality of soft; a particular to which London in a great measure owes the peculiar mucilaginous and nutritious quality of its malt liquors.

"Although the variations above alluded to are indispensible, it is easy to conceive, from the small extent of the utmost variety, that they cannot be far distant. If, therefore, we know that a certain degree extracts the first principles in a certain proportion, we need not much consideration to fix upon another degree that shall produce the required proportion of the remaining qualities, and effect that equal distribution of parts in the extract which it is the business of fermentation to form into a consistent whole."

The principal use of boiling, as it respects the worts particularly, is to separate the groarser or more palpable worts, parts of the extract, preparatory to that more minute separation which is to be effected in the gyle tun. The eye is a very competent judge of this effect; for the concretions into which the continued action of boiling forms these parts are obvious to the slightest inspection, whilst the perfect transparency of the interstices of the worts points out its utility in promoting that desirable quality in the beer. These coagulable parts are formed from the superabundant mucilage already mentioned; and hence they are found in greater proportion in the first worts than in those that come after; at the same time, they are in these last to mingled with a quantity of oleaginous matter, that they become much more difficultly coagulable in the weak worts. Brewing worts than in such as are stronger, and hence these require to be much longer boiled than the others.

During this operation the hops are generally added, which are found to be absolutely necessary for preventing the too great tendency of beer to acidity. The fine essential oil of hops being most volatile and soonest extracted, we are therefore taught the advantage of boiling the first wort no longer than is sufficient to form the extract, without exposing it to the action of the fire so long as to dissipate the finer parts of this most valuable principle, and defeat the purpose of obtaining it. To the subsequent worts we can afford a larger allowance, and pursue the means of preservation so long as we can keep in view those of flavour; to which no rules can positively direct, the process varying with every variety of beer, and differing as essentially in the production of porter and pale ale as the modes of producing wine and vinegar.

The consequence of not allowing a sufficient time for the due separation of the parts of the wort and extraction of the requisite qualities of the hop must be obvious. If we proceed to the other extreme, we have every thing to apprehend from the introduction of too large a quantity of the groser principles of the hop, which are very inimical to fermentation; and from impairing the fermentative quality of the worts themselves, by suffering their too long exposure to the action of the fire passing through them, whereby they are reduced to a more dense consistence, and their parts too intimately blended to yield to the separating force of fermentation with that ease the perfection of the product requires.

The last step in the process of brewing is to ferment the liquor properly; for if this is not done, whatever care and pains have been taken in the other parts, they will be found altogether insufficient to produce the liquor desired. The first thing to be done here is to procure a proper ferment; for though all fermentable liquors would in time begin to ferment of themselves, yet, being also susceptible of putrefaction, the vinous and putrefactive ferments would both take place at the same time in such a manner that the product would be entirely spoiled. There are only two kinds of artificial ferments procurable in large quantity, and at a low price, viz. beer-yeast and wine-lees. A prudent management of these might render the business of the brewery for distillation, as in the bufines of the malt-distiller, &c. much more easy and advantageous*. Brewers have always found it a considerable difficulty to procure these ferments in sufficient quantities, and preserve them constantly ready for use; and this has been so great a discouragement to the business, that some have endeavoured to produce other ferments, or to form mixtures or compounds of particular fermentable ingredients; but this has been attempted without any great success, all these mixtures falling short even of common baker's leaven in their use. Whoever has a turn for making experiments and attempting improvements of this kind, will find it much easier and more advantageous to preserve and raise nurseries of the common ones, than to devise mixtures of others. Yeast may be preserved by freezing it from its moister parts. This may be done by the sun's heat, but slowly and imperfectly. The best method is by gently pressing it in canvas bags: Thus the liquid part, in which there is scarce any virtue, will be thrown off, and the solid will remain behind in form of a cake, which may be packed in a barrel or box, and will keep for a long time sweet and fragrant, and fit for the finest uses; and the same method may be taken either with wine-lees or the flowers of wine. The former may be brought from abroad with great ease in this manner: the latter may be made with us from the lees, by only dissolving them in water, and stirring them about with a stick; by this means, the lighter, more moveable, and more active part of the lees will be thrown up to the top, and may be taken off and preserved, in the manner above mentioned, in any quantity desired. By this means, an easy method is found of raising an inexhaustible fund; or a perpetual supply of the most proper ferments may be readily formed in the way of successive generation, so as to cut off all future occasion of complaint for want of them in the business of distillation. It must be observed that all ferments abound in essential oil much more than the liquors which produce them; whence they very strongly retain the particular flavour and scent of the subject from whence they were made. It is requisite, therefore, before the ferment is applied, to consider what flavour ought to be introduced, and accordingly what species of ferment is most suited to the liquor. The alteration thus caused by ferments is so considerable, as to determine or bring over any naturally fermentable liquor of a neutral kind to be of the same kind with that which yielded the ferment. The benefit of this, however, does not extend to malt, or to any other matter that does not naturally yield a tolerably pure and tasteless spirit, as it otherwise makes not a simple, pure, and uniform flavour, but a compound and mixed one.

The greatest circumspection and care are necessary in regard to the quality of the ferment. It must be chosen perfectly sweet and fresh: for all ferments are liable to grow musty and corrupt; and if in this case they are mixed with the fermentable liquor, they will communicate their nauseous and filthy flavour to it in such a manner as never to be got off. If the ferment is foul, it must by no means be used for any liquor; for it will communicate its flavour to the whole, and even prevent its rising to a head, and give it an acetonous, instead of a vinous, tendency. When the proper quantity is got ready, it must be put to the liquor in a state barely tepid, or scarcely lukewarm. The best method of putting them together, so as to make the fermentation strong and quick, is as follows. When the ferment is solid, it must be broken to pieces, and gently thinned with some of the warm liquor; but a complete or uniform solution of it is not to be expected or desired, as this would weaken its efficacy for the future buffings. The whole intended quantity being thus looily mixed in some of the lukewarm liquor, and kept near the fire or elsewhere in a tepid state, free from too rude commerce with the external air, more of the infinitely warm liquor ought at proper intervals to be brought in, till thus by degrees the whole quantity is set at work together. When the whole is thus set at work, secured in a proper degree of warmth, and kept from a too free intercourse with the external air, it becomes as it were the business of nature to finish the operation.

In the operation of fermentation, however, the degree gree of heat employed is of the utmost consequence. In forming the extracts of the malt, the variation of a few degrees of heat produces an important difference in the effect. In the heat of fermentation, similar consequences result from similar variety. Under a certain regulation of the process, we can retain in the beer, as far as art is capable, the finer mucilage, and thereby preserve that fulness upon the palate which is by many so much admired; on the other hand, by a slight alteration, we can throw it off, and produce that evenness and uniformity of flavour which has scarcely any characteristic property, and is preferred by some only for want of that heaviness which they complain of in full beers. If a more vinous racy ale be required, we can, by collecting and confining the operation within the body of the wort, cause the separation and absorption of such an abundant portion of the oleaginous and earthy principles, as to produce a liquor in a perfect state at the earliest period, and so highly flavorful as to create a suspicion of an adventitious quality. But though all this may be done, and often hath been done, the proper management of fermenting liquors depends so much upon a multiplicity of slight and seemingly unimportant circumstances, that it hath never yet been laid down in an intelligible manner; and no rules, drawn from anything hitherto published on the subject of brewing, can be at all sufficient to direct any person in this matter, unless he hath had considerable opportunities of observing the practice of a brewhouse.

To what we have now said we shall only add, from a practical treatise on brewing lately published, the names of the materials and their proportions, which are employed by the London brewers in the manufacture of the different kinds of malt liquors.

**PORTER.**

| Kinds of Malt | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |---------------|----------------| | West country pale | 3 Hops, 1 2 0 | | Herts pale | 6 Cocculus indic. 0 0 6 | | — brown | 8 Leghorn juice, 0 0 30 | | — amber | 8 |

Quarters 25

This yielded 89 barrels and 2 firkins of porter.

Another proportion of materials for Porter.

| Kinds of Malt | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |---------------|----------------| | Herts pale | 11 Hops, 1 2 0 | | — amber | 7 Cocculus indic. 0 0 4 | | West country brown | 7 Leghorn juice 0 0 30 |

Quarters 25

This proportion of materials yielded 87 barrels one firkin.

**BROWN STOUT.**

| Kinds of Malt | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |---------------|----------------| | Herts brown | 12 Hops, 2 0 0 | | — amber | 4 Cocculus indic. 0 0 4 | | — white | 4 Sugar, 0 1 0 | | — bitter bean | 0 0 6 |

Quarters 20

**READING BEER.**

| Pale malt, 20 quarters | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |------------------------|----------------| | Hops, | 1 3 0 | | Grains of Paradise, | 0 0 6 | | Coriander seed, ground, | 0 0 10 | | Sugar, | 0 1 0 |

**AMBER BEER.**

| Kinds of Malt | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |---------------|----------------| | West country pale | 2 ½ Hops, 1 0 0 | | Herts pale | 12 ½ Leghorn juice, 0 0 20 | | — amber | 10 Molasses, 0 0 30 | | Quarters, 25 | Grains of Paradise ground, 0 0 4 |

**LONDON ALE.**

| Kinds of Malt | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |---------------|----------------| | Herts white | 23 Hops, 1 3 10 | | — amber | 2 Grains of parad. 0 0 4 | | — coriander | 0 0 4 | | Quarters, 25 | Orange powder, 0 0 1 |

**WINDSOR ALE.**

| Kinds of Malt | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |---------------|----------------| | Herts pale, 25 quarters | Hops, 2 0 0 | | — honey | 0 0 40 | | — coriander seed | 0 0 4 | | — grains of parad. | 0 0 2 |

**WELCH ALE.**

Best pale malt, nine quarters.

| Hops, best Kent | 0 2 14 | | Sugar | 0 0 20 | | Grains of paradise | 0 0 3 |

**WIRTEMBERG ALE.**

| Kinds of Malt | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |---------------|----------------| | Herts pale | 16 Hops, 1 2 20 | | — amber | 4 Honey, 0 0 28 | | — sugar | 0 0 20 | | Quarters, 20 | Hartth. havings, 0 0 14 | | — ground coriander seed | 0 0 4 | | — caraway seeds | 0 0 1 |

**HOCK.**

| Kinds of Malt | cwt. qrs. lbs. | |---------------|----------------| | Herts pale | 14 Hops, 1 3 10 | | — amber | 6 Cocculus indicus berry, 0 0 4 | | Quarters, 20 | Sugar, 0 0 20 | | — bitter bean | 0 0 2 |

**SCURVY-GRASS ALE.**

| Kinds of Malt | Hops, 25 pounds. | |---------------|------------------| | Herts pale | 3 Molasses, 10 ditto. | | — amber | 3 Garden scurvy-grass, 5 bushels. | | — Alexandrian fennel | 2 pounds. | | Quarters, 6 | Horse-radish root, 1 ditto. | | which is to be sliced into the working tun. | TABLE BEER.

Kinds of Malt.

Herts white, 4 Hops, 72 pounds, pale, 2 Spanish juice, 12 ditto. amber, 2

Quarters, 8