denotes barley cured, or prepared to fit it for making a potable liquor, under the denomination beer or ale. See BREWING.

MALT-Liquors have different names as well as different virtues, properties, and uses, both from the different manners of preparing the malt, whence they are distinguished into pale and brown; and from the different manners of preparing or brewing the liquors themselves; whence they are divided into beer and ale, strong and small, new and old.

Malt drinks are either pale or brown, as the malt is more or less dried on the kiln: that which is the dullestest dried tinging the liquor leaf in brewing, and therefore being called pale; whereas that higher dried, and as it were roasted, makes it of a higher colour. A mixture of both these makes an amber colour; whence several of these liquors take their name.

Now, it is certain, the pale malt has most of the natural grain in it, and is therefore the most nourishing; but, for the same reason, it requires a stronger constitution to digest it. Those who drink much of it, are usually fat and sleek in the bloom, but are often cut off by sudden fevers; or, if they avoid this, they fall early into a distempered old age.

The brown malt makes a drink much less viscid, and fitter to pass the several strainers of the body; but, if very strong, it may lead on to the same inconveniences ces with the pale: though a single debauch wears off much more easily in the brown.

Dr Quincy observes, that the best pale malt-liquors are those brewed with hard waters, as those of springs and wells, because the mineral particles, wherewith these waters are impregnated, help to prevent the cohesions of those drawn from the grain, and enable them to pass the proper secretions the better; as the viscid particles of the grain do likewise defend these from doing the mischief they might otherwise occasion. But softer waters seem best suited to draw out the sublance of high dried malts, which retain many fiery particles in their contexture, and are therefore best lost in a smooth vehicle.

For the differences in the preparation of malt liquors, they chiefly consist in the use of hops, as in beer; or in the more sparing use of them, as in ale.

The difference made by hops is best discovered from the nature and quality of the hops themselves: these are known to be a subtle grateful bitter; in their composition, therefore, with this liquor, they add somewhat of an alkaline nature, i.e. particles that are fulbline, active, and rigid. By which means, the ropy viscid parts of the malt are more divided and subtilized; and are therefore not only rendered more easy of digestion and secretion in the body, but also, while in the liquor, they prevent it from running into such cohesions as would make it ropy, vapid, and sour.

For want of this, in unhopped drinks, that clammy sweetness, which they retain after working, soon turns them acid and unfit for use; which happens sooner or later in proportion to the strength they receive from the malt, and the commination that it has undergone by fermentation.

The different strengths of malt liquors also make their effects different. The stronger they are, the more viscid parts they carry into the blood; and though the spirituous parts make these imperceptible at first, yet when those are evaporated, which will be in a few hours, the other will be sensibly felt by pains in the head, nauseousness at the stomach, and latitude or lilliness of motion. This those are the most sensible of who have experienced the extremes of drinking these liquors and wines; for a debauch of wine they find much sooner worn off, and they are much more lively and brisk afterwards, than after fuddling malt liquors, whose viscid remains will be long before they be shaken off.

Malt liquors, therefore, are, in general, the more wholesome for being small; i.e. of such a strength as is liable to carry a small degree of warmth into the stomach, but not so great as to prevent their being proper diluters of the necessary food. Indeed, in robust people, or those who labour hard, the viscidities of the drink may be broken into convenient nourishment; but in persons of another habit and way of living, they serve rather to promote obstructions and ill humours.

The age of malt liquors is the last thing by which they are rendered more or less wholesome. Age seems to do nearly the same thing as hops: for those liquors which are longest kept are certainly the least viscid; age breaking the viscid parts, and by degrees rendering them smaller, and fitter for secretion.

But this is always determined according to their strength; in proportion to which, they will sooner or later come to their full perfection as well as decay; for, when ale or beer is kept till its particles are broken and comminated as far as they are capable, then it is that they are best; and, beyond this, they will be continually on the decay, till the finer spirits are entirely escaped, and the remainder becomes vapid and sour.

MALT-Distillery. This is an extensive article of trade; and by which very large fortunes are made. The art is to convert fermented malt liquors into a clear inflammable spirit, which may be either sold for use in the common state of a proof strength, that is, the same strength with French brandy; or is rectified into that purer spirit usually sold under the name of spirit of wine; or made into compound cordial waters, by being distilled again from herbs and other ingredients. See BREWING and WASH.

To brew with malt in the most advantageous manner, it is necessary, 1. That the subject be well prepared; 2. That the water be suitable and duly applied; and, 3. That some certain additions be used, or alterations made, according to the season of the year, and the intention of the operator: and by a proper regulation in these respects, all the fermentable parts of the subject will thus be brought into the tincture, and become fit for fermentation.

The due preparation of the subject consists in its being justly malted and well ground. When the grain is not sufficiently malted, it is apt to prove hard, so that the water can have but very little power to dissolve its substance; and if it be too much malted, a part of the fermentable matter is lost in that operation. The harder and more flinty the malt is, the finer it ought to be ground; and in all cases, when intended for distillation, it is advisable to reduce it to a kind of finer or coarser meal. When the malt is thus ground, it is found by experience that great part of the time, trouble, and expence of the brewing is saved by it, and yet as large a quantity of spirit will be produced; for thus the whole substance of the malt may remain mixed among the tincture, and be fermented and distilled among it. This is a particular that very well deserves the attention of the malt distiller as that trade is at present carried on; for the despatch of the business, and the quantity of spirit procured, is more attended to than the purity or perfection of it.

The secret of this matter depends upon the thoroughly mixing or briskly agitating and throwing the meal about, first in cold and then in hot water; and repeating this agitation after the fermentation is over, when the thick turbid wash being immediately committed to the still already hot and dewy with working, there is no danger of burning, unless by accident, even without the farther trouble of stirring, which in this case is found needless, though the quantity be ever so large, provided that requisite care and cleanliness be used; and thus the business of brewing and fermenting may very commodiously be performed together, and reduced to one single operation. Whatever water is made choice of, it must stand in a hot state upon the prepared malt, especially if a clear tincture be desired; but a known and very great inconvenience attends its being applied too hot, or too near Malt. to a state of boiling, or even scalding with regard to the hand. To save time in this case, and to prevent the malt running into lumps and clods, the best way is to put a certain measured quantity of cold water to the malt first; the malt is then to be stirred very well with this, so as to form a sort of thin uniform paste or pudding; after which the remaining quantity of water required may be added in a state of boiling, without the least danger of making what, in the distiller's language, is called a pudden.

In this manner the due and necessary degree of heat in the water, for the extracting all the virtues of the malt, may be hit upon very expeditiously, and with a great deal of exactness, as the heat of boiling water is a fixed standard which may be let down to any degree by a proportionate mixture of cold water, due allowances being made for the season of the year, and for the temperature of the air.

This little obvious improvement, added to the method just above hinted for the reducing brewing and fermentation to one operation, will render it practicable to very considerable advantage, and the spirit improved in quality as well as quantity.

A much more profitable method than that usually practiced for the fermenting malt for distillation, in order to get its spirit, is the following: Take ten pounds of malt reduced to a fine meal, and three pounds of common wheat meal: add to these two gallons of cold water, and stir them well together; then add five gallons of water, boiling hot, and stir altogether again. Let the whole stand two hours, and then stir it again; and when grown cold, add to it two ounces of solid yeast, and let it by loosely covered in a warmish place to ferment.

This is the Dutch method of preparing what they call the wash for malt spirit, whereby they save much trouble and procure a large quantity of spirit: thus commodiously reducing the two business of brewing and fermenting to one single operation. In England the method is to draw and mash for spirit as they ordinarily do for beer, only instead of boiling the wort, they pump it into large coolers, and afterwards run it into their fermenting backs, to be there fermented with yeast. Thus they bellow twice as much labour as is necessary, and lose a large quantity of their spirit by leaving the gross bottoms out of the still for fear of burning.

All simple spirits may be considered in the three different states of low wines, proof spirit, and alcohol, the intermediate degrees of strength being of less general use; and they are to be judged of only according as they approach to or recede from these. Low wines at a medium contain a sixth part of pure inflammable spirit, five times as much water as spirit necessarily arising in the operation with a boiling heat. Proof goods contain about one half of the same totally inflammable spirit; and alcohol entirely consists of it.

Malt low wines, prepared in the common way, are exceeding nauseous; they have, however, a natural vinolity or pungent agreeable acidity, which would render the spirit agreeable to the palate, were it not for the large quantity of the gross oil of the malt that abounds in it. When this oil is detained in some measure from mixing itself among the low wines, by the stretching a coarse flannel over the neck of the still or at the orifice of the worm, the spirit becomes much purer in all respects; it is less fulsome to the taste, less offensive to the smell, and less milky to the eye. When these low wines, in the rectification into proof spirits, are distilled gently, they leave a considerable quantity of this gross fetid oil behind them in the still along with the phlegm; but if the fire be made fierce, this oil is again raised and brought over with the spirit; and being now broken somewhat more fine, it impregnates it in a more nauseous manner than at first. This is the common fault both of the malt distiller and of the rectifier: the latter, instead of separating the spirit from this nasty oil, which is the principal intent of his process, attends only to the leaving the phlegm in such quantity behind, that the spirit may be of a due strength as proof or marketable goods, and brings over the oil in a worse state than before. To this inattention to the proper business of the process, it is owing, that the spirit, after its several rectifications, as they are miccalled, is often found more stinking than when delivered out of the hands of the malt distiller. All this may be prevented by the taking more time in the subsequent distillations, and keeping the fire low and regular; the sudden stirring of the fire, and the hasty way of throwing on the fresh fuel, being the general occasion of throwing up the oil by spurts, where the fire in general, during the process, has not been so large as to do that mischief.

The use of a balneum mariae, instead of the common still, would effectually prevent all this mischief, and give a purer spirit in one rectification than can otherwise be procured in ten, or indeed according to the common methods at all.

Malt low wine, when brought to the standard of proof spirit, loses its milky colour, and is perfectly clear and bright, no more oil being contained in it than is perfectly dissolved by the alcohol, and rendered miscible with that proportion of phlegm, which is about one half the liquor: its taste also is cleaner, though not more pleasant; there being less of the thick oil to hang on the tongue than its own form; which is not the case in the low wines, where the oil being undissolved, adheres to the mouth in its own form, and does not pass lightly over it.

When proof spirit of malt is distilled over again, in order to be rectified into alcohol, or, as we usually call it, spirits of wine, if the fire be raised at the time when the faints begin to fall off, a very considerable quantity of oil will be raised by it, and will run in the visible form of oil from the nose of the worm. This is not peculiar to malt spirit; but the French brandy shows the same phenomenon, and that in so great a degree, that half an ounce of this oil may be obtained from a single piece of brandy.

Malt spirit, more than any other kind, requires to be brought into the form of alcohol, before it can be used internally, especially as it is now commonly made up in the proof state, with as much of this nauseous and viscid oil as will give it a good crown of bubbles. For this reason it ought to be reduced to an alcohol, or totally inflammable spirit, before it is admitted into any of the medicinal compositions. If it be used without this previous caution, the taste of the malt oil will be distinguished among all the other flavours of the ingredients.

A pure spirit being thus procured, should be kept carefully in vessels of glass or stone, well stopped, to prevent the evaporation of any of its volatile parts. If preserved in casks, it is apt to impregnate itself very strongly with the wood. The quantity of pure alcohol obtainable from a certain quantity of malt, differs according to the goodness of the subject, the manner of the operation, the season of the year, and the skillfulness of the workmen; according to which variations, a quarter of malt will afford from eight or nine to 13 or 14 gallons of alcohol. This should encourage the malt distiller to be careful and diligent in his business, as so very large a part of his profit depends wholly on the well conducting his processes.

After every operation in this business, there remains a quantity of faints, which in their own coarse state ought never to be admitted into the pure spirit; these are to be saved together, and large quantities of them at once wrought into alcohol. It is easy to reduce these to such a state that they will serve for lamp-spirits. Their disagreeable flavour being corrected by the adding of aromatics during the distillations, the reducing them into a perfect and pure alcohol is practicable, but not without much difficulties as render it scarcely worth the trader's while. One way of doing it is by distilling them from water into water, and that with a very slow fire. By this means a pure alcohol may be made out of the foulest faints.

The malt distiller always gives his spirit a single rectification per se, in order to purify it a little, and make it up proof; but in this state it is not to be reckoned fit for internal uses, but serves to be distilled into geneva and other ordinary compound strong waters for the vulgar.

The Dutch who carry on a great trade with malt spirit, never give it any farther rectification than this; and it is on this account that the malt spirit of England is in general so much more in esteem. The Dutch method is only to distil the wash into low wines, and then to full proof spirit; they then directly make it into geneva, or else send it as it is to Germany, Guinea, and the East Indies, for the Dutch have little notion of our rectification. Their spirit is by this means rendered very foul and coarse, and is rendered yet more nauseous by the immoderate use they make of rye meal. Malt spirit, in its unrectified state, is usually found to have the common bubble proof, as the malt distiller knows that it will not be marketable without it.

The whole matter requisite to this is, that it have a considerable portion of the grous oil of the malt well broke and mixed along with it; this gives the rectifier a great deal of trouble if he will have the spirit fine; but in the general run of the business, the rectifier does not take out this oil, but breaks it finer, and mixes it faster in by alkaline salts, and disguises its taste by the addition of certain flavouring ingredients. The spirit loses in these processes the vinosity it had when it came out of the hands of the malt distiller, and is in all respects worse, except in the disguise of a mixed flavour.

The alkaline salts used by the rectifier destroying the natural vinosity of the spirit, it is necessary to add an extraneous acid in order to give it a new one. The acid they generally use is the spiritus nitri dulcis; and the common way of using it is the mixing it to the taste with the rectified spirit: this gives our malt spirit, when well rectified, a flavour somewhat like that of French brandy, but this soon flies off; and the better method is to add a proper quantity of Glauber's strong spirit of nitre to the spirit in the still. The liquor in this case comes over impregnated with it, and the acid being more intimately mixed, the flavour is retained.

MALT-Bruiser, or Bruising-mill. It has been found by repeated experiments, that bruising malt is a mere advantageous method than the old one of grinding and flouring. By bruising, there is not only less waste, but the malt is also better fitted for giving out all its virtues. It has therefore become a practice to squeeze malt between rollers, by means of a proper apparatus, of which various contrivances have been invented. One of the best contrivances of this sort is said to be the bruising-mill of Mr Winlaw, which consists of a frame, a large cylinder or roller, a small roller, a hopper, a shoe, a frame to support the hopper, a fly wheel, and a windlass. To use this engine, it is directed to forew the large roller up to the small one, and not to feed too fast from the shoe, which is regulated by pins that have strings fixed to them. It is evident, that when two smooth surfaces are opposed to each other at a distance which can be regulated at pleasure, neither grain nor any other similar substance can pass between them without being bruised. This being the principle on which the bruising-mill acts, the mealy substance, which is the essential part of malt, is entirely removed from the skin or husk which contains it, and all the virtues of the malt are with ease extracted by the water in a manner superior to what is effected when the grain is only cut by grinding. The operation is at the same time so expeditiously performed, that two men can with ease bruise a bushel of malt in a minute. By the same engine may also be bruised oats and beans for horses. A great part of the corn given these animals, it is well known, is swallowed whole, and often passes through them in the same state; in which case, they cannot receive any nourishment from the grains that are unbroken; but when bruised in this engine, it eases mastication; and every grain being prepared for nutrition, a much less quantity will of course be found to be sufficient. For bruising beans, the two regulating forewheels must be unscrewed a little; and the fly-wheel requires to be then set in motion with the hand, on account that the rollers are then a little space apart, and will not turn each other before the beans come between them.

MALT-Tax, is the sum of 750,000l. raised every year by parliament since 1697, by a duty of 6d. on the bushel of malt, and a proportionable sum on certain liquors, such as cyder and perry, which might otherwise prevent the consumption of malt. This is under the management of the commissioners of the excise; and is indeed itself no other than the annual excise. In 1760, an additional perpetual excise of 3d. per bushel was laid upon malt; and in 1763, a proportional excise was laid upon cyder and perry, but new-modelled in 1766. See EXCISE.