PROCESS OF MALTING. Q7 
they will be found, 2nd. to be quite warm, 
although no heat has been applied to them. 
And if one or two are tasted, they now possess, 
ord. a very agreeable sugary taste. This is all 
that the maltster requires in order to prepare 
the grains for becoming malt; and as he knows 
that, if he permitted the process of germination 
to go any further, the young plant would in 
its growth consume all this sugar, he determines 
now to kill the seed; and lighting a fire below 
the floor, he heats it until the barley is dried 
and killed. It is then malt, and is fit for brewing 
into ale or porter. 
Now there is a great deal of chemistry in all 
this; and we hope to make it easily intelligible 
to an attentive and careful reader. Water is 
taken into the seed,—this is the first fact. It 
serves to dissolve and soften some portion of 
the ingredients of the seed, and so prepare it 
to undergo a change of nature; for it is an im- 
portant rule in chemistry, that any substance 
when dissolved is more easily decomposed, or 
made into another substance, than if solid. But 
simultaneously, or nearly so, with the absorp- 
tion of water, the seed also absorbs a portion 
