MALT KILN 



191 



must then be given, that is, the particular colour and flavour required must now b 

 attained. 



For pale malt, the heat should not exceed 120. 



For the amber colours, heats ranging from 120 to 160, according to the colour 

 desired. 



For brown malt for porter-brewing, oak sticks are blazed on the fire, and the heat 

 raised to 180 or above; the floor must not be laid more than an inch thick, and be 

 kept constantly on the move by turning ; it is therefore a very hot and laborious 

 process. In finishing for the pale and amber malts, it is better to subject the floors 

 to a low and long-continued heat, rather than a high and sharp one, for the culm 

 colours much sooner than the body of the grain, owing to its slightness in substance, 

 and the workman is often deceived by this circumstance ; for pale malts, say 100 or 

 a little above ; for amber, about 125 or so. 



When the malt has attained the colour required, it is immediately heaped in the 

 middle of the kiln-floor, and the fires allowed to die down ; in about two or three hours 

 after, the kiln is ' teemed,' that is, the malt is taken off and stored in its bin : it is 

 decidedly the best plan to let this bo done while the malt is in a good hot state, for 

 it will keep right all the longer, and the culm should go with it to aid in keeping 

 out the atmosphere ; but although malt should be kept in the store-bin as dry as 

 possible, it is not thought a good plan to use it for brewing purposes until it has got 

 quite cold in the heap, or it will prove somewhat intractable in the mash-tun, and the 

 beer from it will not work kindly in the fermenting-tun, and prove somewhat difficult 

 to fire. 



During the kiln-drying, the roots and acrospire of the barley become brittle, and 

 fall off; and are separated by a wire-sieve whose meshes are too small to allow the 

 malt itself to pass through. 



A quantity of good barley which weighs 100 pounds, being judiciously malted, will 

 weigh, after drying and sifting, 80 pounds. Since the raw grain, dried by itself at 

 the same temperature as the malt, would lose 12 per cent, of its weight in water, the 

 malt process dissipates out of these remaining 88 pounds, only 8 pounds, or 8 percent, 

 of the raw barley. This loss consists of 



1J per cent, dissolved out in the steep water, 

 3 ,, dissipated in the kiln, 

 3 ,, by the removal of the fibrils, 

 OJ of waste. 



The bulk of good malt exceeds that of the barley from which it was made by about 

 8 or 9 per cent. 



AXAXiT KXKXX. (Darre, Ger.) The requisite conditions of a good malt kiln 

 are, that the temperature should be under perfect control ; the malt not exposed too 

 near the direct action of the fire ; and the vapour from the heated grain rapidly 

 carried off. 



Figs. 1423, 1424, 1425, 1426 exhibit the construction of a well-contrived malt kiln. 

 Fig. 1423 is the ground plan; fig. 1424 is the vertical section ; andjf^s. 1425 and 1426, 

 a horizontal and vertical section in the line of the malt-plates. The same letters 



1424 



1423 



denote the same parts in each of the figures. A cast-iron cupola-shaped oven is sup- 

 ported in the middle upon a wall of brickwork four feet high ; and beneath it are 

 the grate and its ash-pit. The smoke passes off through two equidistant pipes into 

 the chimney. The oven is surrounded with four pillars, on whose top a stone lintel 



