678 



BREWING. 



Porter, the favourite drink oR.ondoiuTs, to be per- 

 fect, in UK- first place, it-quires :i large proportion of 

 brown or high-dried malt ; i. e. malt which lias lvn 

 scorched on the kiln ; but it is rarely, or, rather, never 

 made so at the present ilay. It is a wasteful and ex- 

 pensive practice to dry malt in this way, as very much 

 of its valuable constituents is wasted by this high- 

 drying, which operates, in fact, like distillation, carry- 

 ing nil in the steam what ought to be left behind. 

 Only a small portion uf Mich malt is, then-Ion-, now 

 used, and sometimes very little indeed, the colour of 

 porter being produced artificially, by means of burned 

 sugar. Low heats are used in the mashing, for the 

 liuiicir is not to be sweet, and ii is, then-lore, most pro- 

 fitable to get as much starch as possible. For the 

 same reason, the products of all the mashings are 

 mingled together, thus constituting entire porter. 

 Formerly, it was the practice, in London, to take the 

 separate mashes, for porter, of three different quali- 

 ties, which were mixed by the retailer, to form porter 

 of three threads ; but, afterwards, the brewers, dis- 

 liking this practice, made the porter entire at once. 

 It is obvious that ale could not be made entire. Again, 

 porter is fermented with more rapidity than ale, and 

 heii<-e it requires very careful watching, lest it sud- 

 denly pass tin- bounds of the vinous, and run into the 

 acetous fermentation. It requires to be cleansed oil 

 sometimes at a moment's warning, or else it gets that 

 acidity which is its most common fault. After all, it 

 abounds in unfennented matter, and requires a length 

 of time to ripen, that is, to change this matter into 

 alcohol ; and this it does best in large masses. Whe- 

 ther from this reason, or some other that does not ap- 

 pear, it seems to be pretty generally admitted, that no 

 brewery, either in England or elsewhere, has been 

 able to make porter equal to the large porter-breweries 

 of London. This superiority has been attributed to 

 the use of the Thames water ; but, in the first place, 

 the small London breweries, which do not make good 

 porter, have this advantage in common with the larger 

 ones j and, secondly, these last have long since ceased 

 to use the water of the river, as it contains too much 

 vegetable matter, and is liable to cause acidity in the 

 liquor. The superiority, as far as it exists, is doubtless 

 owing to command of capital, and consequent power 

 of choice in the malt-market, and system in conducting 

 the business : as to the rest, a wealthy concern, like 

 a London brewing company, has always means of 

 persuading bottlers and retailers of all descriptions, 

 that it is for their advantage to sell and praise their 

 porter in preference to that of a small establishment, 

 whose liquor may be equally good, but not quite so 

 cheap. Of the two stock liquors, porter is generally 

 considered more wholesome, and more easily diges- 

 tible. It keeps better, and, in London, is generally 

 preferred for common use. The ales manufactured 

 in many parts of the United States are coloured by the 

 addition of brown malt or burnt sugar. This is to 

 suit the taste of the consumers, who obstinately asso- 

 ciate the idea of strength and body with high colour. 

 It is impossible that ales thus coloured should be 

 without a harsh taste, which is a defect. Ales, to be 

 perfect, must be pale, and the fine English ales always 

 are so. No very good porter is made in the United 

 States, so far as is known to the writer of this article. 

 Three mash tuns are necessary to make it perfect, 

 and only one is commonly used in that country. See 

 die, Beer, Porter. 



In Plate XIII. fig. 1st and 2d, we have given two 

 views of a small brewery suitable for family use. The 

 letters refer to the same parts in both figures. H, the 

 malt store ; A, the copper where the water, or liquor 

 as the brewer names it, is heated before being run 

 into the mash tun B, where the ground malt is in- 

 fused. The mash tun has a double or false bottom 



pierced with small holes, in order (hat the wort may 

 drain freely from the malt : the liquor from the cop- 

 per is carried down the inside of the mash tun, and 

 made to enter between the two bottoms, whence, 

 rising up through the holes of the false bottom, it 

 forces its way among the goods, as the grist or malt, 

 when in the mash-tun, is termed, with which it is 

 intimately mixed by means of mashing oars. (', the 

 under back, where the wort from the mash-tun is 

 run into before being raised up into the copper by 

 means of the pump G. After being sufficiently 

 boiled, along with a quantity of hops, it is run olf into 

 the coolers D. When the wort is considered cold 

 enough, it is let down to the fermenting or gyle-tun 

 E. Here a quantity of yeast is mixed with the wort, 

 so that fermentation may go on. After being fer- 

 mented an assigned length of time, it is cleansed, that 

 is, drawn off and conveyed into the cleansing casks 

 F F F. The fermentation is finished by causing the 

 yeast to be discharged from the bung-holes into tubs 

 over which the casks are placed. In order to keep 

 up this purgation until all the yeast is wrought off, 

 the casks are filled up from time to time with other 

 beer. From these cleansing barrels the beer is then 

 racked off into other casks for use. As the beer is 

 liable to get flat after racking, it is common to prevent 

 this by adding from a sixth to a fourth part of new 

 ale from the gyle-tun in a state ready for cleansing. 



Brewing may be practised on a much smaller scale 

 then even that here described, and with perfect suc- 

 cess. The following apparatus for domestic brewing 

 would not cost above a pound or two. Procure a 

 common porter barrel, one end of which take out 

 and convert into a false bottom, by letting it rest <m 

 a hoop nailed round the lower part of the barrel, 

 within three inches of the real bottom. This false 

 bottom perforate with a vast number of gimblet-holes. 

 Between the real and false bottom fix a cock in one 

 of the staves of the barrel. This is the mash-tun. 

 Another porter barrel, with one end taken out, will 

 be a convenient fermenting-tun, and it may be placed 

 beneath the cock of the mash- tun, so as to receive 

 the wort when it is drawn off. In this position it 

 serves also as the under-back. A tin-plate boiler 

 may be procured, in the bottom of which is a cock, 

 and the insertion of the cock may be covered over 

 within the boiler with a tin-plate colander which will 

 permit the boiled wort to strain off, but will detain 

 the hops. This boiler may fit on a common fire- 

 grate. It will answer, also, for heating the mash 

 liquors. A thermometer may be used, but it may be 

 done without, and the proper heats determined by 

 mere measurement of cold or boiling water. Fifteen 

 gallons of boiling water are to be thrown into the 

 mash-tun, and five of cold water (60). The tem- 

 perature of this mixed water would be 174", but for 

 the cooling influence of the wooden vessel, which, 

 however, should have been well scalded immediately 

 before. The mash water will prove to be about 

 170. Two bushels and a half of the best ground 

 pale malt are now to be quickly shaken in, while a 

 second person continually blends the malt and water 

 with a stick. The agitation is to be continued for 

 half an hour, the barrel being kept covered with 

 some folds of thick linen cloth, which will readily 

 permit the agitation of the stick. After an hour's 

 repose the cock may be opened, very little at first, 

 but more by degrees. The wort runs bright and 

 clear, and the original twenty gallons come off less 

 by the suckage, which amounts to so much as seven- 

 teen gallons. Just when the last portions have run 

 off, water, not quite boiling, is to be h'ghtly let over 

 the residual grains, to the amount of twenty gallons, 

 and allowed to percolate through so as to wash down 

 the wort which had been retained. The total amount 



