BARLEY. 321 



about forty per cent, in weight, and until it can be easily- 

 pricked with a needle. It is then piled in heaps to germi- 

 nate, which it will quickly do, when it is spread on a floor, 

 two or three inches thick, to secure uniformity of sprouting. 

 This is a nice operation, and is stopped just as the gluten 

 and mucilage has mostly given way to sugar, and if it 

 should go too far the sugar would become acid and the 

 barley lost. At the proper stage of fermentation the grain 

 is kiln-dried, so as to destroy all vitality in the seed. Next, 

 the grain is ground, then mashed, that is, it is stirred in 

 just water enough, at 160°; to thoroughly wet it, then 

 water, at 194°, is added, and it is allowed to stand three or 

 four hours and then boiled in large copper vessels by means 

 of steam pipes. At this stage, one pound of hops to a 

 bushel of malt is added, and the whole mass frequently, 

 stirred. After being sufficiently boiled, it is strained, by 

 being drawn into vessels with perforated bottoms, and then 

 exposed, in broad shallow cisterns, with a stream of air 

 passing over them, for cooling rapidly. When cooled down 

 to about 60°, it is drawn into vats and the yeast added, one 

 gallon of yeast to 100 gallons of the liquid. Now is the 

 critical time of making good ale or beer. In a short time 

 fermentation begins, and the operator watches .day and 

 night the process, so as to take it at the precise point. 

 Now is the time the different kinds of malt liquors are 

 made. Ale, pale-ale, lager and bock beer, porter and all 

 the endless varieties of these drinks are determined by the 

 amount of fermentation; and this process is of so much 

 consequence, that a man well skilled in it will receive, in a 

 large brewery, enormous wages such as a man in no other 

 kind of business or profession will command, even $20,000 

 a year having been given some. When the proper point 

 has been reached, the liquor, to avoid the loss of the 

 alcohol, the aroma of the hops, and also to escape souring, 

 is put into hogsheads with the bung hole open. It here re- 

 mains and the froth escapes, carrying off all sedinraats and 

 21 



