Second Mosh
For very pale malt turn on the liquor at 182°. For pale and amber mixed, 178°; all amber, 176°; high-colored amber, 172°. An equal quantity of pale, amber and brown, 166°.
If the quantity of brown is very dark, or any part of the grains charred by the fire, 164°.
The heat should in some measure be regulated by the temperature of the atmosphere, and should be two or three degrees higher in cold than in warm weather.
The proper degree of heat will give the strongest wort and in the greatest quantity, for though the heat were greater and the strength of the wort thereby increased, yet a greater quantity of liquor would be retained in the malt; and again, if it were lower, it would produce more wort, but the strength of the extract would be deficient; the beer without spirit, and likely to turn sour.
To determine the Strength of the Worts.
To effect this a saccharometer is necessary, and may be purchased at any mathematical instrument maker's. It determines the relative gravity of wort to the water used, and the quantity of farinaceous matter contained in the wort. It is used in all public breweries after drawing off the wort from each mash, and regulates the heat and quantity of liquor turned on at each succeeding mash, that the ultimate strength may be equal though the quantity is less. This signifies little to the private, but it is of great consequence to the public brewer. Those who brew frequently and desire to introduce it will obtain printed tables and instructions with the instrument.
To proportion the Hops.
The usual quantity is a pound to the bushel of malt, or 8 lbs. to the quarter; but for keepingbeer, it should be extended to 10 or 12, and if for one or two years to 14 lbs. to the quarter. Small beer requires from 3 to 6 lbs. the quarter, and rather more when old hops are used.
Some persons, instead of boiling the hops with the wort, macerate them, and put the strong extract into the tun with the first wort, and make 2 or 3 extracts in like manner for the second and third worts To Boil Worts.
The first wort should be sharply boiled for 1 hour, and the second for 2 hours; but if intended for beer of long-keeping, the time should be extended half an hour. The hops should be strained from each preceding wort, and returned into the copper with the succeeding one. Between the boilings the fires should be damped with wet cinders, and the copper door set open. For small beer only half an hour is necessary for the first wort, 1 hour for the second, and 2 hours for the third. The diminution from boiling is from one-eighth to one-sixteenth.
To Cool the Worts.
Worts should be laid so shallow as to cool within 6 or 7 hours to the temperature of 60°. In warm weather the depth should not exceed 2 or 3 inches, but in cold weather it may be 5 inches. As soon as they have fallen to 60° they should instantly be tunned and yeasted.
To Choose Heats for Tunning.
In cold weather the heats in the coolers should be 5º or 6° higher than in mild and warm weather.
For ale, in cold weather, it should be tunned as soon as it has fallen to 60° Fahr. in the coolers; for porter to 64°, and for table beer to 74°, and in warm weather strong beer should be 4° or 5° less, and table beer 7° or 8°. Care should also be taken that the worts do not get cold before the yeast is mixed to produce fermentation. The best rule for mixing the yeast is 1½ lbs. to every barrel of strong beer wort, and 1 lb. to every barrel of table beer wort. To Mix the Yeast with the Worts.
Ale brewed for keeping in winter should be no more than blood warm when the yeast is put to it. If it is intended for immediate drinking, it may be yeasted a little warmer. The best method of mixing the yeast is to take 2 or 3 quarts of the hot water wort in a wooden bowl or pan, to which, when cool enough, put yeast enough to work the brewing, generally 1 or 2 quarts to the hogshead, according to its quality. In this bowl or pan the fermentation will commence while the rest of the worts are cooling, when the whole may be mixed together.
To Apportion Yeast and Apply it to the Worts.
The yeast of strong beer is preferable to that from small beer, and it should be fresh and good.
The quantity should be diminished with the temperature at which the worts are tunned, and less in summer than in winter. For strong beer a quart of yeast per quarter will be sufficient at 58°, but less when the worts are higher and when the weather is hot. If estimated by the more accurate criterion of weight, 1½ lbs. should be used for a barrel of strong beer, and 14 lbs. for a barrel of small beer. If the fermentation does not commence add a little more yeast, and rouse the worts for some time. But if they get cold, and the fermentation is slow, fill a bottle with hot water and put it into the tun. In cold weather small beer should be tunned at 70°, keeping beer at 50° and strong beer at 54°.
In mild weather at 50° for each sort. The fermentation will increase the heat 10°. To Manage the Fermentation.
A proportion of the yeast should be added to the first wort as soon as it is let down from the coolers, and the remainder as soon as the second wort is let down.
The commencement of fermentation is indicated by a line of small bubbles round the sides of the tun, which in a short time extends over the surface. A crusty head follows, and then a fine rocky one, followed by a light, frothy head. In the last stage the head assumes a yeasty appearance, and the color is yellow or brown, the smell of the tun becoming strongly vinous. As soon as this head begins to fall, the tun should be skimmed, and the skimming continued every 2 hours till no more yeast appears; this closes the operation, and it should then be put in casks, or, in technical language, cleansed. A minute attention to every stage of this process is necessary to secure fine flavored and brilliant beverage. Should the fermentation be unusually slow, it should be accelerated by stirring or rousing the whole.
After the first skimming, a small quantity of salt and flour, well mixed, should be stirred in the tun. The fermentation will proceed in the casks, to encourage which the bung-hole should be placed a little aside, and the cask, kept full by being filled up from time to time with old beer. When this fermentation has ceased the casks may be bunged up.
To Accelerate the Fermentation.
Spread some flour with the hand over the surface, and it will form a crust, and keep the worts warm, or throw in an ounce or two of powdered ginger, or fill a bottle with boiling water and sink it in the worts, or heat a small quantity of the worts and throw into the rest, or beat up the whites of two eggs with some brandy and throw it into the tun or cask, or tie up some bran in a coarse, thin cloth and put it into the vat, anc above all things do not disturb the wort, as formentation will not commence during any agitation of the wort. To Check a Too Rapid Fermentation.
Mix some cold raw wort in the tun, or divide the whole between two tuns, where, by being in smaller body, the energy of the fermentation of the whole will be divided. Also open the doors and windows of the brew-house; but, if it still frets, sprinkle some cold water over it; or if it frets in the cask, put a mixture of a lb. of sugar with a handful of salt, to the hogshead.
To Brew Porter on the London System.
Thames or New River water is indifferently used, or hard water, raised into backs and exposed for a few days to the air.
Take a mixture of brown, amber and pale malts, in nearly equal quantities, and turn them into the mash-tub in this order. Turn on the first liquor at 165°, mash 1 hour and then coat the whole with dry malt. In 1 hour set the tap.
Mix 10 lbs. of brown hops to the quarter of malt, half old, half new; boil the first wort briskly with the hops for three-quarters of an hour, and after putting into the copper 1½ lbs. of sugar and 1½ lbs. of Leghorn juice (extract of liquorice) to the barrel, turn the whole into the coolers, rousing the wort all the time.
Turn on the second liquor at 174°, and in an hour set tap again. This second wort having run off, turn on again at 145°; mash for an hour and stand for the same, in the meantime boiling the second wort with the same hops for an hour. Turn these into the coolers as before, and let down into the tub at 64°, mixing the yeast as it comes down.
Cleanse the second day at 80°, previously throwing in a mixture of flour and salt, and rousing thoroughly.
For private use, every quarter of malt ought to yield 2 barrels and a half, but brewers would run 3 barrels to a quarter.
To Brew three Barrels of Porter.
Take 1 sack of pale malt, a sack of amber malt, and a sack of brown malt.
Turn on 2 barrels for first mash at 165°; second mash, 1½ barrels at 172°; third mash, 2 barrels at 142°. Boil 10 lbs. of new and old hops, and 2 oz. of porter extract in the first wort. Cool, ferment, and cleanse according to the previous instructions. Brown Stout.
The procedure is the same as in the preceding article, except that one-third or one-half the malt should be brown.
To brew Ale in Small Families.
A bushel and three-quarters of ground malt and a pound of hops are sufficient to make 18 gallons of good family ale. That the saccharine matter of the malt may be extracted by infusion, without the farina, the temperature of the water shou'd