The Complete Practical Brewer; Or Plain, Accurate, and Thorough Instructions in the Art of Brewing Ale, Beer, and Porter (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852 Excerpt: ...ought to influence the process. Ales for bottling ought always to be attenuated lower than ale for draught from the casks. la making ales of this latter description, the brewers of Edinburgh have found it of advantage to keep them fuller of saccharine extract than they had formerly done. Ales for bottling would, in some instances, admit of the same improvement. The term attenuation, as applicable both to distillers and brewers' worts, means the thinning or weakening of the saccharine extract during the process of fermenta10 tion, by its resolution into alcohol. Distillers carry it as low as possible, to obtain the greatest quantity of the latter by distillation. Its progress is cheeked by the brewers, as previously explained, to combine what they judge to be a good proportion of it with the starch-sugar undecomposed to constitute strong ale. However, the amount of saccharum left in the wort is merely the apparent weight: the real weight is concealed by the quantity of alcohol given off during the process, the specific gravity of which, below that of water, counteracts the weight of the saccharine matter in solution above it, in proportion to the alcohol formed from the starch-sugar held in the original wort. The worts of brewers require a different management from that of distillers. For instance, when of the strength of one hundred and twenty pounds per barrel, on being put to ferment, the decomposition of the starchsugar is very rapid at first; but in proportion as the alcohol is evolved the fermentation decreases, and would gradually cease altogether, were not the head of yeast beat in to renew the action, as in the Scottish system, or mixed in the gyle-tun, and run into casks to effect the same purpose, as in the English system of brewing; thus supporti...