make it stand out to its measure, but perhaps even produce a little increase in bulk, which was no doubt a great desideratum.
When the malt was used immediately, this treatment might possibly do no harm, further than occasioning some little decrease in the quantity of the extract, the wetting having caused a trifling increase in its bulk, without improving its quality. When, however, the malt so wetted before shipping, was kept for any length of time, it became slack, and the beer brewed with it, as will invariably happen under such circumstances, did not keep, and soon became acid or stale.
This, therefore, was without doubt the cause of the shipped malts having got into such bad repute in the London market. It is to be hoped that the country maltsters have by this time discovered their error, and that they do not now practise the injurious system of watering (or liquoring, as it is called) their malt after its being taken off the kiln. The better price they would be enabled to obtain by the production of a really good article, would more than compensate for the profit arising out of any little increase in measure, which they might have formerly realised by their liquoring.
It might be requisite, however, for some little time, for them to produce certificates that no water had been used previous to the shipment of the malt.
