Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/78

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62
MASHING.

No Time to be lost.

The great desideratum now is, to get through the remainder of the process as quickly as possible, so as to prevent the possibility of any unsoundness being acquired, by the worts lying too long anywhere before being got into the copper.

Having, we trust, sufficiently explained what we consider a correct mode of making the extract, we do not intend here to go on further with the process, as that can be easily learned by referring to any of the practical brewing tables at the end of this treatise.

As before stated, all we can further do is to wash out from the malt, in the best way we can, whatever extracts may be retained after running of the first tap. There are some who by turning over large quantities of water at very high temperatures, for the raw wort, think, and can, perhaps, show a little more gravity per quarter, as indicated by the saccharometer; but this additional gravity is not saccharine, but mucilage, or some other impurity, which they would be much better without.

It is now, we believe, universally admitted, that mashing or making the extract, is a strictly chemical process; the more closely, then, we adhere to chemical rules, the better we are likely to succeed. Many, however, are of opinion, that if a trifling extra gravity per quarter can be obtained, no