nitrogenous matter, which is undesirable in a stock beer, as it tends to produce fret and side fermentations. With regard to the kind of malt and other materials employed in producing various types of beer, pale ales are made either from pale malt (generally a mixture of English and fine foreign, such as Smyrna, California) only, or from pale malt and a little flaked maize, rice, invert sugar or glucose. Running beers (mild ale) are made from a mixture of pale and amber malts, sugar and flaked goods; stout, from a mixture of pale, amber and roasted (black) malts only, or with the addition of a little sugar or flaked maize.
When raw grain is employed, the process of mashing is slightly modified. The maize, rice or other grain is usually gelatinized in a vessel (called a converter or cooker) entirely separated from the mash-tun, by means of steam at a relatively high temperature, mostly with, but occasionally without, the addition of some malt meal. After about half an hour the gelatinized mass is mixed with the main mash, and this takes place shortly before taps are set. This is possible inasmuch as the starch, being already in a highly disintegrated condition, is very rapidly converted. By working on the limited-decoction system (see below), it is possible to make use of a fair percentage of raw grain in the mash-tun proper, thus doing away with the “converter” entirely.
The Filter Press Process.—The ordinary mash-tun process, as described above, possesses the disadvantage that only coarse grists can be employed. This entails loss of extract in several ways. To begin with, the sparging process is at best a somewhat inefficient method for washing out the last portions of the wort, and again, when the malt is at all hard or “steely,” starch conversion is by no means complete. These disadvantages are overcome by the filter press process, which was first introduced into Great Britain by the Belgian engineer P. Meura. The malt, in this method of brewing, is ground quite fine, and although an ordinary mash-tun may be used for mashing, the separation of the clear wort from the solid matter takes place in the filter press, which retains the very finest particles with ease. It is also a simple matter to wash out the wort from the filter cake in the presses, and experience has shown that markedly increased yields are thus obtained. In the writer’s opinion, there is little doubt that in the future this, or a similar process, will find a very wide application.
Boiling.—From the mash-tun the wort passes to the copper. If it is not possible to arrange the plant so that the coppers are situated beneath the mash-tuns (as is the case in breweries arranged on the gravitation system), an intermediate collecting vessel (the underback) is interposed, and from this the wort is pumped into the copper. The latter is a large copper vessel heated by direct fire or steam. Modern coppers are generally closed in with a dome-shaped head, but many old-fashioned open coppers are still to be met with, in fact pale-ale brewers prefer open coppers. In the closed type the wort is frequently boiled under slight pressure. When the wort has been raised to the boil, the hops or a part thereof are added, and the boiling is continued generally from an hour to three hours, according to the type of beer. The objects of boiling, briefly put, are: (1) sterilization of the wort; (2) extraction from the hops of substances that give flavour and aroma to the beer; (3) the coagulation and precipitation of a part of the nitrogenous matter (the coagulable albuminoids), which, if left in, would cause cloudiness and fret, &c., in the finished beer; (4) the concentration of the wort. At least three distinct substances are extracted from the hops in boiling. First, the hop tannin, which, combining with a part of the proteids derived from the malt, precipitates them; second, the hop resin, which acts as a preservative and bitter; third, the hop oil, to which much of the fine aroma of beer is due. The latter is volatile, and it is customary, therefore, not to add the whole of the hops to the wort when it commences to boil, but to reserve about a third until near the end of the copper stage. The quantity of hops employed varies according to the type of beer, from about 3 ℔ to 15 ℔ per quarter (336 ℔) of malt. For mild ales and porters about 3 to 4 ℔, for light pale ales and light stouts 6 to 10 ℔, and for strong ales and stouts 9 to 15 ℔ of hops are employed.
Cooling.—When the wort has boiled the necessary time, it is turned into the hop back to settle. A hop back is a wooden or metal vessel, fitted with a false bottom of perforated plates; the latter retain the spent hops, the wort being drawn off into the coolers. After resting for a brief period in the hop back, the bright wort is run into the coolers. The cooler is a very shallow vessel of great area, and the result of the exposure of the hot wort to a comparatively large volume of air is that a part of the hop constituents and other substances contained in the wort are rendered insoluble and are precipitated. It was formerly considered absolutely essential that this hot aeration should take place, but in many breweries nowadays coolers are not used, the wort being run direct from the hop back to the refrigerator. There is much to be said for this procedure, as the exposure of hot wort in the cooler is attended with much danger of bacterial and wild yeast infection, but it is still a moot point whether the cooler or its equivalent can be entirely dispensed with for all classes of beers. A rational alteration would appear to be to place the cooler in an air-tight chamber supplied with purified and sterilized air. This principle has already been applied to the refrigerator, and apparently with success. In America the cooler is frequently replaced by a cooling tank, an enclosed vessel of some depth, capable of artificial aeration. It is not practicable, in any case, to cool the wort sufficiently on the cooler to bring it to the proper temperature for the fermentation stage, and for this purpose, therefore, the refrigerator is employed. There are several kinds of refrigerators, the main distinction being that some are vertical, others horizontal; but the principle in each case is much the same, and consists in allowing a thin film or stream of wort to trickle over a series of pipes through which cold water circulates. Fig. 5, Plate I., shows refrigerators, employed in Messrs Allsopp’s lager beer brewery, at work.
Fermenting.—By the process of fermentation the wort is converted into beer. By the action of living yeast cells (see Fermentation) the sugar contained in the wort is split up into alcohol and carbonic acid, and a number of subsidiary reactions occur. There are two main systems of fermentation, the top fermentation system, which is that employed in the United Kingdom, and the bottom fermentation system, which is that used for the production of beers of the continental (“lager”) type. The wort, generally at a temperature of about 60° F. (this applies to all the systems excepting B [see below], in which the temperature is higher), is “pitched” with liquid yeast (or “barm,” as it is often called) at the rate of, according to the type and strength of the beer to be made, 1 to 4 ℔ to the barrel. After a few hours a slight froth or scum makes its appearance on the surface of the liquid. At the end of a further short period this develops into a light curly mass (cauliflower or curly head), which gradually becomes lighter and more solid in appearance, and is then known as rocky head. This in its turn shrinks to a compact mass—the yeasty head—which emits great bubbles of gas with a hissing sound. At this point the cleansing of the beer—i.e. the separation of the yeast from the liquid—has fairly commenced, and it is let down (except in the skimming and Yorkshire systems [see below]) into the pontos or unions, as the case may be. During fermentation the temperature rises considerably, and in order to prevent an excessive temperature being obtained (70–75° F. should be the maximum) the fermenting vessels are fitted with “attemperators,” i.e. a system of pipes through which cold water may be run.
Cleansing.—In England the methods of applying the top fermentation system may be classified as follows: (A) The Cleansing System: (a) Skimming System, (b) Dropping System (pontos or ordinary dropping system), (c) Burton Union System. (B) The Yorkshire Stone Square System.
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Fig. 4.—Fermenting Round. |
(A) In (a) the Skimming System the fermentation from start to finish takes place in wooden vessels (termed “squares” or “rounds”), fitted with an attemperator and a parachute or other similar skimming device for removing or “skimming” the yeast at the end of the fermentation (fig. 4). The principle of (b) the Dropping System is that the beer undergoes only the main fermentation in the “round” or “square,” and is then dropped down into a second vessel or vessels, in which fermentation and cleansing are completed. The ponto system of dropping, which is now somewhat old-fashioned, consists in discharging the beer into a series of vat-like vessels, fitted with a peculiarly-shaped overflow lip. The yeast works its way out of the vessel over the lip, and then flows into a gutter and is collected. The pontos are kept filled with beer by means of a vessel placed at a higher level. In the ordinary dropping system the partly fermented beer is let down from the “squares” and “rounds” into large vessels, termed dropping or skimming “backs.” These are fitted with attemperators, and parachutes for the removal of yeast, in much the same way as in the skimming system. As a rule the parachute covers the whole width of the back. (c) The Burton Union System is really an improved ponto system. A series of casks, supplied with beer at the cleansing stage from a feed vessel, are mounted so that they may rotate axially. Each cask is fitted with an attemperator, a pipe and cock at the base for the removal of the finished beer and “bottoms,” and lastly with a swan neck fitting through a bung-hole and commanding a common gutter. This system yields excellent results for certain classes of beers, and many Burton brewers think it is essential for obtaining
