The Theory and Practice of BrewingCombrune, Michael
Science
The Theory and Practice of Brewing
Combrune, Michael
Brewing
At first it did not feel so damp as it did about half an hour after. In
about an hour more, it began to look of a bright orange color on the
outside, and appeared more swelled than before. Every one is sensible
that a long-continued custom makes us sufficient judges of colors, and
this sense in a brewer is sufficiently exercised. Then I masticated
some of the grain, and found them to be nearly such as are termed brown
malts. On stirring, and making a heap of them, towards the middle, I
placed therein, at about half depth, the bulb of my thermometer; it
rose to 140 degrees: the malt felt very damp, and had but little smell.
At 165 degrees, I examined it in the same manner as before, and could
perceive no damp; the malt was very brown, and on being chewed, some
few black specks appeared.
Many corns, nearest the bottom, were now become black, and burnt;
I placed my thermometer nearly there, and it rose to 175 degrees:
but, as the particles of fire, ascending from the stove, act on the
thermometer, in proportion to the distance of the situation it is
placed in, through the whole experiment an abatement of five degrees
should be allowed, as near as I could estimate.—Putting, a little
after, my thermometer in the same position, where about half the corns
were black, it shewed 180 degrees. I now judged that the water was
nearly evaporated, and observed the heap grew black apace.
Again, in the centre of the heap, raised in the middle of the pan,
I found the thermometer at 180 degrees; the corn tasted burnt, the
surface appeared, about one half part a full brown, and the rest
black. On being masticated, still some white specks appeared, which
I observed to proceed from those barley-corns which had not been
thoroughly germinated, and whose parts cohering more closely together,
the fire, at this degree, had not penetrated. The thermometer was now
more various, as it was nearer to, or farther from, the bottom; and,
in my opinion, all the true-made malt was charred, for their taste was
insipid, they were brittle, and their skins parting from the kernel.
I, nevertheless, continued the experiment, and, at 190 degrees, still
found some white specks on chewing the grain; the acrospire always
appearing of a deeper black, or brown, than the outward skin; the corn,
at this juncture, fried at the bottom of the pan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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