SECTION XIX.

Of Precipitation, and other remedies, applicable to the diseases incident to Beers.

No accident can be so detrimental as leaky or stinking casks, which lose or spoil the whole or part of the contained drink. The necessity of having, on these occasions, a remedy at hand, was undoubtedly the reason, why coopers were first introduced in store cellars. Constant practice might have qualified their palates so as to make them competent judges of the tastes of wines and beers, and to enable them to know which were the fittest for immediate use. The preparing or forcing them for this service, was a matter, which the profit gained thereby made them ready enough to undertake. Chymists, whom they consulted on this occasion, gave them some informations, from whence the coopers became the possessors of a few nostrums, the effects of which they were supposed to have experienced. But, ignorant of the causes of most, if not all the defects they undertake to remedy, and unacquainted with the constituent parts of beers, it is not to be expected that their success should be constant and uniform. The brewer, earnest to do his duty, and to excel, ought to keep a particular account of every brewing; by this means he best can tell how he formed the drink, and ought consequently, in any disorder, to be prepared to direct the properest remedy.

The intent of this treatise has been to discover the means by which errors may be avoided. Chymical applications are intended to remedy those errors, which may be occasioned either by carelessness or accident. The wholesomeness or propriety of the applications, which will be indicated, must be left to the judgment of my readers; it is most likely that there is sufficient room for improvement, and we might expect it from those, whose profession it is to study every thing, that may be conducive to the safety of mankind.

Whatever vegetables wines are produced from, whenever they deviate from the respective perfection, a well-conducted fermentation might have made them arrive at, they may be said to be distempered. Foulness, or want of transparency, is not the least evil, but, according to its degree, it obtains various appellations, and requires different helps. From what has been said, nothing can be more plain, than that it is always in our power to form beers and ales, which will be bright. Yet porter or brown beer is constantly so brewed as to need precipitation: the reasons for this management have before been offered. Were we to wait till the liquor became transparent by age, a more real disorder would ensue, that of acidity. Precipitation is then serviceable, especially when beers are to be removed from one cellar to another, a short space of time before they are to be used. By being shook, and the lees mixed with the liquor, a strong acid taste is conveyed therein, and the power of subsiding, which is wanted, renders the forcing them, in that case, of absolute necessity. In beers brewed with liquors sufficiently heated, no flatness is occasioned thereby; as the case is, under like circumstances, with liquors produced by low extracts, from grain not sufficiently dried. The degree of foulness in porter should however be limited; its bounds ought not to exceed the power of one gallon of dissolved isinglass, to a butt. Isinglass is dissolved in stale beer, and strained through a sieve, so as to be of the consistence of a jelly. The beer is set in motion with a stick, which reaches one third part down the cask, before and after this jelly is put in; and a few hours should be sufficient to obtain the desired effect. We have before observed, that this quantity of jelly of isinglass is equal to a medium of 10 degrees dryness in the malt, and heat of the extracts. When the opacity exceeds this, the liquor is termed stubborn; the same quantity of dissolved isinglass repeated, is often sufficient, if not, six ounces of the oil of vitriol are mixed with it. An effervescence is, by this addition, produced; the oils of the drink become more attenuated, and the weight added to the precipitating matter, is a means to render it more efficacious. Instead of the oil of vitriol, six or eight ounces of the concrete of vitriol, pounded and mixed with the isinglass, are sometimes used with success.

A foulness in beer beyond that which is called stubborn, gives to the drink the denomination of grey beer. This arises from the oils which float upon the surface, and which the liquor has not been able to absorb. In this case, the same methods as before mentioned are repeated; the quantity of dissolved isinglass is often increased to three gallons, that of vitriol to more than 12 ounces, and sometimes a small quantity of aqua fortis is added to these ingredients.

The next stage of opacity is cloudiness; when the cooper confesses that the distemper exceeds the power of his menstruums, and that his attempts extend no farther than to hide the evil, tournsol and cochineal, were they not so expensive, might in this case be used with success; but what is less known, and would greatly answer the intent of hiding the dusky colour of the drink, is madder;—about three or four ounces of this is the proper quantity for a butt of beer. Calcined treacle, by the coopers called blacking, from its acidity, is of some small service, for, by coloring the drink, it somewhat lessens the grey hue thereon; a quart is generally used in a butt; and, to prevent the defect in the beer being noticed by the consumer, the practice is to put thereon what is called a good cauliflowered head. This might be done by using as much pounded salt of steel as will lay upon a shilling; but the difference in price between this salt and copperas makes the last generally to be preferred. The strong froth on the top of the pot, and that which foams about it, together with somewhat of a yellow cast, are often mistaken for the signs of a superior merit and strength, though, in fact, they are those of deceit. A little reflection that the natural froth of beer cannot be yellow, nor continue a long time, especially if the liquor has some age, would soon cure mankind of this prejudice. Cloudy beers, under these circumstances, though not cured, are generally consumed.

Beers become sick, from their having so large a portion of oils, as to prevent the free admission of the external air into them. The want of this enlivening element makes them appear flat, though not vapid. Such beers should not, if possible, be brought immediately into use, as age alone would effect their cure. But when this cannot be complied with, every means that will put the beer upon the fret, or under a new fermentation, must be of service. By pitching a butt head over head, the lees of the beer, which contain a large proportion of air, being mixed again with the drink, help to bring on this action, and to remove the sickness.

Burnt hartshorn shavings, to the quantity of two-penny-worth, put into a butt, are often of use.

Balls made with eight ounces of the finest flower, and kneaded with treacle, convey likewise air to the drink, and promote its briskness.

Beers, by long standing, often acquire so powerful an acid, as to become disagreeable. The means of correcting this defect is by alkaline, or testaceous substances, and in general by all those which have the property of absorbing acids. To a butt of beer in this condition, from four to eight ounces of calcined powder of oyster-shells may be put, or from six to eight ounces of salt of wormwood. Sometimes a penny-worth or two of whiting is used, and often twenty or thirty stones of unslacked lime; these are better put in separately, than mixed with the isinglass.

From two to six pounds of treacle used to one butt of beer, has a very powerful effect, not only to give a sweet fulness in the mouth, but to remove the acidity of the drink. Treacle is the refused sweet of the sugar baker, part of the large quantities of lime used in refining sugars, undoubtedly enter in its composition, and is the occasion of its softening beers.

In proportion as beers are more or less forward, from two to four ounces of salt of wormwood and salt of tartar, together with one ounce of pounded ginger, are successfully employed. All these substances absorb acids, but they leave a flatness in the liquor, which in some measure is removed by the use of ginger.

Sometimes, in summer, when beer is wanted for use, we find it on the fret; as it is then in a repelling state, it does not give way to the finings, so as to precipitate. For this, about two ounces of cream of tartar are mixed with the isinglass, and if not sufficient, four ounces of oil of vitriol are added to the finings next used, in order to quiet the drink.

Some coopers attempt to extend their art so far as to add strength to malt liquors; but let it be remembered, that the principal constituent parts of beer should be malt and hops. When strength is given to the liquor by any other means, its nature is altered, and then it is not beer we drink. Treacle in large quantities, the berries of the Cocculus Indicus, the grains of paradise, or the Indian ginger pounded fine, and mixed with a precipitating substance, are said to produce this extraordinary strength. It would be well if the attempts made to render beers strong by other means than by hops and malt, were to be imputed to none but coopers; Cocculus Indicus, and such like ingredients, have been known to be boiled in worts, by brewers who were more ambitious to excel the rest of the trade, than to do justice to the consumers. Were it not that pointing out vice is often the means to forward the practice of it, I could add to this infamous catalogue, more ingredients, it were to be wished practitioners never knew either the name or nature of, for fining, softening, and strengthening.

Formerly brown beers were required to be of a very dark brown, inclinable to black. As this color could not be procured by malt properly dried, the juice of elder berries was frequently mixed with the isinglass. This juice afterwards gave way to calcined sugar; both are needless, as time and knowledge remove our prejudices, when the malt and hops have been properly chosen; and applied to their intended purpose.

Such are the remedies chiefly made use of for brown beers. Drinks formed from pale malts are always supposed to become spontaneously fine, and when they are so, by being bottled, they are saved from any farther hazard. As it is impossible for any fermented liquor to be absolutely at rest, the reason of beers being preserved by this method, is, thereby they are deprived of a communication with the air, and, without risk, gain all the advantages which age, by slow degrees, procures, and which art can never imitate. Were we as curious in our ales and beers as we are in the liquors we import, did we give to the produce of our own country the same care and attendance which we bestow on foreign wines, we might enjoy them in a perfection at present scarcely known, and perhaps cause foreigners to give to our beers a preference to their own growth.

SECTION XX.
OF TASTE[41].

Doctor Grew, who has treated of this matter, divides taste into simple and compound; he mentions the different species of the first, and calculates the various combinations of the latter, the number of which exceeds what at first might be expected. Without entering into this detail, I think that the different tastes residing in the barleys, or formed by their being malted, and brewed with hops, may be reduced to the following; the acid, which is a simple taste; the sweet, which is an acid smoothed with oils; the aromatic, which is the compound of a spiritous acid, and a volatile sulphur; the bitter, which, according to our author, is produced by an oil well impregnated either with an alkaline or an acid salt, shackled with earth; the austere, which is both astringent and bitter; and, lastly, the nauseous and rank, which is, at least in part, sometimes found in beers, which have either been greatly affected by fire, or, by long age, have lost their volatile sulphurs; and have nothing left but the thicker and coarser oils, resembling the empyreumatic dregs of distilled liquors not carefully drawn.

The number of circumstances on which the taste of fermented liquors depends, are so various, that perhaps there never were any two brewings, or any two vintages, which produced drinks exactly similar. But as, in this case, as well as in many others, the varieties may be reduced under some general classes; the better to distinguish them, let us enquire which taste belongs to different malt liquors, according to the several circumstances in which they are brewed.

In beers and ales, the acid prevails in proportion as the malt has been less dried, and heat was wanting in the extracting water. The sweet will be the effect of a balance preserved between the acids and the oils. When, by the means of hotter waters, oils more tenacious are extracted from the grain, whereby the more volatile sulphur is retained, the taste becomes higher in relish, or aromatic. If the heat is still increased, the acids, and the most volatile oils, will in part be dissipated, and in part be so enveloped with stronger oils, as the bitter of the hops appears more distinct. A greater degree of fire will impress the liquor with an austere, rough, or harsh taste; and a heat beyond this so affects the oils of the grain, as to cause the extracts to be nauseous to the palate. Besides these, there may be other causes which produce some variation in taste; as a superior dryness in the hops; an irregularity in the ordering of the heat of the extracts; too great an impetuosity or slowness in the fermentation; the difference of seasons in which the drink is kept; but as these causes affect the liquor, in a low degree, in comparison to the drying and extracting heats of the grain, an enquiry into their consequences is not absolutely material.

Beers or ales, formed of pale malt, in which a greater portion of acids is contained, with less tenacious oils, are not only more proper to allay thirst, but in general more aromatic than brown drinks. The oils of these last, being, by the effect of fire, rendered more compact, and more tenacious of the terrestrial parts raised with them, are attended with something of an austere and rank taste. This seems to be the reason why brown beers require more time, after they have been fermented, to come to their perfection. The air, by degrees, softens and attenuates their oils, and, by causing the heterogeneous particles to subside, makes them at last, unless charring heats have been used, pleasing to the palate, whereas they were before austere, rank, and perhaps nauseous.

By means of the thermometer, we have endeavoured to fix the different colors of malt, the duration of the principal sorts of drink, and the tendency each has to become transparent. The same instrument cannot probably have the same use, when applied to distinguish the different tastes, as these depend on a variety of causes not easy to be ascertained. Yet something of this nature may be attempted, upon the following principles.

As the chief circumstance which produces a variety of tastes in malt liquors, is fire or heat acting on the malt and hops, and the effect of the air, put in motion by the same element, the table here subjoined may point out what tastes are in general occasioned by the combination of these two causes.

A TABLE determining the tastes of Malt Liquors.

Heat of
the air.		Dryness and
extracting heat.		Predominant
tastes.
80°119°Acid.
76124Ac. ac. sweet.
73129Ac. sw.
70134Ac. sw. sw. bitter.
66138Sw. sw. bitter.
63143Sw. bit.
60148Bit. bit. aromatic.
56152Bit. arom.
53157Bit. arom. austere.
50162Arom. aust. aust.
46167Aust. aust. nauseous.
43171Aust. nau.
40176Nauseous.

The first column of the table shews the fermentable degrees reversed, as the hotter the season is, the more fermented drinks tend to acidity, the direct contrary of which is the consequence of an increase in the heat, malt or hops are dried or extracted with.

The assistance of this table, though small, ought perhaps not to be entirely slighted, as it seems at least to shew that the useful is seldom separated from the elegant, and that a medium between extremes is most agreeable both to the operations of nature, and the constitution of our organs.

The impressions of tastes are less in proportion as the drinks are weak. The strongest wine yields the most acid vinegar. Time wears away this acidity much sooner, than it doth the nauseousness occasioned by vehement heats. This circumstance shews how necessary it is, in the beginning of the process of brewing, to avoid extracts which are too weak, as from hence, in its conclusion, such would be required whose great heat would render the drink rank and disagreeable. That proportion between the salts and the oils, which constitutes soundness and pellucidity, is most pleasing to the taste, and seems to be the utmost perfection of the art. As the sun never occasions a heat capable of charring the fruits of the vine, we never meet with wines endued with a taste resembling the empyreumatic, which we have here represented. This error, being inexcusable in any liquor, ought carefully to be guarded against, and, from what has here been said, we should learn this important truth, that nature is the best guide, and that, by imitating, as near as possible, her operations, we shall never be disappointed in our ends.