[Fig. 103 enlarged] (269 kB)

Plan, Machinery, and Utensils of a great Brewery.—[Figs. 103.] and [104.] represent the arrangement of the utensils and machinery in a porter brewery on the largest scale; in which, however, it must be observed that the elevation [fig. 103.] is in a great degree imaginary as to the plane upon which it is taken; but the different vessels are arranged so as to explain their uses most readily, and at the same time to preserve, as nearly as possible, the relative positions which are usually assigned to each in works of this nature.

The malt for the supply of the brewery is stored in vast granaries or malt-lofts, usually situated in the upper part of the buildings. Of these, I have been able to represent only one, at A, [fig. 103.]: the others, which are supposed to be on each side of it, cannot be seen in this view. Immediately beneath the granary A, on the ground floor, is the mill; in the upper story above it, are two pairs of rollers, [fig. 101], [102], and [103], under a, a, for bruising or crushing the grains of the malt. In the floor beneath the rollers are the mill-stones b, b, where the malt is sometimes ground, instead of being merely bruised by passing between the rollers, under a, a.

The malt, when prepared, is conveyed by a trough into a chest d, to the right of b, from which it can be elevated by the action of a spiral screw, [fig. 105.], enclosed in the sloping tube e, into the large chest or binn B, for holding ground malt, situated immediately over the mash-tun D. The malt is reserved in this binn till wanted, and it is then let down into the mashing-tun, where the extract is obtained by hot water supplied from the copper G, seen to the right of B.

The water for the service of the brewery is obtained from the well E, seen beneath the mill to the left, by a lifting pump worked by the steam engine; and the forcing-pipe f of this pump conveys the water up to the large reservoir or water-back F, placed at the top of the engine-house. From this cistern, iron pipes are laid to the copper G (on the right-hand side of the figure), as also to every part of the establishment where cold water can be wanted for cleaning and washing the vessels. The copper G can be filled with cold water by merely turning a cock; and the water, when boiled therein, is conveyed by the pipe g into the bottom of the mash-tun D. It is introduced beneath a false bottom, upon which the malt lies, and, rising up through the holes in the false bottom, it extracts the saccharine matter from the malt; a greater or less time being allowed for the infusion, according to circumstances. The instant the water is drawn off from the copper, fresh water must be let into it, in order to be ready for boiling the second mashing; because the copper must not be left empty for a moment, otherwise the intense heat of the fire would destroy its bottom. For the convenience of thus letting down at once as much liquor as will fill the lower part of the copper, a pan or second boiler is placed over the top of the copper, as seen in [fig. 103.]; and the steam rising from the copper communicates a considerable degree of heat to the contents of the pan, without any expense of fuel. This will be more minutely explained hereafter. (See [fig. 107.])

During the process of mashing, the malt is agitated in the mash-tun, so as to expose every part to the action of the water. This is done by a mechanism contained within the mash-tun, which is put in motion by a horizontal shaft above it, H, leading from the mill. The mash machine is shown separately in [fig. 106.] When the operation of mashing is finished, the wort or extract is drained down from the malt into the vessel I, called the under-back, immediately below the mash-tun, of like dimensions, and situated always on a lower level, for which reason it has received this name. Here the wort does not remain longer than is necessary to drain off the whole of it from the tun above. It is then pumped up by the three-barrelled pump k, into the pan upon the top of the copper, by a pipe which cannot be seen in this section. The wort remains in the pan until the water for the succeeding mashes is discharged from the copper. But this delay is no loss of time, because the heat of the copper, and the steam arising from it, prepare the wort, which had become cooler, for boiling. The instant the copper is emptied, the first wort is let down from the pan into the copper, and the second wort is pumped up from the under-back into the upper pan. The proper proportion of hops is thrown into the copper through the near hole, and then the door is shut down, and screwed fast, to keep in the steam, and cause it to rise up through pipes into the pan. It is thus forced to blow up through the wort in the pan, and communicates so much heat to it, or water, called liquor by the brewers, that either is brought near to the boiling point. The different worts succeed each other through all the different vessels with the greatest regularity, so that there is no loss of time, but every part of the apparatus is constantly employed. When the ebullition has continued a sufficient period to coagulate the grosser part of the extract, and to evaporate part of the water, the contents of the copper are run off through a large cock into the jack-back K, below G, which is a vessel of sufficient dimensions to contain it, and provided with a bottom of cast-iron plates, perforated with small holes, through which the wort drains and leaves the hops. The hot wort is drawn off from the jack-back through the pipe h by the three-barrelled pump, which throws it up to the coolers L, L, L; this pump being made with different pipes and cocks of communication, to serve all the purposes of the brewery except that of raising the cold water from the well. The coolers L, L, L, are very shallow vessels, built over one another in several stages: and that part of the building in which they are contained is built with lattice-work or or shutter flaps, on all sides, to admit free currents of air. When the wort is sufficiently cooled to be put to the first fermentation, it is conducted in pipes from all the different coolers to the large fermenting vessel or gyle-tun M, which, with another similar vessel behind it, is of sufficient capacity to contain all the beer of one day’s brewings.

Whenever the first fermentation is concluded, the beer is drawn off from the great fermenting vessel M, into the small fermenting casks or cleansing vessels N, of which there are a great number in the brewery. They are placed four together, and to each four a common spout is provided to carry off the yeast, and conduct it into the troughs n, placed beneath. In these cleansing vessels the beer remains till the fermentation is completed; and it is then put into the store-vats, which are casks or tuns of an immense size, where it is kept till wanted, and is finally drawn off into barrels, and sent away from the brewery. The store-vats are not represented in the figure: they are of a conical shape, and of different dimensions, from fifteen to twenty feet diameter, and usually from fifteen to twenty feet in depth. The steam-engine which puts all the machine in motion is exhibited in its place, on the left side of the figure. On the axis of the large fly-wheel is a bevelled spur-wheel, which turns another similar wheel upon the end of a horizontal shaft, which extends from the engine-house to the great horse-wheel, set in motion by means of a spur-wheel. The horse-wheel drives all the pinions for the mill-stones b, b, and also the horizontal axis which works the three-barrelled pump k. The rollers a, a, are turned by a bevel wheel upon the upper end of the axis of the horse-wheel, which is prolonged for that purpose; and the horizontal shaft H, for the mashing engine, is driven by a pair of bevel wheels. There is likewise a sack-tackle, which is not represented. It is a machine for drawing up the sacks of malt from the court-yard to the highest part of the building, whence the sacks are wheeled on a truck to the malt-loft A, and the contents of the sacks are discharged.

The horse-wheel is intended to be driven by horses occasionally, if the steam-engine should fail; but these engines are now brought to such perfection that it is very seldom any recourse of this kind is needed.