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.
APPENDIX.
Though this work has already been carried to a great length, I hope those of my readers, who may have done me the honor to go attentively through the whole of it, will pardon me the addition of a few incidental thoughts and queries. The chain of arts is so well connected, that researches originally intended for the illustration of any one of them, can hardly fail of throwing some light upon others.
1. The seed of plants cannot be put in a fitter place, for perfect vegetation, than when buried under ground, at a depth sufficient to defend the young shoots from the vicissitudes of heat and cold, and the disadvantage of too much moisture. The manuring of the earth, and the steeping the seed into solutions of salts, have been found, in some cases, to increase the strength of the grain, to correct its original defects, and to prevent the noxious impressions of a vicious ground. Plants are made to germinate in water alone, and this experiment so successfully carried on every winter, in warm apartments, may still be improved by dissolving salts in the water.—Could the barley used for malting be put in the ground, its growth would be more natural, and its oils becoming more miscible with water, by the saline nourishment derived from the earth, might yield more vinous, more strong, and more lasting liquors. But as this method is impracticable, would it be impossible to increase the efficacy of that which is used? Consult Home on agriculture: might not either nitre or salt petre be added to the water, with which the grain is moistened? are they not used with success to manure land? Are not solutions of them in water employed by the farmer to steep his sowing seed? I barely mention these as some of the substances, that might be employed in the malting of barley, and am far from thinking there are none other. Perhaps different salts should be used, according to the nature of the soil, from which the corn was produced; but a variety of experiments seems to be required, in order to discover how far art might in this case imitate and improve nature.
2. A small quantity of malt, at all times, but especially when brewed in large vessels, parts too readily with the heat which extraction requires; and, on the contrary, if the quantity of malt be very great, the heat may not be uniformly spread. A forward beer inclinable to acidity is often the result of too short a grist; a thick, stubborn, and rank liquor many times is produced from too large a one. Every advantage may be had in brewing, properly, five or six quarters of malt; it is difficult to succeed if the number exceeds fifty.
3. The strong pungent volatile spirit, which exhales from a must, when under full fermentation, has been supposed to be a loss, which might be prevented; and accordingly attempts have been made to retain these flying impetuous particles, by stopping the communication between the atmosphere and the fermenting drink. That there is a dispersion of spirits is beyond doubt, and that these exhaling vapors consist of the finest oils, which the heat forces out of the must, is equally certain. But this loss seems to be abundantly repaid by the stronger oils, which the same degree of heat attenuates and substitutes, in a larger quantity, to the former. The last oils could never come under the form of a vinous liquor, but by a power, which sooner or later dissipates some of the first. Pale ales or amber not only lay, for many days, exposed to the open air, but suffer, by the periodical renewal of the action of the air, every two or four hours, a much more considerable loss of spirits, than when fermentation is carried on uniformly. Yet experience shews, that so many oils are, by this method, attenuated, that the strength acquired greatly surpasses that which is lost.
4. The practice of fermenting by compression, recommended to distillers, seems, on this account, less useful, than might be concluded from theory alone; the intent of the distiller, as well as of the brewer, is to extract the greatest quantity of spiritous oils. It is impossible to ferment a must in vacuo; air is absolutely necessary to carry on this operation, even a superabundant quantity of oils admitted into the must, by obstructing the free admission of the air, impedes fermentation, prevents the wine from reaching pellucidity, and sometimes is the occasion of its becoming putrid.
5. When the purest spirit is intended to be drawn from the grain, the fermented wash ought to be suffered to settle, till it becomes transparent. The dispatch, with which the distillery is generally carried on, often prevents this useful circumstance taking place, and occasions a want of vinosity in the liquor. In many cases, the extraordinary charges of extracting the grist from malted corn, in the manner, which has been directed for drinks intended a short space to be kept, and of suffering the fermented wash to be meliorated by time, until it becomes vinous and spontaneously transparent, might be abundantly repaid. Yet, if hurry must be a part of the distiller’s business, he should at least make such extractions as admit of the speediest fermentation and the readiest pellucidity. He cannot expect corn spirits to equal the brandies of France, unless his worts are similar to the wines distilled in that kingdom, where those used for this purpose are weak, fine, and tending to acidity.[42] He would therefore secure to himself the greatest probability of success, if he employed only malted corn in his grist, this of the best kind, well germinated to form a saccharine basis, slack dried, and resolved, with weak extracts, to preserve into the must a proper proportion of vinosity. If he intended this wash to be formed into a pure spirit, it should be allowed time to become transparent; he might regulate his extracts by such heats as have been fixed for common small beer, brewed when the heat of the air is at the lowest fermentable degree, though perhaps heats less than these, when dispatch is required, might better answer his purpose, especially as the length used in the distillery is nearly the same with that which brewers use for the liquor here referred to. With hot waters to attempt to force from the grain more strength or more oils, than such as will form a clean tasteless spirit, is, in the distillery, a real loss and a fundamental error. By too strong heats, more oils are forced into the must than can be converted in spirits; and fermentation being, by this over charge, in some measure, clogged and impeded, a less yield is made, and the liquor obtained of a rank and often empyreumatic taste.