[19] We had rather attribute to this cause, the inferior quality of the Worcestershire hops, than to what is reported. That some planters in that county suffer their hops to be so ripe on the poles, that they become very brown before they are gathered: to recover their color, on the fire of the kiln they strew brimstone, which brings them to a fine yellow; the dryness and harshness this acid occasions, they correct by sprinkling the hops with milk, from whence they bag closer, and require little straining, but two ingredients more pernicious to the forming good beers, perhaps, could not have been thought of, than milk and brimstone.
[20] This rule only takes place for such climates as are of the same heat with ours; for when drinks are brewed to be expended in more southern countries, or to undergo long voyages, twenty pounds of hops to one quarter of malt have been used with success.
[21] If, of the whole quantity of hops grown in one year, one half is put into bags, whose tare is one tenth of their whole weight, and the other half is put in pockets, whose tare is one fortieth of their whole weight; if the excise office allows one tenth for tare upon the whole, and the excise or weighing officers, are content with one ninth, as by their marks, and the weight when sold to the brewer, appears to be the fact; then somewhat like one twentieth part more hops are grown, than what pays duty, or than the excise officers report to be the case.
[22] Forty shillings per hundred weight, are supposed to be the mean difference between new and old hops, and ought to be estimated in proportion to the quantity of old left in hand, and that of new hops grown, in order to ascertain the value of the last.
[23] B. stands for Barrels, F. for Firkins, G. for Gallons.
[24] When there are but two worts in brown strong, keeping strong, keeping pale small, or common small, the boiling is to be observed as marked for the second and third worts.
[25] The small cask, called a pin, is one eighth part of a barrel.
[26] By new malt, I understand such, as has not lost the whole of the heat received on the kiln, and by old, such as is of equal heat with the air, or such which has laid a sufficient time to imbibe part of its moisture.
[27] At the time when the first edition of this work was published, porter or brown beers were brewed with very high dried malts; experience has shewn to the generality of the trade and to the author, this practice to be erroneous, the reasons why have before, and perhaps hereafter will again, be spoken of. In compliance with this improvement (though between the two proposed brewings, so great a variety will not appear) I have founded my calculations for porter, on malts dried so as best will answer this purpose.
[28] B. stands for barrels, F. for firkins, G. for gallons, and the numbers past the comma, where the inches are expressed, for decimals; 34 gallons are here allowed to the barrel, in compliance to the excise gauging, as these calculations were made without the bills.