In a copper, the gauges of which have just been set down, it is required to know what number of inches a length of twenty-four barrels must go out at, with fifteen pounds of hops, the guile of beer to be brewed at two worts.
| 24 | Barrels, length of beer. | ||
| 14 | Barrels, for two full brass,. | ||
| —— | |||
| 10 | |||
| 34 | Numbers of gallons to a barrel accountedby the excise, out of thebills of mortality. | ||
| —— | |||
| 40 | Hops twice put in 15lb. is | 30. | |
| 30 | ——. | ||
| —— | 6lb. | [ 30. | |
| 340 | 5 | ||
| Gallons of boiling wort upon an inch | 22 | Equal to gallons | 4½. |
| —— | —— | ||
| 11 [ 362 | 22 | ||
| —— | —— | ||
| 33 Inches above brass, the two wortsto go out together. | |||
When three worts are boiled, the amount of three full brasses must be deducted from the length; and as the hops go into the copper three times, they become more macerated, and take up much less room. The proportion is then nearly thirteen or fourteen pounds of hops for each four gallons and a half.
Thus in coppers, which have never been tried or used, we are able, by the gauges alone, to determine our lengths; but, as their circumferences are not always exact, and the worts are of very different strengths, we should never neglect such trials as may bring us nearer to accuracy and truth.
SECTION VII.
OF BOILING.
It has been a question, whether boiling is necessary to a wort; but as hops are of a resinous quality, the whole of their virtues are not yielded by extraction; decoction or boiling is as needful as the plant itself, and is, together with extraction and fermentation, productive of that uniformity of taste in the compound, which constitutes good beer.
Worts are composed of oils, salts, water, and perhaps some small portion of earth, from both the malt and hops. Oils are capable of receiving a degree of heat much superior to salts, and these again surpass, in this respect, the power of water. Before a wort can be supposed to have received the whole of the fire it can admit of, such a degree of heat must arise, as will be in a proportion to the quantity of the oils, the salts, and the water. When this happens, the wort may be said to be intimately mixed, and to have but one taste. The fire, made fiercer, would not increase the heat, or more exactly blend together the constituent parts; this purpose once obtained, the boiling of the wort is completed.