Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/144

128 quite as irregular as during summer, and the results are equally uncertain.

In some brewhouses, particularly in the country, the tun-rooms, or chambers in which the fermenting tuns are placed, are so situated as to be affected by every change of temperature. The fermentations in the said tun-rooms must consequently suffer from any sudden change. The great danger arises from a very sudden fall; for instance, we often find that the thermometer will fall 20° or even 30° in the course of a night, and when the tun-rooms are so situated as to be liable to the same change from the sudden decrease in temperature, the fermentations will often become stationary, and cannot be made to progress, unless the temperature be again raised by artificial means.

For this purpose, it is a common practice in small concerns, to ﬁll small casks with boiling water, and place them in the fermenting tuns, changing the water in the said casks, until the desired effect is produced. Others, where there are metal regulators in the tuns, run some hot water through them for the same purpose: this we have seen attended with bad consequences, whether from galvanism or not, We are not prepared to say. It is a practice which we do not recommend.