Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/180

164, in which the force of the steam is considerable, they are again washed with hot water.

It is a curious fact, that musty beer is generally bright: this circumstance is not easily accounted for.



To any one who has attentively perused the foregoing pages, it will appear that want of success in brewing, must be due to other causes than those to which it is generally attributed, viz., the great uncertainty attending the process of fermentation.

If it be admitted that brewing is a chemical process, it must be subservient to the same laws which govern other chemical operations; and, under precisely similar circumstances, the same effects will necessarily be produced.

If, therefore, we succeed in one instance, nothing but diversity in the materials used, atmospherical changes which may be counteracted, or in some part of the operations performed, can prevent our arriving invariably at the same results.

Fermentation is undoubtedly as delicate a process, and perhaps as little understood, as any other connected with chemistry; but upon a regular and successful fermentation, or the contrary, must