Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/182

166 the proper remedies, the injurious effects may be obviated which would otherwise be produced.

The principal danger is always to be apprehended from electro-chemical or galvanic action; which we have not as yet found any other means of counteracting, than by removing the cause. By this action, whenever it exists, we are opposed from the beginning to the end of the process; and during its continuance, no regularity or command over the fermentation need be expected. We cannot, therefore, be too careful in the construction of new brewhouses, or in the alteration of older concerns, to avoid all mixtures of metals in connection with the utensils, and particularly with regard to the fermenting tuns.

This subject has been but very little attended to; and we believe that we have been among the first to investigate and draw the attention of brewers to the injurious operation of electro-chemical action on the process of brewing; and we trust that what we have now written, may be the means of inducing brewers assiduously to examine this matter. With this view, we cannot sufficiently recommend to them the use of the Galvanometer. Good manipulation also in the process of brewing, is quite as necessary as in any other chemical operation.

Many of our most eminent chemists are bad manipulators; and have been, consequently, very apt to fail in exhibiting certain experiments. Even