Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/218

202 as this is drained, sprinkle over the malt, with your watering-can, about half a barrel of cold water, or a little more than two gallons per bushel; let this run as soon as it disappears through the grains. When your copper is discharged of the first worts, get your second into it as speedily as possible, and keep on boiling; add the hops from the first worts as soon as they are drained. Boil this second wort from one hour and a-half to two hours, at your own option. That long boiling acts as a preservative to the beer, in any other way than increasing the strength by evaporation, is quite a mistake.

The above process is given on the supposition that your brewing utensils are large enough for the purpose. If they be not, it is better to brew a smaller quantity of malt, which will then enable you to proceed as above directed. The reasons for this alteration are obvious: none of your worts with the diminished quantity are allowed to remain any length of time between the mash-tun and the copper; an arrangement which prevents their getting tainted, as is too often the case, when otherwise treated; necessarily destroying the whole of the beer.

We shall now proceed. to the fermentation, beginning, of course, with the first worts or strong ale. We found in the copper rather more than two barrels at 30 lbs. gravity: this quantity, by the waste in boiling and by the evaporation and