Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/25

Rh Of mineral waters we shall say nothing, as no one could think of employing them in brewing, unless from necessity.

The above mentioned saline substances, we believe, cannot impart any flavour either to the worts or the beer. Carbonate of lime, as above mentioned, is partially separated by boiling, and sulphate of lime may be easily decomposed and the lime separated by a little alkali; as, for instance, by carbonate of soda. We thus reduce the different kinds of water to the same condition, and the products will also be the same.

While brewers and others are continually speaking of the water with which they brew being preferable to any other water, they never think of the difference of the soils on which the barley is grown. Now as the wine from grapes raised on one soil is inferior to wine from grapes produced on another, so every farmer, from experience, will tell you, that such and such soil is not ﬁt for barley; and there can be no doubt that barley grown on certain soils will make inferior malt. In such cases the water used in brewing is often blamed, while the inferior malt, which is the real cause, is blameless.

Many brewers suppose that, by exposing water to the action of the atmosphere for a certain period, they soften it, and make it more ﬁt for the purposes