Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/41

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In buying malt, a good judge, on taking up a handful, examines narrowly the different pickles, to ascertain if the spire be well grown, that is, at least, two-thirds up the back of the pickle; he also looks for sleepers or dead corns which have not sprung at all. Should there be many of these, he will probably reject the malt. But a mode of judging of malt which is very good, is one that is old and simple. Count out indiscriminately from the bulk about 200 pickles; throw them into a tumbler of cold water and stir them; the pickles thoroughly malted will ﬂoat horizontally on the surface, those half-malted will ﬂoat vertically, one end hanging down, and the unmalted will sink to the bottom. We can thus at once form an accurate estimation of the quality of any malt.

The next thing we have to attend to is the weight of malt. Barley, in the process of malting, loses rather more than one-fifth its weight, the malt consequently should be lighter in the same proportion than the barley from which it is made. Some time ago about 40 lbs. per bushel was thought a maximum weight for malt, and many would not have bought it if above that weight. Now, however, from superior culture, the quality of barley has been very much improved, and fine samples may be found weighing 56 or 57 lbs. per bushel. The