Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/44

28 or by imbibing moisture during a sea voyage. Such malt, if used without re-drying, will invariably produce unsound worts, and consequently bad beer; but if re-dried previous to mashing, the beer will have a fair chance of being good. Malt absorbs moisture very readily, and loses colour by keeping and exposure to light. Re-drying in such cases will be found a very simple and useful method of producing sound and well-flavoured worts, and should never therefore be omitted by the brewer. Maltsters generally tell you that the re-drying of malt spoils it. It undoubtedly spoils their own profits by reducing the bulk, but certainly not the malt—an additional price would therefore be necessary to reimburse the maltster for re-drying.

Brown, or, as it is commonly called, blown malt, is usually made for porter-brewers, by applying a very strong heat to the malt immediately when put upon the kiln. This is done by means of faggots of dry, hard wood, commonly beech or birch; ﬁr imparting a tarry taste. This process occupies only a few hours. The malt is spread very thin, and derives the name of blown, from the extreme heat separating and blowing out the husk from the kernel, so as to make the pickles appear of much greater bulk than they would otherwise be; thus