Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/79

Rh matter by what means, so much additional proﬁt will be gained. This will be found to be fallacious, and not founded on fact. A foreign projector, many years ago, supposed that by a mixture of sulphuric acid in the worts, the extract would be greatly increased, on the same principle as that of the converting starch into sugar by a similar application; this, however, was found to be a total failure, as several parties discovered to their loss. We understand that other projectors are again attempting to introduce the same fallacy, but the absurdity of this practice in brewing has now become so well known as to render it unworthy of further notice.

Another party, having adopted an erroneous and unfounded opinion respecting the immense power of the action of the substance called Diastase, in making the extract in the mash-tun, has pretended that, by some new invention of his own, he can by these means make very extraordinary extracts, far superior in every respect to those which can be produced in any other way. (See separate article on “Diastase.”)

Upon examination we can discover no beneﬁt to be derived from this process, as it occupies a great deal of unnecessary time, and incurs a considerable expense in machinery, as can be easily proved. From the immense time occupied in the first mash, we can only suppose that some similar