Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/613

 MILLS, KILNS, MALT-HOUSES, ETC. 589 Design III. — A Malt-kiln, with the requisite Appendaaes, and Directions for their Use. 1262. Malting. In order to understand the uses of a malt-kiln, and of the buildings and details generally connected with it, it will be advisable to commence by describing the process of malting ; and this has been done to our hands by a correspondent at once scientific, and ex])erienced in this important department of rural economy. " It is not very easy to give specific rules for the process of malting, because the practice of each year must vary with the teniperature, and the quality of the barley. The experience of one year is no sure criterion for that of another ; but there are general rules and broad principles that will apply to any season ; and it is to these that I mean chiefly to confine myself in the following memoranda. — In the first place, the barley about to be malted should be of a plump kernel, dry, and well dressed. The policy of dressing well will be sufficiently obvious when we consider that the swimmings, or light grains that are skimmed off in the cistern, are generally worth but 9d. per bushel ; and, to fetch even that, they must be sold immediately, because they will not keep ; whereas, if taken out in a dry state by a winnowing-macliine, they will sell for, perhaps, three or four times the sum, and will keep for any reasonable length of time. The water, or liquor as it is commonly called, is in general pumped to the required height in the cistern, before the barley is admitted : experience will determine this, but in Britain the present vexatious excise laws will insist that all the barley shall be covered, so that enough ought to be admitted to allow for the swelling of the barley during the process of steeping. It is not my present purpose to enter into all the minutise of the excise interference Jn this branch of business, but it is of such frequent occurrence as not to admit of being passed over, even in such a mere sketch of the process as the present one. The law, then, has determined forty-eight hours as the minimum period for steeping ; the maltster may steep longer if he chooses ; but first, I should have said, the barley is skreened, or dribbled into the steep, from a chamber above. Having lain the required time, the water is let off, and the barley is emptied into the couch, a square frame formed of battens, or deals, each, 6y law, two inches thick, and also, 6y law, not exceeding thirty inches in depth ; here it remains, by law, twenty-six hours. The couch is then unloaded, and its contents laid into a tolerably thick bed. It may here be noticed, that a malt-house may have two, and sometimes three, working-floors : if two, then the corn steeped (which when it comes out of the couch is called the piece) is divided ; one half being worked on the upper, and the remainder on the lower floor : or, if three, then the piece is equally shared by each floor, that is, provided the weather is not too warm ; if it is, the upper floor must be either stopped altogether, or considerably ' curtailed of its fair proportion,' this floor of the building being usually the first to feel a change of temperature. It is quite impossible, after the barley leaves the couch, to lay down any fixed rules for the number of times a piece ought to be turned. This, and the thickness of the piece, must entirely depend on the state of the weather. If any sudden increase of temperature takes place (a circumstance of frequent occurrence, especially late in the season) not only must the piece be almost constantly kept turning, but the maltster will have to ' give it all the ground,' i. e. ^ 1 26 X? lay it as thin on the floor as he can. Besides actually turning, a piece is occasionally ploughed to lighten it up, and check the root. The plough is a light implement, constructed like fig. 1 1 26, the whole being of wood, and about four or five feet long. Be the weather what it may, the maltster's eye must be almost always on his floors ; on the one hand to cheek exuberant vegetation, by which the qualitj' of his malt would be prematurely ex- hausted ; and, on the other, to see tb.at it is not injured by being untimely checked. There is a just medium in this matter, only to be insured by strict and unremitting attention on the part of both the master and his men. The root should not be long and 1197 ' 112S straggling, like fig. 1127; but short and curly, like fig. 1 1 28, bushy, and ha^dng a tendency to turn back. Yet even this checking should be done with judgment. If the piece be moved injudiciously often, or have too great a proportion of cold drying wind admitted into the house, the root will turn rusty, die away, and vegetation will be diffi- cult, if not impossible, to restore. The main object of the maltster is to ol)tain the greatest quantum of saccharine matter from the "barlev ; and this is found to be hv^'c