called decoction. Infusion is enough to
extract the goodness from malt; the goodness
being the sweet, or sugar, whereinto the starch
of the barley was turned, when it was changed
to malt. It is a great point to make the
infusion properly. The water ought to be of
the right degree of heat, which, to make good
beer, in a general way, is one hundred and
seventy degrees by Fahrenheit's thermometer
to begin with. A mistake in this particular
may occasion the beer to turn sour, or become
blinked, which when it used to be afore the
thermometer was known, was often set down to
witchcraft by the wisdom of our ancestors,
in the times of priestcraft and superstition.

"Water enough to stir and separate the
malt, is first poured into a proper vessel—
that is, a mash-tub;—the malt is now put
into it and stirred about: more water is then
added at a greater heat; the mash, or
mixture of malt-and-water, is let stand for two
hours, at the end of which it is drawn off,
and is now called wort, or sweet-wort, in the
vulgar tongue, and infusion of malt, or
'solution of the saccharine and extracted matter of
malt,' by the learned.

"Now, to make wort it is not necessary that
the grain used should all have been malted.
About one part of malt mixed with two of
raw grain in the mash-tub, will communicate
the nature of malt to the whole quantity of
goods. The raw grain or barley, must be
cut into fine meal; meal powdered to dust, does
not answer the purpose. This is a curious
instance of 'saccharine fermentation,' and is
the fact, concerning it, that I alluded to just
now: how to account for it, nobody knows, I
believe, further than that through contact
with the sweet of the malt, a movement takes
place in the starch of the grain, between its
particles of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen;
they altering their places with respect to
each other, in such a way as to take that form
of vegetable matter which we call sugar.
But this is little more than merely stating a
circumstance we can't explain.

"The starch in rasped potatoes even, may
be turned into sweet or saccharine stuff, in the
same way, by means of mashing or steeping
with malt; and then a sort of beer may be
made from it, and was made from it, so Mr.
Booth says, in his 'Treatise on the Art of
Brewing,' published under the superintendence
of the Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge. By his account, beer
was so brewed from potatoes by a Monsieur
Dubrunfaut, a Frenchman; and we are told
it 'resembled the beer which is made in
Paris.' Perhaps it may resemble, and something
more, not a little of the beer that is
sold in London, too.

"Brewers seem to approve of brewing from
raw grain; though I believe that, on their
part, is against the laws, which however don't
prevent private persons from so doing, if they
choose. But one, who was a tolerable authority
on the subject, William Cobbett, doesn't
hold with it at all. He says, 'As to using
barley in the making of beer, I have given it
a full and fair trial, twice over; and I would
recommend it to neither rich nor poor. The
barley produces strength, though nothing like
the malt; but the beer is flat, even though
you use half malt and half barley; and flat
beer lies heavy on the stomach, and of course,
besides the bad taste, is unwholesome.'
Cobbett's 'Cottage Economy,' page 26,
paragraph 38. How the truth may be, I can't
say; but I can easily understand how the
sort of sugar made in the sprouting of a seed,
or 'germination,' may yield beer, different
in point of taste and flavour from what that
does which is produced in the mash-tub; the
principles of flavour and taste being so very
delicate, and perhaps, also, roasting or drying
the malt may have some influence in the
same particulars. I should be inclined to
apply these remarks, likewise, to beer brewed
from sugar and treacle, as it may be, and
under certain circumstances is sometimes
allowed to be, by the Excise. For the subject
of a chemical discourse such beer is just as
good beer as any other, and I've no objection
to it whatever, as a lecturer; but, as a
consumer, if I am to have a choice, I should say,
'If you please, I should rather prefer the
genuine original commodity, provided it's all
the same to you.'

"When you have got your wort, or sweet-
wort, the next step in brewing is to boil the
hops with it: thereby making a decoction of
hops in infusion of malt. By this operation
you get out the bitter principle of the top;
and there is no chemical change in it
requiring particular notice.

"The liquor, strained from the hops, having
been brought down in the coolers to the
proper temperature, which is about seventy
degrees, is now put into the tun-tub. In
that respect it undergoes the great change
that converts it into beer. This is called,
fermentation. The process of fermentation
is set a-going, as you know, by mixing yeast
with the wort.

"Now, for fermentation to take place, it is
necessary, that besides carbon, oxygen, and
hydrogen, there should be nitrogen present
in the liquor or substance to be fermented.
Wort, from the small quantity of nitrogen
still left in the malt, may be made to ferment
of itself with some trouble; but, to save that,
the yeast is mixed with it. Yeast is the
froth of a previous fermentation; and
contains nitrogen enough to make the fermentation
sufficiently quick. It is a sort of stuff
in which you see a continual motion is going
on. According to the German chemist Liebig,
yeast causes fermentation by communicating
its own motion, in a mechanical manner, to
the particles of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen,
that compose sugar, dissolved in the wort,
for instance. The hydrogen and oxygen, in
sugar, as I said above, stand, in sugar, each to
each, in the proportions of twelve, carbon;