Malt adjuncts or other starch containing materials and brewing sugars are used for the triple purpose: of producing more durable beers, since these adjuncts contain very little albumen; of producing paler beers than could be made with malt alone; and for reducing the cost of production. These are rice and corn products, such as corn grits, corn meal, corn starch, corn flakes and brewing sugars, glucose, etc. Flakes are made by steaming corn grits and passing them through hot steel rollers in order to change them so as to dissolve better during mashing. Flakes and sugars, such as grape sugar, glucose, etc., are sometimes used, instead of corn grits or rice (which require cooking) when a cooker is not installed. Flakes are added directly to the mash in the mash tub and sugars to the wort in the kettle. Brewing sugars are used to a moderate extent only as a brewing material for lager beers, i finding more extended use in the production of English beers such as ale, stout, etc.
Hops are added to the boiling wort for the purpose of imparting (1) tannin, which aids in the elimination of undesirable albuminoids in the wort; (2) hop oil, which gives the beer its hop aroma, and (3) hop resin, which gives the beer its bitter taste and furthermore tends to preserve•it. Water acts as a solvent for the substances contained in the i beer. Its com position has considerable influence on the character of the beer produced. It must con tain certain mineral substances. See Hops.
Equipment and Operation.— Modern breweries are usually divided into three depart ments, namely, the elevator or millhouse where the materials are prepared and weighed; the brewhouse, where the wort is produced, and the cellars where the wort is fermented and treated to produce the finished beer. The ar rangement is on the gravity plan, that is, in each department the material of wort or beer is elevated or pumped only once to the top and from there descends through the different stages of manufacture by gravity.
Elevator or Millhouse.—Here the malt is cleaned and stored. The desired amount of malt for the beer is weighed out in a scale hopper, and from thence passes through the malt mill where it is crushed so as to loosen the starch in the kernels. The crushed malt is then transferred to the storage hoppers in the brewhouse ready for use. Rice and corn goods are either stored in the millhouse, weighed in bulk and elevated to a storage hopper in the brewhouse, or dumped (usually in smaller breweries) directly from the sacks into the cooker.
Brewhouse.— The brewhouse generally con tains the following vessels: hot and cold water tanks; malt and cereal (rice or corn) hoppers; the cereal cooker, mash tub, kettle and hop jack and cooler.
Mashing in Cereal Cookers are of two kinds — open ones or, as they are usually called, rice tubs, and closed or pressure cookers. In these vessels rice or corn (grits or meal) is The mash is held at this temperature for about 15 minutes then run up to 56° R. (158° F.), and held for 30 minutes, then heated quickly to boiling and boiled from 45-75 minutes for corn goods, depending on the fineness of the material, and 30 minutes for rice. The cereal mash is
boiled for a certain length of time in order to loosen up or soften the hard flinty condition of their starch so as to render it able to be more completely dissolved or acted upon in the mash tub. Crushed malt to the amount of about one then run down to the mash tub where the mash is finished. Pressure cookers are used to some extent, but not generally, in American brewer ies. They differ from the open cookers in that, being closed, the mash can be boiled under pres sure and, consequently, at a higher temperature than in open cookers. Hereby a more complete softening or dissolving of the starch is obtained and consequently a better yield or extraction of the materials.
Mashing in Mash The mash tub, like the open cooker, has a stirrer, and a heating coil, but is further supplied with a strainer or perforated false bottom for clarifying the wort, and a sprinkling device or sparger for quarter the weight of corn goods is added in the open cookers. The mashing method in the open cooker varies somewhat among different brewers, the following being about the average method: The materials are mixed with water so as to have a temperature of 30° R. (100° F.).
washing out the grains. In the mash tub the mash is started and, when the mash from the cooker has been added, the combined mash is finished. The mashing method here varies con siderably, depending upon the character of the beer that is to be produced, and is consequently one of the most important of the brewing operations.
The method of mashing for the production of a beer of average character is approximately as follows: The crushed malt and water are mixed so as to have a temperature of 30° R. (100° F.) and the mash allowed to rest at this temperature Steam is turned on in the kettle as soon as the jacketed bottom is covered with wort. This wort and that continuously running in is then heated to and kept at about 70° R. (190° F.) in order to destroy the action of the diastase and prevent further saccharification in the wort taking place. When the kettle is full or nearly so, steam is further turned on and the wort brought to boiling and boiled for one hour when it should show a good "break.° During this boiling the undesirable albuminoids are precipitated in finely divided form, rendering the wort turbid. Upon continued heating these albuminoids unite or lump together and leave for one hour. The temperature of the mash is now raised to 54° R. (153° F.) to 55° R. (156° F.), in about 15 to 20 minutes, by running in the boiling corn or rice mash from the cooker (with the addition of steam should same be necessary). This temperature is held for 10 to 15 minutes, during which time the stirrer is operated continuously. It is at this stage that the diastase in the malt inverts or changes both the starch contained in the malt as well as that in the corn or rice into unfermentable dex trin and fermentable sugars.