H ps.—The wort made from barley alone has little or no flavour, but it is afforded an agreeable and permanent bitterness by the addition of hops, before fermenting. Hops are grown extensively in Kent and Sussex, the best varieties coming from the neighbotuthood of Canterbury and Maid stone ; the next in quality to these are the hops of Farnham and Worcester. Hops are of a light, straw-yellow colour, and have a peculiar, pleasant aroma, due to the presence of the bitter principle termed lupulin. The only important process in the preparation of hops is the drying, or curing. This is effected in rough kilns, termed in Sussex " oast-houses " ; these should he heated to about 48° (120° F.), but in no case higher than this. The dried or cured malt must be packed into sacks and stored in close, dry rooms.
Foreign hops are largely used by brewers in this c,ountry, but as they are not so rich in flavour as the English, they are never used alone, hut mixed in different proportions with the English kinds. The general effect of hops upon the beer is to render it stimulant, and to impart to it ft bitter flavour, thus neutralizing the unpleasant, sickly flavour of the malt. The tonic properties of bitter ales are duo entirely to this bitter principle. The hops also tend to prevent the beer from turning sour.
MALTING.—This process, which will be fully described in the article Malt, is the conversion of raw barley into malt, by a series of four processes, named respectively, steeping, couching, flooring, and drying. The grain is first steeped in water until it has taken up the quantity required for germination ; it is then spread out in even layers on the floor of the malthou-e, and repeatedly turned over until germination begins ; when little rootlets appear at the extremities of the grains, tho germination is checked by drying the malt rapidly in kilns.
During the first part of the process, namely, steeping in water, the grain swells up. increasing about one-fifth in bulk and one-third in weight ; the absorbed water is assimilated by the starch of the grain during the after process of flooring, sugar being thereby produced. Only about half the starch contained in the grain is converted in this way into sugar, the germination being checked in tho middle, since the continuance of the process would exhaust the grain, and the remainder of the valuable constituents would be taken up by the growth of the roots and stems. The chief object, therefore, of the process, is to check the germination as soon as tho largest possible amount of starch has been converted into sugar; this is generally known to be the case when the plunaule, or acrospiro, has grown, under tho husk, to two-thirds of the length of the grain. The following
analyses by Proust will point out the nature of the changes undergone by barley in the process of m alting It will thus be seen that the amount of starch and convertible sugar has been nearly doubled, while the hordeine has been reduced to one-fourth, the remainder of it being converted into mucilage.
In the process of drying, not only is the water expelled from the grain, and further germination thereby prevented, but a considerable quantity of the unchanged starch is also converted into sugar. This is proved by the fact that if separate portions of malt be dried in the atmosphere and in the kiln, that dried in the kiln is found to have considerably more saccharine matter than the other. Malt dried in the kiln affords, also, an agreeable flavour to the beer made from it, besides tending to its preservation.
During germination, a peculiar nitrogenous substance, called diit,ttsc, is formed iu tho grain, which is especially active in converting starch into sugar after the malt has been infused in water. The worts from malted barley contain about one part of diastase in 100.
Many brewers and distillers use a mixture of malted and unmalted barley for the formation of their worts, in order to save expense; the cost of malting, together with the duty on the article, rendering it much higher in price than the unlimited grain. With care, nearly as much saccharine matter can be extracted from such a mixture as from the unmixed malt, although the subsequent processes, in the former esse, present many difficulties. In either case, the malt, or the mixture of malt and grain, must be ground or crushed before it is ready for use. This is performed in order to expose as large a surface as possible to the action of the water used in making the worts. The effect of the previous steeping, however, is to prepare it in some measure for the reception of the water, and hence it is not necessary to grind malt alone very finely. When a mixture is employed, a portion of the grains have not been thus prepared, and the whole must be ground more finely. A brighter and clearer wort is invariably obtained from unmixed malt, on account of the comparative absence of suspended starch.