Page:A Practical Treatise on Brewing (4th ed.).djvu/81

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MASHING.
65

from others, the deviation would be considered as the cause of it.

Many brewers are consequently averse to use cold water in their last mashings, having an idea that it tends to create acidity in the worts, as well as to cause other injurious effects. It has been before stated that the great desideratum in the process of making the extract (or mashing) is to avoid delay, particularly in warm weather. The shorter time, therefore, occupied in that process, the less risk we run of the worts getting tainted from their hanging about anywhere between the mash-tun and the copper.

Where there is only one copper, a considerable time is often occupied in getting up the water to what may be considered a sufficient heat for the last mashings, and, consequently, the first worts must be kept hanging about in the underback or elsewhere, until this be effected.

This hanging about of the worts is often the cause of acidity, which, although it may be corrected to a certain extent, can never afterwards be altogether remedied. From having often had only one copper to work with in the same premises, and seeing the great delay and also expense incurred in bringing up the head, I was induced to try the effect of using cold water instead of hot in the last mashings. Having, upon full investigation, ascertained, in the first place, that this caused no detri-