Whisky Words by Barker Aaron

Author:Barker, Aaron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aaron Barker Publishing
Published: 2015-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

All being ready for the brewing, hot water is admitted to the 'mash-tuns' by pipes leading from the coppers; while ground meal is thrown in at the open top of each tun. The sacks of ground meal are stored in the mill adjoining the brewhouse, and are from thence wheeled to the tun on low hand-carriages. This is a very bustling scene when a 'mashing' is about to commence, ten or a dozen men being employed to wheel in the sacks, discharge the meal, and return for another cargo. We may here remark that the water is conveyed to the coppers from a very large cast-iron tank, or 'liquor-back, on another part of the premises: it is pumped into this tank from a reservoir sunk below the level of the ground in the northwest part of the premises, the reservoir being supplied by a pipe leading from the Thames at a point within the limits of low-water; so that a constant supply of water is thus obtained.

The crushed malt, the ground grain, and the hot water, being admitted into the tuns in the requisite proportions, the rotating stirrer or mashing-machine' is put into action, whereby the solid and liquid ingredients are so completely mixed up together, that the water is enabled to extract the saccharine elements from the meal. Men are also employed with long-handled instruments to stir the sediment, which might otherwise remain at the bottom; and a scene is then presented such as is shown in the cut at the top of the next page. These operations continue for two or three hours, during which a striking chemical change has been going on. Meal consists principally of gluten and starch; and by the agency of water and a sufficient temperature this starch becomes converted into sugar. The precise explanation of this change involves chemical niceties into which we need not enter; but it will be sufficient to say, that the water, converted into worts' by the process of mashing, acquires a sweet though sickly taste, arising from the starch of the meal having been converted into sugar.

When the 'mashing' has been continued to a certain extent, five or six pipes are opened, through which the 'worts' are allowed to flow into cast-iron cisterns called 'under-backs,' in a cellar beneath. The meal is retained by the upper or false bottom of the mash-tun, which thus acts as a sieve or strainer, allowing nothing but liquid to pass through the perforations. The meal does not lose all its saccharine quality by this first mashing: it is therefore mashed' a second and a third time, in fresh portions of water; producing worts' of less and less strength. As to the number of times that the mashing is repeated, the quantity of water used for a given weight of meal at each mashing, the temperature of the water, and the length of time during which the mashing is continued—these are points on which each individual manufacturer exercises his skill and judgment, and may possibly vary considerably in different establishments.

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