Youngs PA boiling and fermentation 1939 - 1945

Let's look a couple of the processes. Namely, boiling and fermentation.

Beginning with the boiling times. At the start of the war, both coppers were boiled for two hours. That lasted until 1944, when the time was reduced to 1.75 hours.  I think I can guess the reason why. Saving fuel. Which was probably coal, at this point.

During the war, the UK struggled to produce enough coal and measures were taken to reduce its use. For example, by limiting how much hot water you could have in a bath. Reducing the boiling times at breweries is an obvious way to reduce coal usage. It’s only a surprise that brewers weren’t induced to do this earlier in the war.

Noving on to fermentation, the pitching temperature seems to have been dropped a little from 60º F to 58º F. I’m not sure why that might have been. I can’t see how that might have saved fuel or anything like that.

Maximum fermentation temperatures are all over the place. From as low as 64.5º F to a high of 73.5º F. There doesn’t seem to be any particular trend of up or down, just random variation. Though most brews had a high of 67-68º F.

Most fermentations lasted seven or eight days, though a few were a bit shorter. There doesn’t seem to have been any change in this, even though PA became weaker.

I’ve included the dropping time. For once. This is when the wort was dropped from a deep cylindrical vessel to a shallow square. The time varies between 1.5 and 2 days. This also doesn’t seem to have changed during the war years.

Youngs PA boiling and fermentation 1939 - 1945
Date	Year	boil time (hours)		Pitch temp	max. fermen-tation temp	length of fermen-tation (days)	dropped after (hours)
27th Jul	1939	2	2	60º F	73.5º F	8
22nd May	1940	2	2	59.5º F	65º F	8
1st May	1941	2	2	58º F	67º F	7	44
3rd Jul	1941	2	2	58º F	69º F	7	36
8th Jul	1941	2	2	58º F	70.25º F	8	35
23rd Oct	1941	2	2	58º F	66º F	8	47
7th May	1942	2	2	59º F	65.5º F	8	36
9th Jul	1942	2	2	58º F	64.5º F	6	39
20th Oct	1942	2	2	58º F	67.5º F	8
30th Apr	1943	2	2	58º F	65.25º F	7	55
20th Jul	1943	2	2	58º F	66º F	8	36.5
1st May	1944	1.75	1.75	58º F	67º F	6	37.5
8th May	1944	2	2	58º F	68º F	8	41.5
19th Oct	1944	1.75	1.75	58º F	67º F	8	41.75
8th May	1945	1.75	1.75	58º F	68º F	7	37.5
3rd Jul	1945	1.75	1.75	58º F	66.25º F	4	37.5
12th Jul	1945	1.75	1.75	58º F	67º F	7	37
Sources:
Young's brewing records held at Battersea Library, document numbers YO/RE/1/8 YO/RE/1/9 YO/RE/1/10, YO/RE/1/11, YO/RE/1/12, YO/RE/1/13 and YO/RE/1/14.