Great. I thought. These will come in handy when I try to calculate the gravity of beers based on the quantity of malt used. I was amazed at what I saw. Brown malt with an extract of 72 lbs and even 78 lbs per quarter. To put this into context, the pale malts vary between 62 lbs and 82 lbs. In the 19th century, around 80 lbs was standard.
There's one exception: the brown malt made in Hertfordshire. That gives the shit extract I'd expect of 54 lbs and 56 lbs.
Richardson explains the difference in the method of manufacture. The stuff from Hertfordshire being "blown" or popped, like popcorn. And so getting larger in volume. Malt was sold in quarters, a volume measure. Making a quarter of brown malt much lighter than one of pale.
Outside of Hertfordshire, as they didn't pop their brown malt, it would have weighed around the same per quarter as pale malt. So I suppose it makes sense that the extract wouldn't be that much worse.
Great to see all of this in hard numbers. And to see just how different the "other" brown malt was.
London brewers used Hertfordshire malt. The question is: why? Was it all they had readily available in the pre-railway days?
| Malt from the barley of 1781. | ||||
| No. | Colour | Character | Growth of barley. | Average prod. of ferm. matter |
| 1 | pale | well made | North Lincolnsh. | 82 lbs |
| 2 | pale | indifferent | North Lincolnsh. | 75 lbs |
| 3 | pale | well made | Norfolk | 72 lbs |
| 4 | pale | well made | Yorksh. woulds | 82 lbs |
| 5 | brown | well made | Yorksh. woulds | 78 lbs |
| 6 | brown | well made | Ware, in Herts | 56 lbs |
| Source: | ||||
| Statistical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing by J. Richardson, 1784, G. Robinson, London, page 67. | ||||
| Malt from the barley of 1782. | ||||
| No. | Colour | Character | Growth of barley. | Average prod. |
| 1 | pale | well made | Yorksh. woulds | 62 lbs |
| 2 | pale | well made | Bremen | 58 lbs |
| 3 | pale | well made | Norfolk | 67 lbs |
| 4 | pale | indifferent | Norfolk | 56 lbs |
| 5 | brown | well made | Ware, in Herts. | 54 lbs |
| Source: | ||||
| Statistical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing by J. Richardson, 1784, G. Robinson, London, page 67. | ||||
| Malt from the barley of 1783. | ||||
| No. | Colour | Character | Growth of barley. | Average prod. |
| 1 | pale | well made | North Lincolnsh | 74 lbs |
| 2 | pale | well made | Berwick on Tweed | 63 lbs |
| 3 | pale | indifferent | Yorksh. woulds | 65 lbs |
| 4 | pale | well made | Yorksh. woulds | 75 lbs |
| 5 | brown | well made | Yorksh. woulds | 72 lbs |
| Source: | ||||
| Statistical Estimates of the Materials of Brewing by J. Richardson, 1784, G. Robinson, London, page page 68. | ||||
Would that mean that those brown malts with good extract were more akin to Munich malt?
ReplyDeleteI suppose a difficulty in this to establish a colour reference for brown malts in the 18th century?
So this sounds a bit like the torrified grains we have today, then? I'm used to brewing with torrefied wheat, but I can't help but wonder what this looks like with a hulled malt like barley. Do the hulls survive? Would this affect their lautering? Also, would any enzymatic activity remain after the popping process?
ReplyDeleteI'm quite intrigued by this one.
How do these yields relate to modern IoB units, such as litre degrees per kilogram or specific gravity? What does 78 lb./Qr mean? I tried to convert these figures but I got hopelessly confused.
ReplyDeleteInSearchOfKnowledge,
ReplyDeletehonest answer: I've no idea. I don't really have much information about how that type of brown malt was made.
Eric Branchaud.
ReplyDeletenot sure how it looked, but it definitely had diastatic power.
Iain,
ReplyDelete72 lbs per quarter equals 216.84 gravity points. A quarter is approximately 153 kilos. So I make it 1.42 gravity points per kilo of malt.
I have done torrefied wheat by putting wheat grains in the oven for 10 minutes at 190°C. Doing the same with barley malt recently however gave a roasted, dark brown malt with no diastatic power left. I recently read that 180°C should be the maximum for keeping the enzymes alive, so will try that next.
ReplyDeleteThe grains popped very nicely, though, and crushing showed the charred spots some texts refer to.
Thank you, Ron. How does one arrive at that conversion? (Not too worry if the answer would constitute a whole blog post by itself – I see you have a lot on at present.)
ReplyDeleteSince the 72 lb. is ‘brewer's pounds’, does that mean 1.42 gravity points per kilo malt is if the kilo of malt was used to make 36 imp. gallons of wort (or 163.7 litres of wort)?
I'm honestly fascinated at how brewers back in the day kept all these arcane units straight in their heads!
Iain,
ReplyDeletebrewer's pounds are a piece of piss to work with.
Yes, it's per 36-gallon barrel.
If you're getting 72 lbs per quarter, and your brew length is four barrels, then they will have a gravity of 18 lbs, or 1049.9ยบ. It's a very easy system to use.
I think factoring in brew length was the mental block for me. Makes sense now, ta.
ReplyDeleteI believe people are making a mistake thinking the 17/18th C. guys were making "brown" malt. They weren't! They were making "malt". It got a bit scorched when cutting corners meant seeing how hot you could get away with banking up the fire. It got a bit caramelised because they kilned it a bit damp (cutting corners). It got a bit stained because of wood smoke. Result: It looked a bit "brown"! Unlike the posh nobs who had their malt made a little more carefully (so it was "pale"). The colour was a "consequence", not an "intention". As "pale" became more common, "brown" could be used as a distinguishing descriptor.
ReplyDeleteModern brown malt is intentionally made brown and as a result is completely different.
Was "brown" malt diastatic in the 19th C.? Did it need to be with all that pale malt included? Perhaps attempts to maintain the flavour of "Porter" using less brown malt needed more heat? = less diastatic? = more malt houses burning down?