Primings (part two)

More fun stuff on 19th-century primings. A topic I'm sure you find just as fascinating as I do.

The problem with using lour, was that the slow fermentation it provoked, didn't heavily carbonate the beer quickly enough. for that you needed sugar.

"The use of flour does not, however, commend itself to many, since it is apt to lead to the slow generation of gas in place of that high condition that is considered so essential, so the popular plan at the present time is to introduce a prepared solution of sugar, either perfectly quiescent or brought into a state of incipient fermentation a few hours previous to the shipment of the beer. This operation would be costly if the sugar so used was not taken into account when calculating original gravity; it is customary therefore to fix upon a certain quantity of sugar solution to be added per barrel, and then reducing the brewing gravity of the beer so that the final addition of sugar brings it up to standard."
"The Theory and Practice of Modern Brewing" by Frank Faulkner, 1888, page 269.

Of course, the canny brewer would lower the OG of his beer to take into account the primings added later. And, naturally, duty would be paid on the primings.

"The best variety of sugar to use seems to be either dextrin-maltose or some pure saccharine. A boiling-hot solution is made, cooled, and added to each cask, the ordinary quantity being some three gallons per barrel of a gravity corresponding to 1,150, those desiring very rapid condition inducing a quiet fermentation in the strong sugar solution by adding a small weight of yeast. It will be evident that such a solution requires constantly making afresh, and it is well even then to treat it with salicylic acid to prevent any deterioration. To admit of its use it is necessary to keep the black beer in stock more or less quiet, since it is not customary to add this form of dressing before the beer is required for use, very rapid fermentation immediately following its addition.

I need hardly say that if this heading has been treated with a little yeast, or if a little malt flour be added with it, it puts an end at once to all possibility of flatness, while the degree of condition that results may be increased or diminished at will by varying the quantity of sugar heading employed, or the proportion of flour or yeast that is added with it."
"The Theory and Practice of Modern Brewing" by Frank Faulkner, 1888, pages 269-270.

By "pure saccharine" I assume Faulkner means pure sucrose. Which is a bit of a surprise. I suppose it's just easily, and fully, fermentable. Dextrin-maltose is an odd one if you wanted to get beer into condition quickly, as it's not that easily fermentable. It's more like what you'd expect to be added to a beer undergoing a long, slow secondary conditioning.

1145-1150º was the gravity of the primings Barclay Perkins used in the interwar years.