While looking for a brewing log for Barclay Perkins Brown Ale, I stumbled across the page with their water treatments. It's surprisingly sophisticated, with five different methods used.Some of it seems a little weird. Things like adding salt and gypsum to the grains in the mashtun. And why would they boil some water and just heat some of it to 170º F? And why add salt in the copper? perhaps one of you brewers could explain.
Water treatment
In the 1930's, Barclay Perkins treated all their brewing water. These are the water treatment entries at the front of their brewing log for 1936-37:
Mild Ales (X, XX, A)Company's liquor - treated cold 2/3 oz. salt and 7/12 oz gypsum per barrel in HLB [Hot liquor Back].
Heated to 170º F and allowed to drop to mashing heat. Half hour before mashing add 1/8 pint per barrel of bi sulphite lime. Salt in coppers - 3 oz per barrel.
DB (Brown Ale)
Company's liquor - treated cold 1.5 ozs. salt and 4 ozs gypsum per barrel in HLB [Hot liquor Back].
Heated to 170º F and allowed to drop to mashing heat half hour before mashing.
Salt in coppers - 2 oz per barrel.
KK (Burton)
Company's liquor - treated cold 3 ozs. salt and 3 ozs gypsum per barrel in HLB [Hot liquor Back]
Boiled overnight. Half hour before mashing add 1/8 pint per barrel of bi sulphite of lime.
Salt in coppers - 1 oz per barrel.
PA (Bitter)Company's liquor - treated cold. Boiled 5 minutes and allowed to drop to mashing heat. 5 ozs CaSO4 & 1 oz. MgSO4 per barrel in HLB [Hot liquor Back]
All Black Beers (Porter and Stout)
Company's liquor - Boiled 5 minutes and allowed to drop to mashing heat.
2 ozs salt and 1 oz gypsum per barrel of liquor used over the goods added to grist.
Salt in coppers - 3 ozs per barrel.
As you can see, the water for each type of beer was handled quite differently. For some was boiled, for others heated to 170º F. Quite a few different chemicals were added - salt, gypsum, calcium sulphate, magnesium sulphate, calcium bisulphate - in different combinations and amounts.
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