Chapter VII: New Process for the Manufacture of Beer (3)

[The bottling needle (_foret â aiguille_) is a contrivance for
permitting a cork to be driven into a bottle completely filled with
liquid, without bursting the bottle. It consists of a
slightly-tapering iron pin about 1/8th inch in diameter and 2 inches
in length, somewhat flattened, and slightly curved throughout its
entire length, with a groove running down one side from end to end,
the pin being jointed with a ring, like a common ring cork-screw. In
using it the pin is driven into the bottle alongside the cork, thus
allowing the excess of liquid to escape as the cork advances. When the
cork is completely home, the needle is withdrawn, and the elasticity
of the cork enables it to fill up the space left, so that we have the
bottle corked air-tight, and no air left between the cork and
liquid.—D. C. R.]

Footnote 179:

We have remarked in our observations on No. 6 of Plate I. (p. 6) that
amongst the amorphous granular deposits of wort and beer we often find
minute balls of resinous and colouring matter, perfectly spherical and
very dense, which if the liquids be shaken up will render them very
turbid, but which readily and rapidly deposit again, without remaining
in suspension in the least. Such then is the form in which the
deposits of wort in course of fermentation are precipitated, when the
wort has been freely exposed to oxygen. One day in the laboratory we
were desirous of starting a fermentation in a vessel capable of
holding 12 hectolitres (264 gallons). But as we only had at our
disposal a copper capable of holding 2-½ hectolitres, we procured the
wort from a neighbouring brewery in two barrels of 6 hectolitres each.
This wort we re-heated, in portions, in our 2-½ hectolitre copper, a
treatment which had the effect of oxidizing the wort more than it
would have been in the brewery. In this case the beer fell remarkably
bright, and the cells of yeast were accompanied by the deposit of
minute agglomerations sketched in Plate I., No. 6. We have repeated
this experiment on a smaller scale and have obtained the same result.

Footnote 180:

It is evident that this arrangement may be modified in many ways. Any
of the ordinary worms, or, generally speaking, any of the more modern
refrigerators invented during the last few years, may be adopted. The
only point that is of importance is the preservation of the purity of
the wort during cooling.

The Baudelot refrigerator is extensively adopted in France; for this
reason we used it in our experiments at Tantonville. We might equally
well, by enclosing the worm in a casing of sheet iron or tinned
copper, pass our wort over the exterior of the tubes, the cold water
passing through them. The wort would cool quicker in this way than
with the arrangement described in the text, and if we arrange to admit
only pure air into the case, always under conditions of purity. The
aeration, moreover, could be made as much as we wished.

Footnote 181:

This arrangement limits the proportion of oxygen that may be
introduced into the wort by direct oxidation. But it would be easy to
increase this at will, by causing the wort as it comes from the copper
and the hop-back to pass into a cylinder turning horizontally on its
axis and furnished with blades fixed inside, so as to divide the wort
and bring it better into contact with the air in the cylinder. Instead
of a revolving cylinder we might use a fixed vessel, in which the wort
could be stirred up by some arrangement outside. In either case we
should have to take care that the air was pure when it came into
contact with the wort, but this would be a matter of no difficulty; we
would simply have to make communication with the outer air by means of
a tube filled with cotton wool. Any air that might be in the vessel at
the moment when the wort was introduced would be purified by the high
temperature of the wort coming from the copper. We should, moreover,
gain the great advantage of being able to bring oxygen to bear on our
wort in determinate amounts. From this vessel it would pass on to the
refrigerator. We might again raise the wort oxidized on the coolers to
a temperature of 75° C. (167° F.), to recool it in this manner and
aerate it by means of the pure-air pipe.

Footnote 182:

One of the barrels of the brewery beer was bottled about the end of
October, at the same time that a barrel of M was.

Footnote 183:

Refer foot-note, page 354.

Footnote 184:

The evaporation on the coolers varies according to the arrangements in
different breweries; but in no case is it less than several hundredths
of the total volume. One special advantage of the new process is that
it gives us, _ceteris paribus_, a volume of beer that is 5, 6, or 7
per cent. greater than that which we should obtain by the old process,
without in any way affecting the strength of the beer. It is easy to
ascertain the quantity that evaporates on the coolers, by determining
the quantity of water that must be added to a known volume of wort
coming from the coolers to bring its density back exactly to that of
the original wort, both being calculated to the same temperature.
Bate’s English saccharometer, which shows differences of nearly
1/1000th in density, may be employed with advantage in this
determination.