Tuesday 14 February 2017

Leftovers

My new Scottish book is full of information. Too full. But even then, there's the odd bit I can't shoehorn in.

I spent the weekend looking at mashing details. I know that sounds a bit dull, but it was both English and Scottish mashing schemes. Which adds an extra piquancy.  It meant putting together loads of fascinating tables.

But there wasn't room for all of them in full. I couple I just used extracts from. That's how stuffed full the book is. 70,000 words, at the moment. Though probably half of those "words" are numbers. That's how many tables there are.

The tables below I assembled for a larger table on mashing schemes in the 1930's. A fascinating topic. No, I'm not taking the piss. It is dead interesting. And through looking at mashing details more closely I've learned stuff. In particular, stuff about underlet mashing.

I've always though of underlet mashing - adding more hot water to the mash through the bottom of the tun a while after the initial infusion - as a particularly London practice. After looking in more detail, it seems that the practice was widespread in England. Though the process wasn't exactly the same everywhere.

Courage 1930 KKK, MC and X mashing scheme
strike heat mash heat stood hours
mash 1 158.5º F 146º F
underlet 173º F 149º F 2
sparge 1 160º F
sparge 2 160º F
Source:
Courage brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/08/258.

Courage's underlet was relatively cool compared to Camden's:

Camden 1922 PA mashing scheme
strike heat mash heat tap heat
mash 1 157.5º F 149º F
underlet 185º F 155º F 154.5º F
sparge 1 165º F 157.8º F
sparge 2 161º F
Source:
Camden Brewery brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/9/5.

While Tetley's was hotter still:

Tetley 1934 X1 mashing scheme
strike heat mash heat tap heat stood hours
mash 154º F 147º F 155º F 0.75
underlet 200º F 152º F 153º F 1
sparge 168º F 147º F
Source:
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archives, document number WYL756/ACC3349/552.

Maybe I should start looking more at mashing. There's so much fun to be had.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Ron ,
The only north western ones I`ve seen that underlet are ,Magee Marshall , Walker`s , Cornbrook , Richard Clarke`s (Reddish Vale/Stockport who also had an interesting Sparge regime(up to 4!!) & Higson`s and Whitwell Mark from Kendal .
Bit surprised that two of the bigger breweries in Lancashire: Boddingtons and Dutton`s don`t appear to have though!!.
I think it`s problably a combination of the brewing plant , beer style requirements , and the brewery`s preference for methods of production balanced with, cost efectiveness.(Counting House Gnomes!!)

Mick said...

70,000 words, that's a hell of a book. How many pages is that? More on Mashing please, perhaps the most important part of brewing.........

Ron Pattinson said...

Edd,

that's dead intersting. I'm belatedly becoming fascinated by mashing schemes. Especially regional variations.