1868 The complete Practical Distiller

PROCESS OF MALTING.

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the floor by means of a wooaen shovel. It would greatly improve the quality of the malt to submit the grain to this operation once or twice before the appearance of the white point. The object of this is to regulate the heat of the whole mass, so as to place all the parts of the grain under cir- cumstances equally favourable to germination, and thus to cause the movement to be simultaneous. The heap being thus turned, the white point observed in the grain comes out and presents extricated fibres, which are nothing but the growing roots of the plants. Then it is more im- portant than ever to mind the grain — to remove and turn it frequently, as before recommended, so as to regulate the germination. This management is essentially necessary, for without it an unequal heat would reign in the mass ; this would occasion the roots to grow unequally, and it would be impossible to fix a determinate time for the term of ger- mination. This operation is generally at an end when the fibres have acquired a length of 6 or 7 lines; then the decomposition of the corn is come to a point which ir recognised as the most favourable to malt, because at this period the plume which is to form the stalk of the plant is on the point of making its appearance ; and if the ope- ration was any longer continued, so as to give this plume the time of shooting out, the malted grain loses a part of the substance useful to the production of spirits. Germi- nation provokes in the corn a change particularly favour- able to the success of mashing ; it becomes sweetish, and this taste is owing to the saccharification of a small por- tion of the fecula, or starch. The gluten is partly de-

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