Visit the Shut up about Barclay Perkins site

Let’s take a look at some of the processes now. Starting with the mashing schedule.

While this is for Table Beer, the schemes for all the other beers are pretty much the same. It looks very much like the type of process used by many breweries in England and some in Scotland. That is, an infusion mash, followed by an underlet and a stand for two hours. Finishing off with a sparge.

Next boiling and fermentation.

Not much to say about the boiling process. All the beers were boiled for two hours. With the exception of Single Stout, which had two, all the beers just used a single copper. That is, that there was only one wort. Which is no problem, if you aren’t parti-gyling. Which Cairnes weren’t.

Every beer was pitched at 60º F. Which is a bit unusual. Standard practice was to pitch stronger beers cooler. The point being to keep the maximum temperature to around the same. More heat being generated during the fermentation of a stronger wort. Which may explain why, here, the maximum temperatures of the stronger beers are very high. X Ale, in particular, was allowed to get very hot: 89º F.The fermentations are a little on the long side, lasting as long as nine days. Though, oddly, the strongest beer, X Ale, has one of the shortest at just seven days.

26th October 1898 Table Beer
action barrels strike heat mash heat time stood (minutes) tap heat
mash 20 165º F 154º F 30 149º F
underlet 4 175º F 120 145º F
sparge 170º F 153º F
Source:
Cairnes brewing record held at the Guinness archives.



Cairnes boiling and fermentation in 1898
Beer Style boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. fermen-tation temp length of fermen-tation (days)
TB Table Beer 2 60º F 73º F 7
Ale Mild 2 60º F 78º F 9
E.I. Ale Pale Ale 2 60º F 76º F 7
IP Ale IPA 2 60º F 74º F 7
SS Stout 2 2 60º F 80º F 9
DS Stout 2 60º F 82.5º F 8
X Ale Mild 2 60º F 89º F 7
Source:
Cairnes brewing record held at the Guinness archives.


More...