The Mash Tun
Home | Ingredients | Milling | Mashing | Boiling | Cooling | Fermenting | Racking | Conditioning | Sampling | Bright Beer | Site | Misc | Today | Links
The grain from the grist tank (the bottom of which is the large cone shape structure to the right) was mixed with hot water in the device leading from the bottom of the cone . This was known as a 'Stills' masher. The water/malt mixture then dropped into the mash tun, the circular object at the bottom of the picture.
The mash tun at Darley's was made of cast iron, apparently quite rare in beer brewing but common in the whisky distilling industry. Due to the cramped conditions it was difficult to get a good view of it, even with a 28mm lens!
The mash tun had a double skin. Hot water in the space between the two skins maintained the mashing temperature
The malt was mashed for several hours. Note the tun is labelled MT No.1, although there was no MT No.2. This was required by the customs and excise.
S.D.V stand for 'Sugar Dissolving Vessel', although as far as I know, Thorne Best Bitter was an all-malt brew. When the mashing period was over the resulting liquid , rich in fermentable sugars (known as 'Wort'), was run into the copper. The grain remaining at the bottom of the tun then sprayed with hot water to extract even more fermentable sugars. This process was known as 'sparging'
This was the grain drier. The spent grain was useful as animal feed. Most breweries sold this wet, but Darley's dried the grain and packed it into sacks. The dried grain had a much higher value than wet grain.
The dried grain being packaged.