Brazilian 19th Century recipe - Questions

[pedrovic]

Hello, I hope you're all well.

I recently found a brazilian old recipe from 19th century whose production process made me curious.

Below are some excerpts from the material (I separated into topics but the text originally is in just one paragraph) :

• When the barley is very dry, it is crushed into thick flour, which is soaked for a few hours in a vat in water that has a temperature of 60 ° C .
• To the wort has become sugary, hop cones (a part of weight per 99 of flour) are added, which, in infusion in the boiling liquid, abandon its bitter principle - lupulin - and an aromatic oil. Without this ingredient, beer could not be preserved, and sour quickly.
• Concentrated sufficiently the wort, which is known when it is reduced to half more or less, it is finally passed through hair screens to soft drinks, which are wide and shallow tanks, where the liquid is allowed to cool to a temperature of 15 ° C

My doubts :

1. The recipe says that the crushing malt is like "thick flour". This would be equivalent to the thick grinding that is currently used?
2. The mash temperature is 60 ° C. What would this imply in the result?
3. Only filtration is mentioned at the end of the boil, where the liquid would pass through a sieve and go to a cooling tank. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood that, in this recipe, the wort is boiled together with the grains. If so, the result would be very different from a must that went through the removal of the grains before boiling, as we do today?

Thanks and cheers.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

1.) By "thick" it may mean "course", in which case it would be similar to a grind of today.
2.) 60C = 140F = Beta Amylase rest which aids in fermentability (lower FG). As the mash is raised in temperature alpha amylase starts to act on the starches as well. These two enzymes are denatured as the temperature is raised to boiling. In general, though not precisely, giving a long beta rest aids in fermentability (lower FG) and a long alpha rest in raising extract (OG). The problem is the fermentability enzyme (beta) comes first in the temperature range, then the extract enzyme (alpha) which is why decoction mashes are used.
3.) Decoction mashing works portions of the grain through the various temperature ranges (and enzyme activities), finally boiling the grain and is used to increase the extraction efficiency. It does not necessarily produce a different end result.

The implications of the recipe, "thick flour", 60C, boiling grains (decoction) are fairly standard and indicate a normal beer.