Historic Brew Ledgers- Need help deciphering

[SpinMaster]

I was allowed to view some historic ledgers in an effort to recreate brews from the days of yore. There are a few things that I can't quite figure out what they mean and I was wondering what you all thought. A few column headers that don't make a lot of sense to me are:

• Caramel lbs
  • Were they using caramel extract for colour in 1908 or do you think that means caramel malt?
• BPG cwts
  • I know that cwts means hundred weight. (100 lbs in US, 112 lbs in UK) But any ideas what BPG stands for?
• Sacch cwts, with hand written glucose
  • I assume this is simple brewing sugar
• Malt, New and Old
  • No clue what new and old malt means. One idea I had was new malt is the most recent crop while old was last years harvest. But in a lot of other pages they have the what I assume is stock written in the top of the old colomn, but they aren't using it. I would think if they had stock of last years harvest they would use that first.
• Pat. malt
  • I assume this is black patent malt, however the notes written within the column make no sense to me. 4.2.3, 2.0.2, 5.3.3.
• Ht of mash and Ht of Alm.
  • No clue

If anyone has experience with 100 year old brewing ledgers, I would greatly appreciate and help. If not, enjoy looking at some old brewing ledgers and be glad that most people write in block capitals these days.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

If it is from a Brittish brewery, caramel probably means caramel colouring, otherwise it likeky would have been listed as "Crystal".
Sacch could be invert sugar of some kind.
What brewery are they from?

 

[lumpher]

BPG is brewers pressed grain, also known as partially dewatered grain.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Not an easy task. This guy's been deciphering vintage brewers' records for quite some time. Maybe some clues if you did into his archives.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com

 

[SpinMaster]

If it is from a Brittish brewery, caramel probably means caramel colouring, otherwise it likeky would have been listed as "Crystal".
Sacch could be invert sugar of some kind.
What brewery are they from?

Cairnes in Drogheda, Ireland. They produced the number 1 selling ale in Ireland in their time.

 

[SpinMaster]

BPG is brewers pressed grain, also known as partially dewatered grain.

I found that, but would they add spent grain from the last mash to a new mash? Would a brewery in the early 1900's bother with pressing grain to dewater it when they could just add 112 lbs of it if there was a benefit to adding spent grain at all.

 

[SpinMaster]

Not an easy task. This guy's been deciphering vintage brewers' records for quite some time. Maybe some clues if you did into his archives.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com

Thanks, I'll give that a look.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

@patto1ro can you provide @SpinMaster any help with these logs?

Spinmaster, patto1ro is the researcher behind the Shut up about Barclay Perkins blog (and numerous books) that DBhomebrew linked above.

 

[maltboy1]

Not an easy task. This guy's been deciphering vintage brewers' records for quite some time. Maybe some clues if you did into his archives.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com

I've been reading his blog. Really interesting stuff. He's generous with his info too.

 

[DBhomebrew]

He's generous with his info too.

Feel free to purchase one of his many books!