I know we have fancy things like plate chillers, but what did brewers do before such?

[bhamade]

What did the brewers do in say the early 1900s to chill the wort to pitching temp and prevent infection?

 

[mcaple1]

they let it cool naturally through use of a coolship, and let the wort get innoculated by any wild yeast in the air.....ta daa. Thank you for modern technology.

 

[Ramitt]

Beer quality must have ranged wildly back in the day.

 

[TomSD]

Back in the day it was made in clay pots with little thought to sanitizing and they managed. That is why I never toss a beer I think I screwed up, lol. I figure it is worth seeing to the end.

 

[mcaple1]

Back in the day it was made in clay pots with little thought to sanitizing and they managed. That is why I never toss a beer I think I screwed up, lol. I figure it is worth seeing to the end.

liar

 

[MalFet]

Back in the day it was made in clay pots with little thought to sanitizing and they managed. That is why I never toss a beer I think I screwed up, lol. I figure it is worth seeing to the end.

Back in my day, we lived on Natural Light and Rolling Rock. We managed, but we didn't drink good beer

I'm with you on letting things ride, though, so long as you've got the space.

 

[VladOfTrub]

Breweries used mechanical refrigeration in the latter part of the 19th century. Ammonia as a refrigerant has been around a long time. York and Frick built cooling machines expressely for ice making, bakeries and breweries in the 1890's. The first guy to put a primitive air condioning system in his home was a brewer.

 

[Mermaid]

Also, is it any surprise that some of the biggest breweries of the day were in places that are not warm tropical climates?

 

[patto1ro]

Most brewers stopped using just a cool ship around the middle of the 19th century. Developments like the Morton's refrigerator (a series of copper pipes with cold water running through them over which the wort flowed).