There’s an interesting post over at Mash.Sparge.Boil. which describes some old (18th and 19th century) books about brewing, all of which are available at Archive.org.
I’ve started flicking though (if that’s possible in a screen reader!) A Practical Treatise on Brewing, from 1835. It seems quite an interesting read; while we now have knowledge of what exactly is happening during the mash in enzymatic terms, the actual processes remain pretty much the same as in the past.
It’s probably an easier read in the scanned versions than the OCR’d ones, as there are clearly quite a few scanning errors. Pages 14 and 15 are missing, as well – maybe they were stuck together when the book was scanned?
Still, worth a look.
