[5] Multiplied by four, these figures give _present_ output.
The steam required in this brewery for all the operations already described, and others still to be spoken of, is generated by eight colossal boilers, each five and a half feet in diameter, and containing fifty-six four-inch tubes. They are of the horizontal return tubular type, fitted with patent furnaces and water arches, and rated at 130 horse-power, each. This boiler plant is really of double the capacity needed, and, hence, only one-half of the number of boilers is alternately in use, the other half being provided as a reserve in case of emergencies. The steam generated in these boilers drives fourteen engines. Of these, one is used in the machine shop; three serve the purposes of the refrigerating plant; two are used for the electric-light plant; three, varying from 100 to 165 horse-power, set in motion the mashing apparatus, the malt-mill, malt elevators, keg-washing machines, rotary pumps in cellar, two Otis belt elevators and four keg elevators. Two of the latter are used for lowering empty kegs into the cellar, and the other two for raising filled kegs. In addition to these, there are four more engines, one each for driving a feed-grinder and fodder-cutter in the stables, a set of revolving and suspended fans in the office, the cask-rollers in the pitch-yard and the machine for washing chips.
All these steam motors, as well as the refrigerating machines, are connected with that system of steam condensation to which we referred in describing the partial heating of brew-water by means of exhaust steam. Previous to condensation the exhaust-steam passes from the engine through an apparatus, called grease extractor, which eliminates the oil; it is then conveyed to a Gannon surface condenser and thence returned to the boilers. In this process of condensation a vacuum of from twenty-five to twenty-six inches is produced by means of an air-pump. The immense quantity of salt water used daily for the condensers of ammonia is so profitably utilized in this manner, that condensation is effected without an extra supply of water.
Cooperage is no longer a handicraft in America; the inventive genius of our people, to which we owe the greater part of the progress that has placed us at the head of civilized nations in point of machine-building, has virtually wiped out the cooper’s handicraft, and given us, in its stead, a half-dozen enormous manufacturing establishments, in which nearly all the barrels required by brewers and distillers are made by machine. There was a time when nearly every brewer had at least a smattering of the cooper’s art, and when the cellar men, employed in breweries, had to produce satisfactory evidence of having passed through the regular course of training prescribed for apprentices and journeymen by the ancient and honorable guild of coopers. Although this is now all changed, yet in so large an establishment as the one we are describing, the employment of a considerable force of coopers is indispensable. The large casks and vats, ranging in capacity from 50 to 800 barrels, which fill the cellars of the brewery, number about 1,500, and there are about 100,000 packages—_i.e._, barrels of thirty-one gallons, and half, quarter and sixth barrels—in constant use; and a considerable reserve stored away for emergencies. The coopers keep an accurate account of these packages and vessels, examine them from time to time, and make such repairs as their condition may require.