Record of Experiments With Sorghum in 1891 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Record of Experiments With Sorghum in 1891 The proposal to use alcohol in the manufacture of sugar from sorghum is not claimed as new by the Department. Many years ago a French chemist, H. Joulie, published a work on sorghum sugar, entitled Etudes et Experiences sur le Sorgho a Sucre, published in Paris in 1864. On pages 106 et seq he speaks of a proposed method for the manufacture of sugar from sorghum by the use of alcohol, in which the alcohol was applied directly to the expressed juice of the cane. There is no doubt of the fact that this method would work admirably, and the only objection to it is in respect of the great amount of alcohol which would be required. For this reason it will never be adopted in practice unless alcohol should become very much cheaper than it ever has been in the markets of the world. The method described by M. Joulie is as follows: As the juice comes from the mill it is immediately saturated with a little lime and mixed with an equal volume of alcohol of 44 strength and left at rest. After twenty-four hours the larger part of the liquid, which is perfectly clear, is decanted. The rest of it is thrown upon a filter or put in filter bags, from which the liquid rapidly runs and it is afterwards submitted to a press, in order to extract the last portions of the alcoholic juice. The matters remaining in the filter press contain the albumen and starchy matters. These bodies can be employed for feeding cattle, or, better, converted into sugar and transformed into alcohol. The clear alcoholic liquid obtained as above is submitted to distillation in order to recover the alcohol, and there will be found in the kettle of the still a sirup which, when evaporated to the crystallizing point, is scarcely at all colored and furnishes an easy and abundant crystallization. From the above description it will be seen that the method proposed by Joulie, which was never practiced except in the laboratory, is essentially the same as that which was adopted by the Department of Agriculture, with the exception of the stage of the process at which the alcohol is applied. One special reason for the method proposed by Joulie, as urged by him, was that it secured a cold defecation of the juice and thus avoided the conversion of the starch which the juice contains into dextrin. Joulie seemed to be unaware of the presence of gums other than dextrin and starch in the sorghum juices. His idea was based upon the fact that if the juice should be previously heated the starch would be rendered perfectly soluble. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.