1863 The manufacture of liquors, wines, and cordials

LIQUORS WITHOUT DISTILLATION.

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ed, and that the only new products are alcohol, which remains in the liquid, and carbonic acid which escapes during the process, and these when taken together, are found to be equal in weight to the sugar lost ; it is hence inferred that sugar is the subject matter of the changes that occur during the vinous fermenta- and that it is resolved into alcohol and carbonic Sugar will not undergo the vinous fermenta- but requires to be dissolved in water, subjected to the influence of a ferment, and kept at a certain temperature. Accordingly, sugar, water, and the presence of a ferment and the maintenance of an adequate tempera- ture, may be deemed the pre-requisites of the vinous fermentation. The water acts by giving fluidity, and the ferment and temperature operate by commencing and maintaining the chemical changes. The precise manner in which the ferment operates in commencing the reaction is not known, but the fermentative change seems to be intimately connected with the multipli- cation of a microscopic vegetable, in the form of dia- phanous globules contained in the ferment, and called " torula cervisia." The ferment is generally considered to contain a peculiar nitrogenous princi- ple having a close analogy to albumen and casein. Certain vegetable infusions, as those of potatoes and rice, though consisting almost entirely of starch, tion of itself, tion, acid.