1868 The complete Practical Distiller

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SPECIAL DISTILLATIONS.

deprive the spent-wash, as much as possible, of the sugar which it retains after the first operation, and to effect this to the advantage of the alcohol. This mode, which is only practicable in distilleries in which the preparation of wine is continuous, would almost leave in the spent-wash the only substances which do not directly concur to the formation of alcohol y and in gene- ral this spent-wash is wasted on leaving the still. However, it might be possible to turn it to advantage, in many instances, as manure ; and if the acids which they retain did not suit the nature of the soil for which they were intended, they might be neutralized by means of lime. It is a fact that the organized substances which it retains would be most useful to vegetation. It would be necessary to calculate, in such application, whether the effects of such a manure would sufficiently indemnify the farmer for his expenses in carriage and iu labour which it would occasion : I am of the opinion that it would not. Some remarks will now be made on the distillation of half-fluid, half-solid matter. Wines of a semi-fluid, semi- solid nature may be very numerous, though, in fact, they are less so than fluid wines. The most remarkable, and those which, by their importance, solicit a more particu- lar attention, are lees or ground wines, worts of grain and of potatoes, which have not been mashed by extraction. Every means of perfection applied to any of these wines is applicable to all of them, and in this respect we might generalize what will be said on this subject; but, on the other side, there is this difference, that the wines of grain and of potatoes may more easily and