1868 The complete Practical Distiller

THE COMPLETE PRACTICAL DISTILLER.

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still, and provokes the accident which has just been men- tioned. Many authors have proposed the balneum mariaB for the distillation of lees : this mode would be good with respect to its effects, if the question of economy would admit it. It has already been shown why this system of distilla- tion is really not admissible. By these means the em pyreumatic taste would be avoided, but the taste of lees, which is not caused by torrefaction, as will soon be shown, would not be obviated at all. It has also been proposed to transmit through metallic surfaces the heat of steam, but this mode has the same weak sides, wkh respect to economy, as the balneum marise ; so it must entirely be abandoned. It would not be the case in the distillation of lees by mixed vapours, and this mode is, perhaps, the only one practicable to ob- tain from lees all the alcohol they can produce, and of preventing, at the same time, torrefaction. It consists in placing the lees in a wooden vessel,' but better in a metal one, in which they are to be heated by means of a steam-pipe, similar to that which establishes a communication between the two stills of Adam and Be- To this effect, a steam-boiler, a still for the lees, a condenser, and a worm would be wanted in a continuous work ; the lees would be brought to the boiling point in the condenser, and would offer the advantages attached to The number of lees-stills might be in- creased to two, or even three, by making them of small dimensions and placing them one above the other; but this would be the utmost of complications which might, without inconvenience, be adopted in this kind of work. rard. this disposition.