1868 The complete Practical Distiller

23

DISTILLATION.

Operator wishes to have the alcohol more or less pure. In

order that the alcohol should not evaporate in passing from the worm into the hogshead, &c., and that the stream of the liquor may be seen at the same time, a pipe is attached to the extremity of the worm, communicating with the bunghole of the hogshead. The terminating part of this pipe is formed of glass, through which the liquid may be distinctly seen. This instrument is called the lantern. The alcoholic vapour that passes into the first egg in a state of ebullition, and deposits a part of its caloric there, contributes to the ebullition of the wine in this vessel, and disposes the liquor to distillation ; still the wine is not carried to that degree of heat necessary for this operation till a consider- able time after the distillation has commenced from the It is then less pure than when it was first put in it is charged with watery vapours that have not been able to combine with it. Two different products are then brought up to the su- perior part of the first egg ; that is to say, the brandy that came out of the still, but disengaged from its watery parts, and the brandy produced from the liquor of the first egg. This being charged with more water than the first, weakens the first liquor; and nothing is obtained from this mixture beyond a brandy of 14° or 16°. In the passage of the liquor into the second egg, the same phenomenon takes place ; but here the aqueous vapours mingle with the wine, and the alcoholic vapours rise from the second egg with a less quantity of water than those of the first, and the brandy flows at 18°. When it is the still.