FERMENTATION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE SUGAR HOUSE. 



Vat Still. A sectional view of the general form of a steam-heated vat 

 still is given in Fig. 278; a is a wooden vat of capacity varying with the 

 amount of wash to be treated ; at d is shown the pipe through which the lees 

 are discharged when the wash is exhausted ; steam from the boilers is 

 admitted by the pipe b, which reaches nearly to the bottom of the vat ; on the 

 top of the vat is placed the copper goose neck c, which is continued into a 

 smaller vat e known as the retort ; in the latter are placed the low wines 

 resulting from the previous operation. At / is shown the rectifier ; this 

 consists of an upright cylindrical copper vessel in which are fixed a large 



FIG. 279. 



number of tubes of small diameter ; water is admitted to the rectifier by the 

 pipe g and circulates on the outside of these tubes ; from the rectifier a pipe 

 passes to the tank j in which a supply of cold water circulates, and after 

 passing in a serpentine fashion emerges at I and passes on to the spirit receiver. 

 The watery mixture of vapour and alcohol proceeds from the still to the retort 

 where it takes up any alcohol still remaining in the low wines, and pusses 

 upwards through the rectifier where a large portion of the water and other 

 bodies of high boiling point condenses and falls back into the retort ; the vapour 



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