Fermenting Raw Sugar. This is accomplished by dissolving the sugar in hot water, then diluting it, and then adding a ferment,—fermentation being aided by adding sulphuric acid to the diluted molasses, in the proportion of one-half to one pound of acid to every hundred pounds of pure sugar used.
The wash is pitched with compressed yeast in the proportion of 2½ to 8 per cent of the weight of the sugar used. The pitching temperature is from 77° to 79° F., and the period of fermentation is 48 hours.
Cane Sugar Molasses. Besides the molasses of the French beet sugar refineries, large quantities result from the manufacture of cane sugar in Jamaica and the West Indies. This is entirely employed for the distillation of rum. As the pure spirit of Jamaica is never made from sugar, but always from molasses and skimmings, it is advisable to notice these two products, and, together with them, the exhausted wash commonly called dunder.
The molasses proceeding from the West Indian cane sugar contains crystallizable and uncrystallizable sugar, gluten, or albumen, and other organic matters which have escaped separation during the process of defecation and evaporation, together with saline matters and water. It therefore contains in itself all the elements necessary for fermentation, i.e., sugar, water, and gluten, which latter substance, acting the part of a ferment, speedily establishes the process under certain conditions. Skimmings comprise the matters separated from the cane juice during the processes of defecation and evaporation. The scum of the clarifiers, precipitators, and evaporators, and the precipitates in both clarifiers and precipitators, together with a proportion of cane sugar mixed with the various scums and precipitates, and the “sweet-liquor” resulting from the washing of the boiling-pans, etc., all become mixed together in the skimming-receiver and are fermented under the name of “skimmings.” They also contain the elements necessary for fermentation, and accordingly they very rapidly pass into a state of fermentation when left to themselves; but, in consequence of the glutinous matters being in excess of the sugar, this latter is speedily decomposed, and the second, or acetous fermentation, commences very frequently before the first is far advanced. Dunder is the fermented wash after it has undergone distillation, by which it has been deprived of the alcohol it contained. To be good, it should be light, clear, and slightly bitter; it should be quite free from acidity, and is always best when fresh. As it is discharged from the still, it runs into receivers placed on a lower level, from which it is pumped up when cool into the upper receivers, where it clarifies, and is then drawn down into the fermenting cisterns as required. Well-clarified dunder will keep for six weeks without any injury. Good dunder may be considered to be the liquor, or “wash,” as it is termed, deprived by distillation of its alcohol, and much concentrated by the boiling it has been subjected to; whereby the substances it contains, as gluten, gum, oils, etc., have become, from repeated boilings, so concentrated as to render the liquid mass a highly aromatic compound. In this state it contains at least two of the elements necessary for fermentation, so that, on the addition of the third, viz., sugar, that process speedily commences.
The first operation is to clarify the mixture of molasses and skimmings previous to fermenting it. This is performed in a leaden receiver holding about 300 or 400 gallons. When the clarification is complete, the clear liquor is run into the fermenting vat, and there mixed with 100 or 200 gallons of water (hot, if possible), and well stirred. The mixture is then left to ferment. The great object that the distiller has in view in conducting the fermentation is to obtain the largest possible amount of spirit that the sugar employed will yield, and to take care that the loss by evaporation or acetification is reduced to a minimum. In order to ensure this, the following course should be adopted. The room in which the process is carried on must be kept as cool as it is possible in a tropical climate; say, 75° to 80° F.
Supposing that the fermenting vat has a capacity of 1000 gallons, the proportions of the different liquors run in would be 200 gallons of well-clarified skimmings, 50 gallons of molasses, and 100 gallons of clear dunder; they should be well mixed together. Fermentation speedily sets in, and 50 more gallons of molasses are then to be added, together with 200 gallons of water. When fermentation is thoroughly established, a further 400 gallons of dunder may be run in, and the whole well stirred up. Any scum thrown up during the process is immediately skimmed off. The temperature of the mass rises gradually until about 4° or 5° above that of the room itself. Should it rise too high, the next vat must be set up with more dunder and less water; if it keeps very low, and the action is sluggish, less must be used next time. No fermenting principle besides the gluten contained in the wash is required. The process usually occupies eight or ten days, but it may last much longer. The liquid now becomes clear, and should be immediately subjected to distillation to prevent acetous fermentation.
Sugar planters are accustomed to expect one gallon of proof rum for every gallon of molasses employed. On the supposition that ordinary molasses contains 65 parts of sugar, 32 parts of water, and three parts of organic matter and salts, and that, by careful fermentation and distillation, 33 parts of absolute alcohol may be obtained, we may then reckon upon 33 lbs. of spirit, or about four gallons, which is a yield of about 5⅔ gallons of rum, 30 per cent. over-proof, from 100 lbs. of such molasses.
The following process is described in Deerr’s work on “Sugar and Sugar Cane.”
“In Mauritius a more complicated process is used; a barrel of about 50 gallons capacity is partly filled with molasses and water of density 1.10 and allowed to spontaneously ferment; sometimes a handful of oats or rice is placed in this preliminary fermentation. When attenuation is nearly complete more molasses is added until the contents of the cask are again of density 1.10 and again allowed to ferment. This process is repeated a third time; the contents of the barrel are then distributed between three or four tanks holding each about 500 gallons of wash of density 1.10 and 12 hours after fermentation has started here, one of these is used to pitch a tank of about 8,000 gallons capacity; a few gallons are left in the pitching tanks which are again filled up with wash of density 1.10 and the process repeated until the attenuations fall off, when a fresh start is made. This process is very similar to what obtains in modern distilleries save that the initial fermentation is adventitious.
“In Java and the East generally, a very different procedure is followed. In the first place a material known as Java, or Chinese, yeast is prepared from native formulæ; in Java, pieces of sugar cane are crushed along with certain aromatic herbs, amongst which galanga and garlic are always present, and the resulting extract made into a paste with rice meal; the paste is formed into strips, allowed to dry in the sun and then macerated with water and lemon juice; the pulpy mass obtained after standing for three days is separated from the water and made into small balls, rolled in rice straw and allowed to dry; these balls are known as Raggi or Java yeast. In the next step rice is boiled and spread out in a layer on plantain leaves and sprinkled over with Raggi, then packed in earthenware pots and left to stand for two days, at the end of which period the rice is converted into a semi-liquid mass; this material is termed Tapej and is used to excite fermentation in molasses wash. The wash is set up at a density of 25° Balling and afterwards the process is as usual. In this proceeding the starch in the rice is converted by means of certain micro-organisms Chlamydomucor oryzae into sugar and then forms a suitable habitat for the reproduction of yeasts which are probably present in the Raggi but may find their way into the Tapej from other sources. About 100 lbs. of rice are used to pitch 1,000 gallons of wash.”