150 THE UTILIZATION OF WASTE I'KOIHK'TS.
or two stoves in the room, so that it can he wanned during the winter months.
After distillation the spent wash of country distilleries is used as food for cattle, mixed with more or less other materials; it is also used as manure. In large distilleries the wash is evaporated in the "thickening pans/1 and then brought into calcining furnaces built like black-ash furnaces-. As a rule three furnaces are arranged in steps—-one below the other; as the wash becomes concentrated it in allowed to flow from one to the other, being carbonized in the last. According to the quality of the molasses, 11-lti per cent of carbonaceous residue is obtained, containing about 50 per cent of potassium carbonate. The free acid in the wash in frequently neutralized with lime, the sulphate of lime is then allowed to deposit, and the wash, after evaporation in the pans, brought into the above-mentioned calcining furnace in order to destroy the organic matter.
When given in large quantities to cattle, molasses wash causes sickness.
If potatoes are to be worked together with molasses, it is most convenient to mash the two together, and to mix them in the inverting vessel. The prepared molasses wort is run into the inverting vessel during the grinding of the potatoes. If, however, there is no vessel in which the molasses wort can be made, it is done in the inverting vessel, and the ground potatoes added. The best proportion is 2f> cwt. of potatoes to 2'5-3 cwt. of molasses of 42°. The manipulation .is the same as with potato worts, except that the yeast must be increased in proportion to the mola»HOH. With these proportions the wash may be used as fodder without fear.
C. Vincent has introduced & pracestt for the wo/r rationat utilization of vinasse—the residue le.ft after distill iny the. alcohol from fermented beet molasses (" Chemical NOWH"). Formerly the vinasse was calcined in open hearth furnaces for the recovery of the potash Raits. The idea of utilising the gaseous compounds produced in this process had been mooted years ago, but has only recently been realised by