Something about sugar : $b Its history, growth, manufacture and distributionRolph, George M. (George Morrison)
History
Something about sugar : $b Its history, growth, manufacture and distribution
Rolph, George M. (George Morrison)
Sugar
Returning to the sugar left in the centrifugals, the force developed
in a machine forty inches in diameter, spinning at the rate of eleven
hundred revolutions per minute, is so great that it quickly dispels all
the liquor surrounding the crystals, leaving them nearly dry, in a solid,
vertical wall. Water, filtered to insure its purity and cleanliness,
is then sprayed on this spinning wall of sugar, only to be immediately
thrown off through the sugar by the centrifugal motion. In passing
through the sugar it washes the last of the syrup from the grains and
leaves them perfectly white. Cold water, rather than hot, is used for
this purpose, as it dissolves less sugar.
In former years a small quantity of bluing was added to the spraying
water in order to enhance the whiteness of the sugar, just as bluing is
employed in washing fine linen fabrics. Since the pure-food laws became
effective, however, the practice has been discontinued in all cane-sugar
refineries.
After the sugar is thoroughly washed, the centrifugal machine is stopped,
a large valve in the bottom opened and the mechanical discharger rapidly
ejects the sugar (now containing only about 1.2 per cent moisture) from
the machine into a storage bin beneath.
FINAL DRYING OF CRYSTALS
For some reason not well understood, the next step in refining is called
“granulation.” Actual granulation, or crystallization, takes place in the
pans, and the process about to be described should properly be called
drying. The manufacturing term, however, is as given.
Drying is effected in an apparatus consisting of two large cylindrical
drums of wrought iron. These drums are about six feet in diameter, thirty
feet long and have a slight downward pitch from the receiving to the
discharging end. The first drum rests on the floor, directly below the
storage bin, and is called the sweater. It turns slowly on revolving
wheels, by means of circular tracks bolted to it. The power that moves it
is delivered from an electric motor, through a pulley, shaft and pinion,
the latter working in a gear bolted to the outside circumference of the
drum. Fastened to the inner surface of this drum is a series of short,
narrow shelves with saw-tooth edges that serve to carry the sugar to the
top of the revolving cylinder, whence it falls to the lower side, causing
a continual shower of sugar throughout the entire length and breadth
of the drum. The sugar is delivered through a pipe at the upper end of
the sweater, and the revolving motion together with the incline of the
cylinder gradually works it down to the lower end. Here it drops through
a chute to the granulator on the floor below, where the process of drying
is completed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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