The Portland daily press., 1878-10-09
Rec. sugar Manufacture in Portland.

/ Probably most of our readers are unaware of
the extensive preparations that are TAT present
being made in this city for the much talked of
manufacture of sugar from beets. A reporter
of the PRESS, thinking an account of it would
be of interest to them, yesterday morning visit
ed the large brick structure of the Forest City
Sugar Refining Co. on West Commercial street,
which is to be the base of operations, said COM
pany having leased part of their buildings
and machinery to the Maine Beet Sugar Com
pany, of which Mr.. Geo. S. Hunt is President,
to see what was going on. He found Mr.. 10
seph A. Bacher, the very obliging Superinter-
dent of the Forest City Co., and who in
connection with Mr.. Gsnnert (who has been
very prominent in the presentation about the
state of this subject) is TO superintend this new
enterprise, very ready and willing to show him
about the establishment, and to give him all
needed information. he learned from him
that the work of putting in the additional ma
chinery required has been going on for some
three months, and that the first shipment of
beets is expected today, from some points on
the P. & o. R. r., and that operations will
commence probably the first of next week. A
track has been laid into the yard SO that cars
can be run in and unloaded at the door of the
house. This new enterprise will require the
services of some fifty more men than was for
merly employed by the Forest City Co., owing
to the necessary handling Of the beets-making
in all about hundred.
The expense Of the additional machinery re-
quired and the putting in of the same is very
large, involving the expenditure of thousands
of dollars
The process of manufacturing is as follows
In the first place the beets are thoroughly
oleansed, and then taken up stairs by an eleva-
tor and are there thrown into patent beet
cutter, which is an invention of Mr.. Gennert,
the knives of which were imported from Ger
many, and cut into very thin Slices From
thence they are filled filling it fully into one of
twenty-four new tanks arranged in batteries of
twelve which are in position to extract the
juice from the beet. Warm water is then in
troduced into said tank, thoroughly saturating
the bsets and passing in succession by way of
pipes through the remaining tanks in use at
the time.
The juice extracted therefrom ia then pumped
by steam to the top floor of the building, iuto
large tanks provided with copper steam coyles
to heat the juice, and is there clarified.
From here the juice passes through filters
filled with bone black and is thereby discolored
SO that the liquid comes out nearly as clear as
water. 1t then passes into large receiving
tanks, and from there by the pressure of the
atmosphere into ten thousand dollar copper
vacuum pan, the capacity of which is about
5000 gallons. Here the liquid is crystalzad at
a temperature Of lao degrees by an expert
sugar boiler. 1t then passes through centrifcal
machines where the syrup is elected, leaving
the clear white sugar, which. thirty minutes
after leaving the vacuum pan, is ready to go
out to the public as frst-class graduated sugar.
The whole time consumed in the process,
from the cleansing of the beets to the sending
out OF the sugar is not necessarily over forty
eight hours.
The syrup remaining is manufactured into
light yellow coffee sugars and frstclass syrups.
1t is uncertain how long the company will
keep up operations this season, that depending
largely on the amount of beets received.