The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1888-01-27
A SUGAR MAKING PLANT.
THE ADVANCED PROCESS AS USED
DOWN IN LOUISIANA.


Mysteries of sucrosc and Glucosc-Tho
"Centrifugal.'
The Magnolia sugar house is generally
known in Louisiana as having the best
machinery and all the new processes. 1t
is not much initiated, for two reasons:
First, the conservatism of the older class
of planters, which leads them to stick to
the methods they understand, and second,
the fact that the business of sugar maxi
ing has not been sufficiently profitable in
recent years to enable planters of moder-
ate capital to purchase new apparatus.
They are obliged to hold ON to their old
pans and kettles for want of money to buy
new. Let us now go into the great irregu-
lar brick building, with its three tower
like chimneys and its general big factory
air, which contains the sugar making
plant, promising at the start to go through
hastily, and not to bore the reader with
details about machinery, or with the fine
scientific points Of the business. A sugar
planter will talk to you by the hour
about percentages of sucrose and glucose,
inverted crystallization, degrees of vac
uum and polariscope tests, until your
brain takes in only confusion Of words
and figures. First the owner of ssMagno-
liza" calls attention to his bagasse burner,
which makes more than half the steam
used to run the mill. Formerly the
bagasse, which is the cane after it has
parted with as much of it's juice as the
mill will extract, was either burned in
furnace to get rid of it or thrown out on
the levee to help fight off the river from
eating away the bank. Now every eco
nomically managed mill burns it to make
tho oi1 Of No Jro,, q
an enormous chimney. The best method
is to burn it Oh the CRATES, under which
nir is forced by o blower.
The canes, hauled in the big carts from
the fields, arc dumped upon an endless
band and carried into the mill, usually
direct to the big iron rollers, but at Mag
nolia first to 'shredder.'' There are
only two shredders in the State, the ma
chine being a new invention. Its revolv-
ing teeth chew up the cane into pulp.
The pulp and juice fall upon q rubber
apron which carries them to the mill;
grinding is simply squeezing between
three or four sets of iron rollers. Now
the juice runs in a trough to strainer,
where woman gathers up now and then
the shreds of cane remaining and takes
them back to the mill. Next the juice is
pumped into an iron cylinder called
the ''juice heater' and heated with ex-
haust steam to 100 degs. This is new
process not much in use. Next it runs
into the clarif1ers or defecators, which are
large iron vats with rows of steam pipes
at the bottom. Here Stacked quiclliime is
added, which brings to the top all impuri-
ties, to be skinned off into division Of
the pan at the end The juice is then
boiled and 'brushed'' with long paddle
until the bubbles become white, when it is
allowed to settle for fifteen minutes.
There is side operation for saving the
sugar in the skimmings by putting them
through filter presses.
In the advanced process at Magnolia
the juice next goes through bone black fill
ters instead of to the ordinary settling
tanks, to settle for six or seven hours.
A filter is q big iron drum contain
ing 10000 pounds of animal bone
black. The "char' must be washed with
hot water every two days and dried in q
kiln. After filtering, the juice, still thin
as when first pressed from the cane, goes
to the ssdouble effects.'' This is q new
apparatus, resembling two upright boilers
of portable engine. Each cupola-lilSe
machine contains five hundred tubes in
which the juice is boiled in a vacuum by
exhaust steam. The usual plan is to boil
steam pipe at the bottom. Now the Juice
goes to fresh filters and next to the va
CUM pan, which is not a pan,
but big iron cupola shaped cylin-
der, with all apparatus for eNhausting
the air and multitudinous coils of steam
pipe. This is the process requiring most
skill. The chief sugar maker attends to
it himself, watching his vacuum gauge
and thermometer carefully, and testing
every few minutes his boiling mass by
| drawing out tube which does not break
| the vacuum.
He seeks to keep the temperature down
| to $50 degs. If it is too high some of the
surcose will ssinvert'' or s'carameln into
glucose, and the proportion of sugar will
be lessened. First he fills the pan only in
part Then when he sees fine granula-
tions of sugar against the light in his test
tube he admits more juice, and thus builds
up the grains little by little to larger size.
When sufficiently boiled the thick syrup
is called the ''masse cutie" The "strike''
| the pan and the contents are run
| off into the ''mixer''-a huge oblong
iron pan in which steam arms reyolve.
Next the ''masse cutie" falls into the
"centrifugals," which are small drums
holding about 100 pounds of sugar.
Within the drum is q wire screen basket
revolving ut the rate 1,G00 turns per min
| ute. The centrifugal force throws out the
molasses through the wire network and
leaves the sugar. Perfectly clear water is
| therspurted into the drum from syringe
This water is thrown out through tho
| sugar, washing out the remaining
coloring matter. The motion of the
centrifugal is now stopped and the
| sugar let out Of trap in the bottom
| into q screw conveyer, from which IL
bucket band is carried to q big bin. A
man stands in the bin and shovels the
sugar, as if it were wheat, into tube 1ln
| der which the barrels are placed one by
one to receive it.
This first product of the sugar mill
is called "firsts," and is the whitcst
and best sugar. The molasses is
boiled again in the vacuum pan, goes
again through the centrifugals and a
light brown sugar called seconds" re-
suits. Yet again the remaining molasses
| goes through tho pans, but the ''masse
cutie" is now sticky and stringy and will
not yield its sugar to the centrifugals. 1t
is put into iron tanks on wheels called
wagons" each of which holds about
1850 pounds, and wheeled into the lot
room. The temperature here is from 90
to 100 degs. Here the wagons stand in
closely packed rows for thirty days. The
mass is now very stiff and w,lXy. 1t is
next thrown into the boiler, stirred up
well and put into the ccntrifugals with
cold water, which washes out the mo-
lasses. The final remainder of sngar is
called thirds and is of dark brown
color. The separated molasses is of q