IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF YEAST
Year: 1880

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Edward Newby, Mining Engineer, and John Francis
Ramsay, Chemist, both of Usworth Colliery, in the County of Durham, for an
Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF YEAST."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Edward Newby and
John Francis Ramsay at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the
4th September 1880.
JOHN EDWARD NEWBY, Mining Engineer, and JOHN FRANCIS RAMSAY, Chemist,
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
both of Usworth Colliery, in the County of Durham.
MANUFACTURE OF YEAST."
This Invention has for its object the manufacture of a superior yeast in a simple
manner and without the use of chemicals, so largely employed at present to aid
fermentation.
The ingredients which we prefer to use are maize, pease, rye, oats, barley, wheat,
beans, hops, turnips, potatoes, parsnips, or artichokes, though other cereals and
roots suitable to the purpose may also be employed.
In carrying out our Invention we take any or all of the cereal products above
mentioned and reduce it or them in a suitable mill or disintegrator to a fine flour
or powder, and then remove all grit, colour, husk, etc., by washing with pure
water and straining through a sieve or strainer, and afterwards through a filter or
filters.
The roots we immerse in water heated to a temperature ranging from about
120° F. to about 212° F., or we may heat them in a vessel or chamber by steam,
fire, or hot air for a period not exceeding about ten hours. We then pulverise them
by suitable means.
We next mix the already prepared cereal powder with the root or roots prepared
as above in the proportion of about 4 to 1 at a temperature not exceeding about
190° F., and place the mixture in a covered or other vessel for a period not
exceeding about fortyeight hours, a chemical change taking place. We designate
this preparation "stock."

page_text: We now take about one hundredweight (or any other convenient quantity) of
any or all of the cereals, separately or combined, and to it add about fourteen
gallons of water per hundred weight at a temperature of about 160° to 200° F. ;
this remains in steep for four or five hours.
At the expiration of this period we add to the steep a small quantity of the
previously described "stock;" this causes immediate fermentation of the whole,
which we allow to continue for twelve or more hours. We then add a few gallons
of water, stir the mixture, and afterwards permit it to settle. The water is
then removed by filtration, or by pressure, or otherwise, and the product is our
yeast.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed by
the said John Edward Newby and John Francis Ramsay in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 3rd March 1881.
JOHN EDWARD NEWBY, Mining Engineer, and JOHN FRANCIS RAMSAY, Chemist,
both of Usworth Colliery, in the County of Durham. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF YEAST."
This Invention has for its object the manufacture of a superior yeast in a simple
manner without the aid of acids or alkalies, so extensively used at present in the
manufacture and production of yeast.
The Invention and improvement consist,-
(1.) In the employment of esculent roots and cereal grain, which latter may bo
either sprouted or otherwise.
(2.) With suitable water.
(3.) And the observation and maintenance of certain temperatures over suitable
periods.
(4.) And in being a process or method of manufacturing yeast either with or
without concomitant products, as vinegar and alcohol.
According to our Invention and improvements the process of manufacturing yeast
may be carried into practice in the following manner :-
We take any convenient quantity by weight of the root product which we may
be going to use (turnips, potatoes, and parsnips being most suitable, though
artichokes and like roots may be used), and, after cleansing, immerse in heated
water at a temperature from 120 degrees to 212° degrees Fab., or we may heat it
in a vessel or chamber by steam, fire, or hot air, for a period of from one to ten
hours, more or less according to the temperature had recourse to, the higher tem-
perature requiring the shorter time, the longer period being necessary for the lesser
heat. We then pound or pulverize it by suitable means.
The cereal products which we find it most advantageous to use are maize, rye,
oats, barley, wheat, and beans, and to the pulverized or pounded esculent root we
add the flour or powder of one or more or portions of all of the aforementioned
grains, which may or may not be first sprouted at our discretion, in proportion by
weight of about two parts grain to five parts of root, less or more, varying with the
character and quality of the ingredients chosen.
To the root, pulp, or powder we give a temperature of about 100° Fah. when
mixing; the preparation is then covered in the vessel in which it has been mixed,
and allowed to remain for about thirty four hours or more. We now add water,
about five parts, heated to about two hundred and six degrees Fah., and again allow
the mixture to remain covered for a period of twenty four hours or more.
We designate this preparation "stock," and use it for the promotion of fermen-
tation or the growth of "spume" in the bulk of products next to be treated.
We now take one hundred weight, or some greater quantity as may be expedient,
of the cereal products such as before described, which may be used in the form of
flour, meal, or powder, and either used one alone, two combined, or even portions of
all mixed in any proportions deemed most suitable from the varying qualities and
characters of the grain, and which may be used either sprouted or not before being
ground into flour.
For instances -Should we use maize and wheat, we propose to sprout the maize
before making flour of it; or, if we use rye and pease, we prefer to sprout the
pease; or, if oats and beans, sprout the beans; or, should we elect to use a single
product, we should prefer to sprout a portion of it, say, one half, or, say, in using
three, 2 parts of the sprouted cereal and 1 part each of the other two unsprouted;
in the case of four kinds, say, 2 sprouted, 1 part each, and 2 unsprouted, 1 part

page_text: each. We do not wish to be bound to these proportions, but they will make good
yeast; nevertheless it may sometimes be necessary to use larger proportions of the
sprouted grains.
Having placed our prepared meal in a suitable vat or vessel, we add water at a
temperature of about one hundred and sixty degrees Fal., and in quantity about
four parts to three of the cereal, and allow it to remain in steep for six hours or
thereabouts, maintaining the same temperature throughout this period.
At this point we add to the mixture a further quantity of flour of grain that has
been sprouted in proportion of one stone to the hundred weight of flour in the vat,
also adding at the same instant about forty pounds of water per hundred weight, this
water to be heated to a temperature of two hundred and six degrees Fah., more or
less; or otherwise mix in another vessel, say, fourteen pounds of grain flour to forty
pounds of water at two hundred and six degrees Fah., and add the two mixtures
together, taking care that the above approximate proportions are observed.
Also must now be added a boiling solution of hops (the use of which we specified
for in our Provisional Specification) and water which has been maintained at boiling
point an hour or more, and this solution should be in proportion of three quarters
of a pound of hops and five gallons of water to each hundred-weight of the cereal
or cereals commenced with.
The preparation must now stand about eight hours at a temperature of about
one hundred and ninety degrees Fah.; after this it must cool to about eighty four
degrees Fah., and then have added to it a little of the "stock," the preparation of
which is first herein described. Three gallons of "stock" per hundred weight
of the preparation to be fermented will usually be found sufficient, but more may
be added at the end of three hours if fermentation is not proceeding rapidly
enough.
The yeast may now be removed by skimming it from the surface of the
fermenting solution, or by allowing it to settle and decanting the liquid, then
passing the yeast through sieves into cold water, in which it is washed and
purified in the usual manner, and prepared for use by filtration or mechanical
pressing.
In some cases it may be necessary to slightly vary the proportions and tem-
peratures given, but we find the above mentioned plan to give good results.
Having now described our Invention and the best mode known to us of performing
the same, we desire to claim as novel and original under the hereinbefore in part
recited Letters Patent,-
I. The method of preparing the said "stock" by suitably treating esculent roots
and cereal products, as set forth.
II. The method of causing fermentation to produce the yeast by combining the
before described "stock" with the cereal product or products, treated substantially
as described.
III. The method or process of producing or manufacturing a superior yeast with
or without concomitant products, substantially as described.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Edward Newby, on behalf of myself and
the said John Francis Ramsay, have hereunto set my hand and seal, this
Second day of March, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and eighty-one.
JOHN E. NEWBY. (L.S.)