A PRINCIPLE AND INVENTION OF A METHOD OF IMPROVING THE PROCESS OF FERMENTATION, BY WHICH PORTER, BEER, ALE, MALT, AND MOLASSES WASH, WINE, CYDER, AND ALL OTHER SACCHARINE AND FERMENTABLE FLUIDS, MAY BE CONDUCTED WITH CERTAINTY AND SUCCESS THROUGH THE VINOUS PROCESS OF FERMENTATION IN MILD, WARM, HOT, AND COLD WEATHER, WITHOUT BEING MATE-. RIALLY INJURED, AS HERETOFORE, BY THE DIFFERENT CHANGES OF THE ATMOSPHERE; AND.
Year: 1798

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, RICHARD
SHANNON, of Charlotte Street, in the Parish of Saint Pancras, in the County
of Middlesex, Doctor of Physic, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Nineteenth day of June, in the thirty-eighth year of His
reign, give and grant unto me, the said Richard Shannon, jointly with
ROBERT BURNETT, of Vauxhall, in the County of Surrey, Vinegar Maker, His
especial licence that we, the said Richard. Shannon and Robert Burnett,
during the term of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, and also in all His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my
Discovery of "A PRINCIPLE AND INVENTION OF A METHOD OF IMPROVING THE
PROCESS OF FERMENTATION, BY WHICH PORTER, BEER, ALE, MALT, AND MOLASSES
WASH, WINE, CYDER, AND ALL OTHER SACCHARINE AND FERMENTABLE FLUIDS, MAY
BE CONDUCTED WITH CERTAINTY AND SUCCESS THROUGH THE VINOUS PROCESS OF
FERMENTATION IN MILD, WARM, HOT, AND COLD WEATHER, WITHOUT BEING MATE-.
RIALLY INJURED, AS HERETOFORE, BY THE DIFFERENT CHANGES OF THE ATMOSPHERE;
AND. SUBSEQUENTLY THROUGH THE ACETOUS PROCESS OF FERMENTATION, WHEN ANY OF
THEM ARE INTENDED FOR VINEGAR, WITH NATURAL OR ARTIFICIAL HEAT, JOINTLY OR
SEPARATELY, IMPROVING THE FLAVOB, STRENGTH, AND QUALITY IN BOTH, AND
ATTENDED WITH GREAT DISPATCH IN THE ACETOUS PROCESS. OF FERMENTATION, BOTH
IN THE FIELD AND IN THE STOVE CHAMBER, WITH A NEW IMPROVEMENT IN THE
BREWING UTENSILS, AND A SUITABLE PNEUMATIC APPARATUS WHICH FACILITATES THE
PROCESS IN EACH KIND OF FERMENTATION, CORRESPONDENT TO THESE INTENTIONS;"in

page_text: which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso obliging me, the said
Richard Shannon, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to
cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within six calendar months after the date of the
said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same (relation being thereunto
had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, 1, the said
Richard Shannon, do hereby declare that my said discovery and application of
a new Principle and Invention of a Method of Improving the Process of
Fermentation, by which Porter, Beer, Ale, Malt, and Molasses Wash, Wine,
Cyder, and all other Saccharine and Fermentable Fluids, may be Conducted
with Certainty through the Vinous Process of Fermentation in Mild, Warm,
Hot, and Cold Weather, without being Materially Injured, as heretofore, by the
Different Changes of the Atmosphere.. and consequently through the Acetous
Process of Fermentation, when any of them are Intended for Vinegar, with
Natural or Artificial Heat, Jointly or Separately, Improving the Flavor,
Quality, and Strength in both, and attended with great Dispatch in the
Acetous Process of Fermentation, both in the Field and in the Stove
Chamber, with a new Improvement in the Brewing Utensils, and a suitable
Pneumatic Apparatus that Facilitates the Process in each Kind of Fermen-
tation, correspondent to these Intentions, are faithfully described by me, the
said Richard Shannon, as follows:--
The worts extracted from the grist, of a proper length, with liquors (or
water) turned over at a suitable heat. The standing of the taps, after each
mashing, is to be regulated by the nature and composition of the grist; the
whole of the worts extracted and cooled in the usual manner, or by the means
by me proposed to the temperature of the atmosphere, or to any temperature
required by means of my apparatus, and committed to fermentation with
a due proportion of good sound yeast, or any other convenient substitute for
yeast, in a gyle tun, fermenting bach, working tun, square, &c., sufficiently
capacious and of the following description:-In the brewery, when the worts
extracted are intended for the brewing beer, ale, porter, &c., a close gyle tun,
&c. is indispensibly necessary for confining and compressing the gas ex-
tricated from the fermenting fluid, and for the saving and applying it, as
hereafter described. Gyle tuns, &c., intended to embrace the whole of the
advantages derivable from these improvements, in addition to being close and
air tight, should be fitted up with an attemperator to regulate the necessary
degree of heat wanted, to uniformly preserve the temperature of the ferment-

page_text: If from cold to
ing fluid at any required standard, instead of being subject to the influence
of every change of the atmosphere. which it has hitherto been to the great
injury of fermentation, and sometimes to the partial or total loss of whole
gyles. This can only be remedied by the application of a suitable attem-
perator, introduced into the gyle tun, fermenting back. &c., when the
barometer, thermometer, electrometer, &c. informs us of the present state, or
gives notice of any approaching change. of the atmosphere.
mild or warm weather. cold air is to be passed: when the change is from mild
or warm to sudden and extreme frost. so as to nip or suspend beginning fermen-
tation, warm air or steam is to be passed. It not unfrequently happens, from
the hurry of business, the changes of weather, and other concurring causes, that
the works in the coolers must be let down into the tun before cooled to the
temperature of the atmosphere. to make room for others turned out of the
copper, or to be raised from the under back or even when cooled to the tem-
perature of the atmosphere or external air, yet are not at some seasons
sufficiently cool to advantageously bring together and ferment with safety to
the gyle, or the future beer. ale, wash, &c., hence cold air must be passed.
or the spiral pump and cooling attemperator used. to pass the worts through
and cool them in their way from the copper or under back to the gyle tun or
fermenting back, advantages too obvious to the brewer, distiller, &c. to need
any further illustration; to whom it must be equally obvious that the
application of the attemperator, fixed or moving in regulating the temperature
of the fermenting fluid, both in the gyle tun and in the cleansing vat, is
accompanied with great and important advantages.
Cleansing Vat.-The temporary expedient of the porter brewer, &c., for break-
ing the force of the fermentation in the gyle tun, and subsequently cleansing of the
beer, has usually been to draw it off into barrels placed upon stillion troughs to
receive the dregs separated by the consequent cooling and condensation of the
fermenting fluid thrown up to the surface and discharged at the bung hole of
each barrel, to supply the waste of which they are occasionally filled up with
some of the same gyle of beer. The obvious motive for dividing. and thereby
cooling, the fermenting fluid, is the impracticability of bringing about a
separation of its parts, and consequent deposition of its feculencies, with the
same degree of heat generated by fermentation, which, if kept up, would not
only prevent, but at the same time induce. the acetous fermentation excited
by the heat and turgency of the fermenting fluid. Cleansing in quantity
not only preserves the strength and spirituosity of the beer produced in the
tun, but also increases it, which cleansing in barrels partly loses by too sudden
a cooling and separation of its parts. The beer produced is consequently

page_text: weaker and thinner, and makes more grounds and less beer.
Cleansing in
quantity can be most advantageously regulated to any temperature, and at any
season of the year, a circunistance highly beneficial to starting. When different
gyles are started into the same store vat, to prevent fretting and subsequent
souring, they should be brought together at nearly one temperature; this can
only be done by means of the fixed or moving attemperator. Fretting, arising
from change of temperature in store vats. can be immediately extinguished
by the same means.
The attemperator may be of any figure, and made to
take that form most commodious and best suited to the use it is adapted:
or its shape may or may not assume that of the vessel it is applied to, or it
may be made to move and transfer its use with itself from vessel to vessel.
or become a fixture to any one.
Here follows a description of its principle and application which acts
so general and important a part in condensing, cooling, heating, and ad-
justing the temperature of worts, wash, and other fermenting fluids, as
those prepared or preparing for beer. ale. wine, cyder. vinegar, spirits.
&c. It may be made of metal, sione, earthenware. wood. &c.; but metals,
from their known conducting power. are the most fit to take up heat
and transmit it to the air or other cooling medium. and consequently.
of procuring and preserving an equal temperature in the manner proposed,
and, of course, equally fit to communicate heat, and of bringing any cold
fluid to a required temperature by means of a heating medium, and of raising
and lowering the temperature to any degree between the freezing and boiling
points. The air of the atmosphere, which is the cooling medium employed.
being itself subject to all the changes of temperature impressed on it by the
diurnal visitation of the sun and its nocturnal absence, alternately heating and
cooling of it, the influence of which may be here effectually obviated by
passing the air of the atmosphere through water, or any artificial mixtures
capable of producing heat or cold by condensation on: and evaporation from
off, the surface of the attemperator, as occasionally wanted condensation; and
evaporation being the secondary causes of heat and cold, the presence or
absence of the sun being the first, the change of the temperature produced
by this great first cause occasions the vicissitudes of winds, and they both
together form the state of our atmosphere, the medium by which nature
performs all her operations. the receptical and solvent of all bodies. the
grand chaos into which all matter returns, and from whence all matter is
drawn, the prolific circle of nature that decomposes all bodies, and resolves
them into air, of which our atmosphere is composed, and from that atmosphere
recomposes all those bodies again with which we are at present acquainted,

page_text: In the formation of the attemperator the figure must always be subser-
vient to the end proposed: the ruling maxim of its structure should be to
give its plicatures the greatest possible breadth and length with the least
possible depth. in order to produce the greatest possible condensing surface
with the least possible receptive capacity, by which means the heating and
cooling mediums are brought to the nearest possible contact. a principle as
casy to be understood as Columbus's egg when once made known; as it must,
from this plain definition, be obvious to every one, that so near and extended a
contact of mediums of different temperatures must almost instantaneously assi-
milate them to one temperature compounded of them both a quick repetition
of either must bring the other over to its standard heat or cold almost imme-
diately: hence their infinite use in attemperating, condensing, rarification,
heating, cooling. &c.
Fully as demonstrative, and equally simple and effective. is my mode
of applying the air of the atmosphere to those important and desirable
purposes in quantities adequate to the end proposed. with scarcely any
trouble, and with little comparative expense. The combustion of the
fnel employed under the copper. still. steam engine, &c. is more than
sufficient for every purpose of the attemperator, and some others to be
presently enumerated. A chaldron of good pit coal weights about three
thousand suttle pounds, which consumes in burning full one hundred and
twenty thousand pounds of atmospheric air. every pound of which. and
many more, necessarily passes through the fireplace in which it is burnt. This
air, admitted by a door, window, or other suitable aperture, and conducted by a
pipe, trunk, or canal, to one, two, or more folds of the attemperator. and laid
on in quantity proportionate to the intended effect by a sliding cock propor-
tionably large while the fluid to be cooled passes either between two folds of
the passing air, or the passing air through two folds of the attemperator con-
taining the fluid to be attemperated, that is, the air for the support of the com-
bustion of the fuel either passes between one or two folds of the attemperator
containing the fluid to be attemperated. according as it is to be cooled quicker
or slower. and the indraft of the air regulated in proportion. When the fire
requires a less portion of air than may be wanting for cooling or attemperating
any fluid: as worts, wash, beer, distilling fluids, &c.. the redundance may be let
off to waste, or transferred alternately from copper or still to steam engine, as
wanted, or as one or other of them is cooled, damped, or slackened. In regard
to the air completely filling up the interstices between the folds of the attempe-
rator through which it passes, there can be no doubt of that when we come to
consider that the bulk occupied by each pound of atmospheric air is sixteen

page_text: may be made to
When horizontal.
cubic feet, miteen or twenty pound of which is a content equal to the recep
tive capacity of most attemperators that may be applied, when made on the
principle already proposed, and allowing for the expansive spring of atmo-
spheric air. one million nine hundred and twenty thousand cubic feet of which
is the produce of one chaldron of coals, which is more than equal to cooling or
.condensing any quantity of water or other fluid, which that quantity of fuel
can heat or convert to vapour or steam, although air is eight hundred and fifty
times lighter than water. We have seen that air may be cooled: it may also
be heated, or steam may be employed as the heating medium, and applied in
similar manner. Spiral pumps and spiral shoots may be truly called a species
of attemperators. They consist of a flatted tube. of any mimber of inches
proportionate to the pump or shoot they are to circuminvole, and need not
be more than an inch or an inch and half deep. and of length propor
tioned to the magnitude of the pump or shoot. and the number of convo-
Intions it is to make round either of them. This pump
act in a horizontal as well as a perpendicular position.
it acts as a shoot, or a covered spout or trunk, and may be used to convey
fluids in any direction, and cooled in similar manner by a flatted spiral tube.
The worts from the under back, in their ascent through this pump. are cooled
by the dense air of the atmosphere compressed through the spiral tube circumin-
volving it, in its passage to support the combustion of the fuel under the
copper, still, or engine, attracted with a velocity proportioned to the quantity
of fuel impacted and ignited together, and may advantageously be applied as a
inil power for grinding, raising of fluids. &c.. as well as to all the purposes
.in which the attemperator is used, either alone or in conjunction with it, and
with similar effect. These pumps and shoots, although called spiral, are not
confined to any form or figure: the principle on which they are founded, as in
the attemperator, admits of any form or figure that may be found necessary.
By this mode of work the worts cannot be oxygenated, as they now are, by
imbibing from the air a tendency to acidity by having the whole substance
of the fluid exposed to the influence of the atmosphere at no greater depth than
from one to two or three inches deep on the extended surface of the broad
coolers now in use, by which they are oxygenated or acidified in the cooling,
to the advantage of avoiding which they will be found to owe much of their
future. preservation, or keeping quality, with respect to the brewer, and totally
obviate their present tendency, to acidity in the distiller's fermenting back. to
which their long-protracted fermentation very much exposes them after such
atmospheric exposure in the coolers, and by which injury they incur a propor-
tionate decrease of spirit. A barm safe may be very beneficially applied, or one

page_text: side of the gyle tun or cleansing vat to receive the yeast and separate the beer
from it, as stillion troughs were formerly used to do; but when a barm safe is
employed, the gas can also may be saved and applied to the uses intended; it
being also an air-tight vessel, its figure is not of much importance. Impreg-
nators are air-tight vessels, or iron-bound vats, of similar shape to brewers' store
vats, or distillers' fermenting backs. They are to be fitted up with exhausting
and injecting cocks, valves; and tubes, to promote and keep up a circulation
during the impregnation. Impregnation is for increasing the strength, spiri-
tuosity and quality of the fluid impregnated, which may be. done by impregnating
fermenting fluids with their own or other gases, or bringing fluids already
fermented, as beer, wine, &c., forward, giving them pungency when flat,
recovering them when sour, and giving brightness and transparency to gray or
other foul malt liquor, wine, &c. It must be evident to every one that gyle
tuns, cleansing vats, store vats, &c., when used for the same purposes, must be
fitted up in the same manner.
Distilling. Distillers call the gyle tuns fermenting backs, of which they
employ from twelve to twenty, or more; and as they protract their fermentation
from ten to twelve days, and often to a greater number, they have much more
opportunity of advantageously employing these improvements to their mode of
work. Fluids require a heat proportionate to their specific gravity, to boil,
evaporate, or distil; the lowest average gravity of their worts or wash, previous
to fermentation, being seldom less than 30lb. per barrel, when brought together
in the fermenting back. The spissitude and grossness of this composition
seldom admits of their appearing to. be attenuated as low as they really are,
though it is not often the hydrometer denotes them to be under two, three, or
four pounds specific gravity per barrel. Malting being a species of attenuation
which the whole of their wash does not possess, from the quantity of raw corn
that they use, joined to their spissitude and grossness, induces the necessity of
a full attenuation in this fermenting back, to prevent that tendency which the
particles of unmalted corn has to deposit a sediment on the bottom of the still,
which inevitable causes the empyruma so much complained of in British malt
spirits, and which never has yet been completely remedied by subsequent
rectification; nor can they by any other mode than the means proposed produce
a good article, while the excise is imposed by a rate per gallon on the wash, as
by any other. The very heat necessary to distill so gross a fluid is alone
sufficient to char it, and induce a burnt flavour. The attemperator for
cooling their worts, in their passage from the under back to the fermenting
back, and for attemperating the fermentation there, under all the vicissi
tudes of the weather and changes of the atmosphere common
to these

page_text: climates, and which, in sudden revolutions from cold to -mild or warm
weather, are so injurious to fermenting fluids-this important utensil has a
multiplicity of applications.
For brevity sake, and not for want of attention to so respectable a body of men
as the distillers, I shall refer them to the early stages of the brewing business,
already enumerated under that head, so far as they fall in with their mode of
work. Fermentation being somewhat different with them, inasmuch as they use
a portion of raw corn, draw a shorter length, use no hops, do not boil their worts,
make use of lob, protract the process of fermentation to a considerable length
of time, yet rarely can attenuate so low on account of the grossness of their
wash, and are consequently more exposed to incipient acidity tho' less injured by
it. They are equally nice in the heat and quantity of liquor they turn over each
mash, and not less particular in the composition of their grist. Fermentation
being nothing more than a decomposition of the fermentable matter, and of the
water of the fluid also, the fixed air or gas formed during the process being com-
posed of the hydrogen and oxygen of the fermentable matter and the water of
the fluid also, there is a perpetual decomposition and recomposition of that water,
which gives fluidity to the whole mass, and is constantly taking place during the
continuance of the process, part of the hydrogen and oxygen of which unites and
escapes under the form of gas or fixed air, for want of a proper intermedium
being presented if affinity strong enough to absorbe and combine with them
into spirit. To properly understand fermentation, we must examine into what
passes during low combustion, such, for instance, as arises in some vegetables,
as grain of any kind, new hay, &c., impached together, with the accession of
moisture, heat and motion is generated, which at length breaks out into actual
flame. These are circumstances well known to the farmer, malster, and
others, who are frequently witness to their spontaneously taking fire, for want of
attention in the preparation of the one, and in the making of the other. In all
low combustions, as the decomposition of pyrites, respiration, fermentation, &c.,
there is an increase of temperature above that of the surrounding atmosphere,
a resolution or decomposition of the bodies under combustion, and the forma-
tion or recomposition of new substances formed out of them by new combina-
tions, in which the following phenomena occur:-First, heat is either
disengaged or fixed; secondly, an elastic fluid is either formed or absorbed.
These two indisputable facts form the uniform and invariable appearance of
combustion, fermentation, and other decompositions. Hence, we may define
fermentation to be a species of low combustion. Fermentation, begun in a
fluid more or less saturated with saccharine or fermentable matter, the process
is finished sooner or later, and usually in proportion to the degree of saturation;

page_text: and it being conducted with more or less vigour, under a well-regulated tem-
perature, first, a portion of inflamable or hydrogen gas is evolved; secondly,
another portion of inflamable air, united with a large portion of oxygen gas, or
vital air, evolves under the form of carbonic acid gas, or fixed air.
These are
the constant and uniform phenomina of the decompositions progressively going
on from the beginning to, the end of the fermentation while there is any fer-
mentable matter to attenuate. A due proportion of oxygen, uniting in a
nascent state with a correspondent portion of hydrogen and carbon, forms the
spirituous particles dispersed through the fermenting fluid, that creates vinocity,
and constitutes it wine, beer, wash, &c.; during which, so great is the avolation
of. gas or fixed air, that much of the ethereal part of the new formed spirit is
carried of in the act of fermentation with it in a gasseous state. This is muchi
assisted by the agency of the atmosphere, which (we have seen) is the solvent
and receptical of etherial products, whose affinity for them must be as
great as it is perfect and immediate, and which demonstrates the necessity. of
making use of air-tight vessels. The density and quality of the malt-dis-
tillers' wash comes nearest to this species, of this fermentation or combus-
tion than any we are acquainted with of the more fluid kind, the
mucilage of a considerable part of the corn not being previously forwarded
to a saccharine state by malting: and though not sufficiently, gross to
endanger the spontaneously breaking out into actual flame, points out the
eligibility of my mode of advantageously expediting the process. The prin-
cipal object of the distiller being a full and deliberate attenuation of the
whole of the fermentable matter, without further regard to the flavour
or any other quality than strength, vinosity, and spirituosity, as the combining
these qualities alone, with the production of a clean spirit, compleats his velios,
which are to obtain the greatest quantity of spirit from a given quantity of
materials, the carbonic acid gas or fixed air, which is the constant, abun
dant, and uniform result of combustion, and of the vinous fermentation in
proportion of thirty-five pounds weight to every hundred weight of .saccharine
of fermentable matter, fermented with a due proportion of water, from the
decomposition of which last it is partially obtained. For the fully under-
standing this it must be understood, that the component parts or one hundred
pounds of fermentable matter consists of eight pounds of hydrogen, twenty-
eight of carbon, and sixty-four of oxygen; allowing the usual quantity of
spirit to be formed during fermentation, the thirty-five pounds of super-
fluous carbon detached in the process must come from the water of delution,
and the redundant mucilege and animal gluton of the fermentable matter,
the saccharine part of which contains altogether but twenty-eight pounds of

page_text: carbon, which last must necessarily go to the formation of the seventy-five
pounds of alkohol produced from this quantity of materials. This gas in its
flight carries off a large portion of the most volatile ethereal part of the half-
formed spirit, and a volatile mucilage that should give fulness on the pallate
and body to the fluid. To intercept and separate from the gas this etherial
spirit and volatile mucilage, and also to saturate as large a portion of the gas
itself with the necessary hydrogen, &c., is among the primary objects of the
discovery I have made, and the invented mode of applying the principle, as
stated in the outset of this my Specification, to accomplish which I have con-
trived a suitable pneumatic apparatus correspondent to, this effect, applicable
to those utensils, of the brewer; distiller, &c. that are now in use, with the
least alteration possible. Allowing the average quantity of fermentable matter
in a quarter of malt, barley, or other grain to be seventy-five pounds, then
four quarters will be equal to three hundred suttle pounds of raw sugar, or
eighty quarters of the one will be equal to sixty hundred of the other, or to
three tons weight of unadulterated molasses. If we estimate the surperfluous
carbonic acid gas of this quantity of materials at only twenty-eight pounds per
hundred, though certainly much more, that will be fifteen hundred pounds
dissipated during the fermentation, which, from experiments both analytical
and synthetical, does not carry off less than three hundred and seventy-five
pounds of strong alkohol, equal to double that quantity of ardent spirit at
hydrometer proof, which is a loss on every brewing of this quantity of
materials of upwards of forty-one gallons of spirits of the strength of one to
ten over proof. What is computed here in spirit may be easily applied to
porter, ale, sweets, &c., allowing three gallons and three quarters to the
former, and, four gallons per barrel to the latter, which gives eleven barrels
and three quarters of the one; and ten barrels and a quarter of the other,
lost on eighty quarters of malt, or the average of that quantity of other
materials. It must appear.évident to every person capable of investigating this
calculation, that every six or seven pounds of carbon fixed upon each quarter
of malt or other materials, there will be an augmentation of gravity or
strength on this number of quarters of ten or twelve barrels each; that is,
every six or seven pounds of this fugitive carbon that we arrest in its flight,
and fix in the fermenting fluid as a component part of the subsequent produce,
by presenting the requisite portion of hydrogen, oxygen, &c. within the sphere
of each other's attraction, we increase our strength in the before-mentioned
ratio. We have, presumed the average quantity of fermentable matter at
seventy-five pounds per quarter, which must be evidently on the best- goods;
they will give us a length of three, barrels per quarter, of twenty-five. pounds

page_text: It may be said that the real attenuation is nineteen pounds, and that the
yeast and lees produced is part thereof, as the fluid or beer, in a state of trans-
parency, is but 6lb. per barrel. specific gravity and it may be allowed in
some degree to be really so, as there is actually so much gravity lost during
the process of fermentation. If we multiply 13lb. 80%, which I have called
the real attenuation, by 4, we shall find the result to be 54lb., which is 19lb.
more of superfluous gas upon four barrels of worts of 25lb. gravity each than
is extricated from an equivalent quantity of saccharine matter; that is, 100lb.
of raw sugar, or 112lb. of molassés, and their respective water of dilution
when the yeast and lees does not exceed 5lb. 8oz. per barrel. This may be.
truly called an analysis of the fermentable matter, giving the component' parts
tolerably exact, though much depends on the management of the fermentation;
and the subsequent cleansing, with respect to the brewer, and equally as much
on the fermenting, rousing, and cutting of the malt and molasses wash of the
distiller, the steeping and attenuation of the sweet maker, the attenuation and
acidification of the vinegar maker, &c. By this analysis, it appears that the
mucilege of malt or grain gives out more gas than the mucilege of sugar or
molasses, which obliges us to adjudge the superfluous gas to the fermentable,
matter and water of dilution, that is, partly to both, whatever the source w
derive them from. These are the products, and there is no denying facts. The
yeast at first added is not brought into this account. It should be noted, that
the animal gluten of grain, with which the wheat most abounds, has a
tendency to putrefactive fermentation, the vicid mucilege of raw corn to

page_text: acidity, and the saccharine mucilege to vinosity; and that all the mucileges
decomposed by the low combustion of fermention generate much fixed air.
which only can be saturated and neutralized into vinosity by the means
proposed. In the vinous process we have seen the escape of carbonic acid
gas; in the acetons process it is azotic gas, or phlogisticated air, that
escapes, with more or less hydrogen gas, proportioned to the existing heat. If
the heat is too great, part of the ethereal new-formed acid is carried off in an
incipient state.
Vinegar. The several requisites for making good vinegar are, a well-
fermented vinous fluid, to which should be added the substances capable of
further attenuating it; but my process is not confined to woris, wash, or
fluids that have previously undergone the vinous fermentation; woris, wash, or
other extractive fluids, raw or boiled, that has or has not passed through the
intermediate state of vinous fermentation, are equally capable, and in some
cases more fit to be converted to good vinegar by my process. The carbonic
acid gas, so abundantly extricated from fermenting fluids during the vinous
process, wants nothing but a due portion of hydrogen, and the subsequent
oxygenation of the atmosphere, to convert common water saturated with it
into good vinegar. This being a demonstrable fact. it is easy to conceive that
all or any of the before-mentioned fluids or liquids are convertable, by my
process, into the best acctous acid, or strongest vinegar, by similar. means.
and the addition of the other clastic fluids. Atmospheric air consists of
twenty-eight paris in one hundred of oxygen gas or vital air and seventy-
two of azotic gas, or phlogisticated air, the vital part of which only is the
acidifying principle. It must be so contrived that as the vital parts is
absorbed by the acidifying fluid, the phlogisticated part which is rejected may
be let off without carrying with it the fine subtile etherial incepient, and
part volatilized in proportion to the heat naturally generated or artificially
augmented, or oxygen gas alone employed for the oxygenation.
The re-
quisite heat in all seasons can be easily procured, and always regulated, by
the application of my attemperator to the fluids, acidifying, either in the stove
or in the field, to any degree of temperature (as before mentioned) between
the boiling and the freezing points. Th phlogisticated part of the air of the
atmosphere before mentioned being lighter than the vital part, and also lighter
than atmospheric air, rises as the vital part is absorbed, partly by its own levity,
and partly from expansion, derived from the temperature of the fermenting fluid
above that of the atmosphere, or the augmented temperature excited. The stove.
chambers and sowring places should be made air-tight; the preference should
be given to warming and heating them with steam to a common fire and

page_text: stove flue, making a circuit with and returning the flame and smoak back into
the chimney, the former communicating no bad smell, and heating the atmo-
spheric air admitted more uniformly than smoak; the steam being also more
convenient for regulating the attemperator, and the temperature of the passing
airs or gasses necessary to flavor, strengthen, and improve the quality of the
vinegar in conformity to my process. By the compleat tightness of those
places, the pnumatic apparatus can be as commodiously applied to them as to
a gyle tun, cleansing vat, fabric store vai, casks, or pipes, and the requisite gases
injected with as much facility; they can with equal convenience be exhausted,
and the azotic gas drawn out and filtered of the incipient volatile acid mingled
with it, by conducting it into the pipes or other vessels in the field or fabric
store vats, where the acetic parts are condensed and deposited. at once
augmenting their heat, strength, and acidification. The acidifying vats or
vessels in the stoves, &c. may be worked separately. according to their pro-
gressive forwardness or backwardness, by means of tubes through the walls
communicating with the vessels to be worked, and the apparatus applied and
worked without the vessels being previously closed up within, that the appa-
ratus may act. Warm atmospheric air may be drawn from the stoves, &c., for
the use of the pipes and other vessels souring in the field, or the gascons
contents of one stove iransferred to the other, or made to circulate in any
manner that the nature of the business may require.
Moving Rape. Although the moving rape is more applicable to an oblong
vessel, the breadth of which is more than its height, and its length several
times more, with two, three, or more apertures for receiving it at, yet it may
be advantageously applied to the bringing forward the gyle wine, acidifying in
a vessel or vessels of any other figure, whether they are fitted up with an
attemperator or not. It may be easily conceived that the attemperator
employed by the vinegar maker will be principally for raising the temperature
of the acidifying fluid, to which it is as applicable as io the lowering the
temperature of the fermenting worts, or cooling them in their passage from
the under back to the gyle' tun.
Impregnators. The gyle tuns of brewers or vinegar makers, the distillers
cyder, and sweet makers fermenting backs, and their respective cleansing
vats, are convertible to impregnators: fitted up with injecting and exhausting
cocks, and communicating tubes for the circulating of the fluids they
contain during their impregnation with the requisite gases for improving
their flavour, quality, and strength. To facilitate the impregnation, inverted
cups or hoods, suspended over the entering pipe of the injecting cocks, should
he used; if not, injecting cocks and organ valves, or both open pipes and

page_text: hoods may be applied. When organ. valves are not used, if the impreg
nation is performed on one side with the pneumatic apparatus, the fermenting
or fermented liquids will circulate on the other, as the gases or elastic fluids
are injected, they forcing the contained fluid to circulate up one pipe or tube and
down the other; this most effectually promoting the impregnation, by bringing
every particle of the liquid mass in contact with the elastic fluids, and by their
continual action and re-action permanently combine into one homogenous
mass the component parts of the whole together.
Pneumatic apparatus consists of a variety of double and single bellows's, of
different forms, for transferring gases; double and single syringes, double: trip:
ple, and quadruple air pumps, of different forms and power, for similar purposes:
and for compressing, condensing, and throwing in two, three, or more atmo-
spheres of different airs and gases, exhausting. &c., a variety of different-
sized portable furnaces, gas and air furnaces for imbibing, extricating, generat
ing, transferring, and combining different gases and airs, and for converting
water and other fluids to steam and air, and for passing them through different
substances heated to different degrees of temperatures for these purposes..
The furnaces, consist or are composed of a frame of iron lined with brick
and moriar, and fixed on a wheel carriage for the convenience of being moved
about from one place to another. The bellows's though of different forms,
are on the common principle; and the air pumps, though of different forms
and sizes, are also on the common principles, but their application here is
totally new; they and the bellowses are placed on the carriages with wheels,
for the convenience of moving them like the furnaces to the different parts
of the brewery, distillery, &c.; but both they and the furnaces may be fixtures
where found necessary.
:
The elastic pneumatic gas, or air-gage engine, is similar in its effects, but
dissimilar in shape to a double bellows. consisting of any number of cubic
feet, suited to the magnitude of the work it is to be applied to, calculated to
compute the quantity of gas or air made use of at any operation. It is
rendered portable by being attached to a wheel carriage, for the convenience
of moving it, to where employed.
The organ valves, are inscried in rows, circles, &c., of pipes of that
appearance, and act in various directions; the tubes, pipes, and cocks employed
in conjunction with them also act in all directions; the valves in all are
placed either in a diagonal, horizontal, or perpendicular position, and they,
with the inverted cups and hoods, are, applied in the manner most convenient
to the before-mentioned, intentions, and are well calculated to avert the
pressure of the supernatant fluids.
....

page_text: Such are the means by me employed to counteract the influence the
changes of the atmosphere hitherto had on all fermenting and fermented
fluids which most effectually obviates the injury arising out of that influence
on porter, ale, beer, &c., in cooling, fermenting, cleansing. starting, and
attemperating, and at the same time improving their flavour and quality, and
increases their strength and preservation; bringing forward, backing, or staling;
recovering when flat, restoring when sour, brightening when gray, fining
when foul, &c.; in all which intentions the pneumatic apparatus, and the diffe-
rent gasses procurable thereby, materially assist, and eventually produce, spirit
and spirituosity, the one being real, and the other apparent strength, and both
exhileating and wholesome. And on the woris, malt, and molasses wash of
the distillers, in condensing, cooling, fermenting, rousing, attemperating,
increasing the purity, strength, flavor, and quality of the wash, low wines, and
spirits and also on the worts, gyle wine, acidifying fluid, fabric, store, and
prime store vinegars of the vinegar maker, improving the flavour, quality, and
strength; in cooling. fermenting, cleansing, souring, attemperating, and in every
stage of the process; and also in the preparation of wines, sweets, cyder,
mead, metheglin, and all other fermentable fluids whatever, improving their
flavour, quality, and strength, in the most safe, certain, and effectual manner;
promoting dispatch, saving expence, and expediting the process in each
operation of the brewer, distiller, vinegar, wine, and cyder maker.
In witness whereof, 1. the said Richard Shannon, have hereunto set my
hand and scal, this Nineteenth day of December, in the year of our
Lord One thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight.