Page:Lavoisier-ElementsOfChemistry.pdf/207

 C H A P. XIII.

Of the Decomposition of Vegetable Oxyds by the Vinous Fermentation.

manner in which wine, cyder, mead, and all the liquors by spiritous fermentation, are produced, is well known to every one. The juice of grapes or of apples being expressed, and the latter bein diluted with water, they are put into large vats, which are kept in a temperature of at least 10⁰ (54.5⁰) of the thermometer. A rapid intestine motion, or fermentation, very soon takes place, numerous globules of gas form in the liquid and burst at the surface; when the fermentation is at its height, the quantity of gas disengaged is so great as to make the liquor appear as if boiling violently over a fire. When this gas is carefully gathered, it is found to be carbonic acid perfectly pure, and free from admixture with any other species of air or gas whatever.

When the fermentation is completed, the juice of grapes is changed from being sweet, and full of sugar, into a vinous liquor which o longer contains any sugar, and from which we procure, by distillation, an inflammable liquor, known R.