Ideas That Changed The Rum World: Sugarcane Processing, Pressing and the Steam Engine
Category: Sugarcane Processing, Pressing
Pressing the sugarcane juice out of the cane was laborious, time-intensive and inefficient. The work involved passing small quantities of cane (usually only a few stalks at a time) through a set of rollers put in motion by humans (often slaves) or animals.
The process was so inefficient that, after the first pass, the pressed cane had to be folded in half or twisted on itself, then ran a second time.
Idea: Steam Engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.
In 1781 James Watt patented a steam engine that produced continuous rotary motion. Watt’s ten-horsepower engines enabled a wide range of manufacturing machinery to be powered. The engines could be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained. By 1883, engines that could provide 10,000 hp had become feasible. The stationary steam engine was a key component of the Industrial Revolution, allowing factories to locate where water power was unavailable.
The steam engine replaced humans and beasts in the pressing of the sugarcane, and it did so with a previously unseen amount of force and speed, increasing the yields almost overnight, resulting in lower sugar and molasses costs.
“The steam engine has done much more for science than science has done for the steam engine.”
― William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin