Page 117 - UNESCO_Zatec_2021_A4

Pouring dried hops on the top floor of a hop warehouse and packaging room – the
beginning of the process of refining the hops, Žatec, beginning of the 20 century
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Sulphuring chambers
Sulphuring chambers with fine iron mesh floors
were filled with hops from above until the conical
pile of hops filled the chamber. It was closed with
two steel doors, and special furnaces burned pieces
of sulphur or sulphur flowers below the mesh. About
half a kilogram of sulphur was used to preserve 50
kg of hops properly. The resulting sulphur dioxide
permeated the chambers and the hops. After about 5
or 6 hours, open chimney flaps, and sometimes fans,
were used to vent the chambers. The chimneys of houses belonging to the hop merchants were built in
the warehouse released the sulphur dioxide into the Žatec, especially in the southern part of the component
atmosphere. Žatec hop warehouses and packaging part 02. Jewish families began to prosper among the
houses were built with brick chimneys, up to 45 m traders, bringing their names into the new companies:
tall, precisely because of the discharge of sulphur Würdinger, Kohn, Melzer, Christl, Pfister, Wüstel, Abeles,
fumes into the atmosphere. After treatment in the Stern, Epstein, Mendl, Grube, Zuleger, Bondy, Löbl, Glaser,
chambers, the hops were pushed out, using shovels, Holy, Paulus, Hahn and Danzer, amongst others.
and packed into export sacks. The sacks were filled
through a round hole in the floor, which had metal Older hop warehouses were mostly simple structures,
hooks around the circumference to hang the 180 sometimes with an adjoining residence of the owner.
to 200 cm long export sack. The sacks were filled, They were built using a technique commonly used for
the construction of multi-storey burgher houses. Since
using a light wooden shovel, up to 40 cm in depth, the initial boom of hop warehouses and packing house
after which a worker lowered himself into the sack construction in Žatec, there was an apparent trend in 117
to even out the spread using his legs. This process building warehouses with dry spaces large enough to
was repeated until the sack was full. The full sack, allow the storage of large quantities of dried hops while
weighing about 60 kg, was taken off the hooks and also allowing for vertical and horizontal hauling, bagging,
moved, using a hand truck, to the storage space. and pressing of the hops.

Pouring hops into the sulphur chamber in the hop packaging room
and hop warehouse, Žatec, early 20 century
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