Ash burner
The task of an ash burner (also: potash burner ) was to burn wood . From the ashes was then leaching and boiling the potash obtained which in dyeing , in the soap factory and the glass production in glassworks was needed.
Historically, potash was still needed as a fertilizer, in the manufacture of gunpowder and in the household as a detergent, softener and whitener, and also as a leavening agent.
When the forest continued to decline and in the 12th century the felling and burning of trees was limited or prohibited in many places, the ash burners also collected dead wood from the forests and the hearth ashes of the population.
At the end of the 19th century, the ash burner's profession declined due to the increasing importance of coal and its transport options by rail. Potash for the purpose of industrial use was now produced from mined potash or in a synthetic process.
The teacher and local researcher Lukas Grünenwald (1858–1937) remembered from his youth in Dernbach (Palatinate) :
“These Pottaschhütten were small, square stone houses with a living room and kitchen and a layer of wood above. In the corner of the kitchen there was a large, round iron kettle in the brick hearth for boiling potatoes, and a chimney rose from there over the gable roof. There were small windows in the three walls opposite the entrance.
The wood ash required was widely bought in all villages and often laboriously brought home in sacks on handcarts and wagons on the roads that were still poor at the time. In the hut she was first buried cold, that is, in gray wicker baskets that were lined with canvas on the inside and stood over lye, poured water over them from the stream and soaked them through until they were completely drained.
The mother liquor was then boiled in the stove until only the white, precious potash remained, which was sold to glassworks at an expensive price. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Helmut Seebach: Old crafts and trades in the Palatinate. Volume 3: Palatinate Forest. Forest farmers, forest workers, forest products and timber goods trade, forest industry and timber transport. Bachstelz-Verlag, Annweiler-Queichhambach et al. 1994, ISBN 3-924115-13-3 , p. 114ff.
- ^ Helmut Seebach: Old crafts and trades in the Palatinate. Volume 3: Palatinate Forest. Forest farmers, forest workers, forest products and timber goods trade, forest industry and timber transport. Bachstelz-Verlag, Annweiler-Queichhambach et al. 1994, ISBN 3-924115-13-3 , p. 116.