"Stanley Schaefer" wrote
...The main difference between modern steelmaking and
ancient is the chemical control over the wanted and unwanted
elements. In days of yore, the ironmaster just did the process by
rote and hoped that everything would come out like the last
successful
batch.
Stan

Here are two old textbooks on wet chemical analysis. Unlike modern
instrumental methods the results are absolute quantities and don't
require standard calibration samples for comparison.

http://www.archive.org/stream/standa...tgoog_djvu.txt
http://www.archive.org/stream/semimi...96mbp_djvu.txt

IIRC we were told that the chemist was expected to have the carbon
percentage within 10 minutes and the full analysis in 30, since it
took a lot of fuel to keep the metal molten while he worked.

jsw