Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 3672390A: Draw-Off Tube

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Today in 1972, US Patent 3672390 A was issued, an invention of Elbert Gravesteijn, assigned to Amstel Brouwerij, for his “Draw-Off Tube.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

The invention relates to a draw-off tube having on its free end a frontally closed tubular extension, to which there is detachably connected a head with an external, radial flange provided with flattened portions on its circumference, and a cylindrical externally screw threaded casing extending axially from said flange and surrounding said tubular extension coaxially, which external screw thread, after insertion of the draw of? tube in a cask of beer or the like, admits of being screwed into the internal screw thread of the bung hole of the cask, a ring valve loaded by a spring, more particularly .by a helical compression spring, being provided in the space between the inner circumference of the cylindrical casing and the outer circumference of the tubular extension, which ring valve is axially displaceable from the seats formed on said circumferences and which ring valve has its outer circumference adapted to free or close the compressed gas passage and has its inner circumference adapted to simultaneously free or close the beer passage formed by a row of radial openings provided in the wall of the tubular extension adjacent its free end, said cylindrical casing being provided with arms downwardly extending therefrom, which arms are detachably connected with a radial flange provided on the extension, which flange supports the compression spring.

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Patent No. 3327612A: Apparatus For Use In Brewing

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Today in 1967, US Patent 3327612 A was issued, an invention of Conrad Lenz, for his “Apparatus for Use in Brewing.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates, in general, to brewing apparatus and, in particular, to a new and useful mashing device comprising a unit consisting of a tank for receiving the soaked malt, a feed grinder for the soaked malt and a conveyor for moving the crushed material from the outlet of the feed grinder to a brewing pan or mash copper and of means actuated by the emptying of the unit of the mashed material to discontinue the driving mechanisms.

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Lagunitas Announces Third Brewery

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I’ve been traveling most of this week, so I missed the announcement Wednesday by owner Tony Magee when he unveiled plans for a third brewery on Twitter. When I interviewed him for a profile piece in in Beer Connoisseur magazine in 2012, he was already thinking about a third location after Chicago was up and running, but at that time was leaning toward New Orleans. But it turns out the new brewery will be in Southern California in the town of Azusa, which is in the San Gabriel Valley and is part of Los Angeles County, about 25 miles east of the city of L.A. This third brewery is a whopping 178,000-square feet and will reportedly have “an initial capacity of 420,000 barrels” which can be raised to one million barrels over time. By contrast, Chicago, when completely finished, will be able to brew 1.2 million barrels a year, and when an expansion in Petaluma is done, they’ll go from a capacity of 450,000-bbl to 750,000-bbl.

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Tony teased out the new space on Twitter with this blueprint.

It’s location is also “spittin’ distance” from the Miller facility in Irwindale. Construction has apparently already begun and is expected to open by early 2017. The decision was prompted by nearing capacity in Petaluma, which is expected to be at 85% in about 18 months. Magee said the L.A. space will be “similar in scale and operation to their Chicago brewery,” so that’s pretty promising. If it’s anything like the Chicago brewery, which I just visited Monday, it will be spectacular.

UPDATE: Lagunitas posted some photos of the ongoing construction which has already begun in Azusa.

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Patent No. 2422750A: Plastic Bottle Crowner

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Today in 1947, US Patent 2422750 A was issued, an invention of Harold E. Rue, assigned to Pabst Brewing Co., for his “Plastic Bottle Crowner.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention appertains to bottle capping and more particularly to a novel machine for forming or molding plastic crown caps on bottle necks to bring about the tight sealing of the bottles.

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Odds & Ends For The Next Session

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For 101st Session, our host will be Jack Perdue, who writes Deep Beer. For his topic, he’s asking us to look beyond what’s in the bottle, and to the bottle itself, along with the crown, the label, the carrier, the mother carton and all of the odds and ends, or detritus, that go into the beer’s packaging, or as he explains what he has in mind for the July Session, the “Bottles, Caps and Other Beer Detritus,” which he describes below.

There are many great creative people involved in the beer industry: the brewers designing and creating the stuff of our attention, marketers bringing the product to market, graphic artists making the products attractive and informative and writers who tell the story of beer. The list goes on. And thus, many great products, that may or may not get your attention. The focus is on the liquid inside the bottle, can or keg, and rightly so. What about all the other products necessary to bring that beer to you? What about the things that are necessary but are easily overlooked and discarded. This months theme is, “Bottles, Caps and Other Beer Detritus”.

Detritus, according to one definition in the Merriam Webster Dictionary is “miscellaneous remnants : odds and ends”. While the number and quality of our beer choices has certainly improved over the recent decade, have you paid any attention to the rest of the package. Those things we normally glance over and throw away when we have poured and finished our beer. These are sometimes works of art in themselves. Bottle caps, labels, six-pack holders, even the curvature of the bottle. For this month’s The Session theme, I’m asking contributors to share their thoughts on these things, the tangential items to our obsession. Do you have any special fetish with bottle caps, know of someone that is doing creative things with packaging, have a beer bottle or coaster collection.

So drink the beer, but then think about what’s left over when it’s gone.

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Let us know about the bits and pieces from your point of view. To participate in the July Session, leave a comment to the original announcement, with , on or before Friday, July 3.

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Patent No. 2121458A: Apparatus And Process For Aerating Wort In Yeast Production

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Today in 1933, US Patent 2121458 A was issued, an invention of Wilhelm Vogelbuseh, for his “Apparatus And Process for Aerating Wort in Yeast Production.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

In the production of yeast, air is supplied to the wort during the fermentation in order to meet the oxygen requirements of the multiplying cells and also to render harmless the interchange products which are produced. Hitherto, compressed air from an air pump has usually been introduced into the wort through a rigidly mounted tube system which is placed horizontally at the bottom of the fermenting vat and the separate tubes of which are provided with holes. The attempts in recent years to reduce the size of the air bubbles have led to the diameter of the air outlet holes being reduced down to 0.3 mm. On account of the danger of stoppage and the difficulty of keep through such holes. Distributing devices provided with tubes or boxes of burnt clay, stoneware, sintered glass, etc. to act as air outlet surfaces have been used. The saving in power, however, does not correspond to the reduction of the amount of air as these materials, on account of their smaller permeability, require a higher operating pressure. keep such a body perfectly clean as is required for avoiding contamination.

The object of the invention is to avoid these disadvantages, and the invention consists in that a hollow body of suitable shape serving for delivery large openings and which, in the direction of movement, offers as little resistance as possible and allows the air to escape preferably in a direction different from the direction of movement and preferably at right angles or approximately at right angles thereto is moved through could hitherto only be obtained in the yeast industry by using the above-mentioned ceramic materials for the air supply member. In addition, it is difficult to ring the air into the liquid through comparative count of the above-mentioned disadvantages, have not become widely used.

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Patent No. 2163468A: Process For Making Hopped Beer Wort

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Today in 1939, US Patent 2163468 A was issued, an invention of Carl Rach, for his “Process For Making Hopped Beer Wort.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

Heretofore in the process of making this wort, unmalted cereals (such as corn grits or rice) were mixed with malt (such as malt barley or wheat malt) and were cooked with water at a temperature around the boiling point in a large container or cooker, the resulting mixture being led from the cooker into a mash tub where it was mixed with a malt mash and kept for onehalf hour or more at mashing off temperature. The wort which resulted from this .last mashing operation was strained through the undissolved grains of the material or mash resting upon a false bottom, with which the mash tub is provided. During this operation the undissolved grains on the false bottom served as a filter mass. The usual practice in the next stage of the old process was to wash the grains by pouring hot water upon them in the mash tub to remove the remaining wort extract. This washing of the grains or sparging operation, as commonly called, resulted in a wort which was of much lower As the sparging operations continued the resulting worts were of less and less density and after they were all collected together in a large kettle they had to be boiled to evaporate some of the water and increase the density to the desired degree, which is between 12 to 13% as measured by the Bailing saccharometer.

This evaporation and concentration of the wort was disadvantageous in that it required time, labor and fuel and thus increased the cost of the beer.

Thus it is an object of my invention to provide a process which eliminates the necessity of boiling the wort to concentrate it, and thus (1) to reduce the expense of the process, and (2) to permit greater control of the composition and chemical nature of the product, by reason of boiling being carried on only to chemically affect the wort and not to evaporate water.

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Patent No. 3889725A: Method Of Filling Beer Cans

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Today in 1975, US Patent 3889725 A was issued, an invention of Werner Heckmann, Heinz Jordan, Uwe Knabe, Karl Plock, Karl Quest, Friedrich Rademacher, and Dieter Unger, assigned to Holstein & Kappert Maschf, for their “Method of Filling Beer Cans or the Like.” Here’s the Abstract:

The supported devices in an apparatus which fills beer cans orbit about a vertical axis and have upright housings supporting cylindrical centering members which carry deformable gaskets for the mouths of cans. Such cans are supported by a conveyor which orbits with the filling devices and is movable up and down or is held against vertical movement during rotation with the filling devices. The introduction of liquid into the cans takes place subsequent to introduction of a compressed gas, and such gas can be used to bias the gaskets against the mouths of cans during filling. When the filling of a can is completed, the pressure in its interior is increased to facilitate separation from the respective gasket. That supply of beer which remains in a channel of the housing on closing of the beer-admitting valve can be expelled in response to expansion of gas in a chamber which receives such gas by way of the container and is sealed from the container by beer in the channel. The expansion of gas in the chamber takes place in response to opening of a valve which reduces the pressure of gas above the body of liquid in the container.

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Patent No. 7735413B2: Method And Device For Brewing Beer

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Today in 2010, US Patent 7735413 B2 was issued, an invention of Klaus-Karl Wasmuht and Kurt Stippler, assigned to Krones AG, for their “Method And Device For Brewing Beer.” Here’s the Abstract:

A device for brewing beer, particularly a wort pan (1), with a container body (2) to receive a wort reservoir (3), the device containing an internal boiler (4) arranged in the container body (2), which is provided with a heat exchanger (5) and a guiding screen (8). A wort forced flow (10) provided with a pump is also provided, which runs through the boiler (4). In order to increase the efficiency of the device, the wort forced flow (10) has a thin-layer distributor (17) for the wort, which contains a pipe subsection (11 b) connected with the pump, which subsection leads above the guiding screen (8) via an outlet opening (13) with reduced outlet cross-section into the container body (2). Above the outlet opening (13), a flow-guiding baffle surface (15) is provided, at which the flow arrives from below, to deflect the liquid towards the wort reservoir (3).

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Patent No. 3585045A: Method For Preparing Beer Wort

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Today in 1971, US Patent 3585045 A was issued, an invention of Conrad Lenz, for his “Method For Preparing Beer Wort.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

According to the method of this invention, a first portion of the continuously prepared mash is transferred from a mash-making zone to a first vessel. A subsequent portion of the mash is transferred from the mash-making zone to a second vessel while the first portion is being heated in the first vessel, and the two portions are then combined, whereupon further heating may follow conventional practice of separating a portion of the mixture from the bulk of the same, heating the separated portion, returning the heated portion to the bulk of the mixture, and repeating such separating, heating, and returning until the mixture reaches the desired temperature. The plant employed in performing the method is provided with a two-way valve in the mash transfer conduit which connects the mash-making apparatus with the mash heating or brewing apparatus. Two branch conduits lead from the valve to two vessels of the mash-heating apparatus, at least one vessel being provided with heating means. The valve may be moved in the usual manner between two positions in which it connects the mash transfer conduit with the branch conduits respectively while blocking the other branch conduit.

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