Patent No. 2919806A: Hop Strainer

January 5, 2016 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1960, US Patent 2919806 A was issued, an invention of Alvin Hock and Clarence Rechtin, assigned to the Brighton Corp., for their “Hop Strainer.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

Our invention resides in the provision of a novel hop strainer especially designed for obtaining instant separation of wort from hops.
Our invention relates in general to that type of mechanism shown in Patent No. 2,412,400 which issued to Alvin Hock on December 10, 1946. Novel features, however, have been incorporated in the machinery of the instant invention as will be emphasized in the passages which follow.
It is an object of our invention to provide a hop strainer which will remove a maximum amount of Wort from the hops without bruising or crushing the hops sufficient to impart an undesirable bitterness to the Wort. Accordingly, an important feature embodied in the construction of a hop strainer according to the teachings of our invention is that of cascading the wort and hops in a sheet or sheets against a perforated plate or screen in such a manner that the combined wort and hops contact the plate or screen in such a way that the great majority of the wort will strike through the plate or screen instantly while the hops are washed along the plate or screen without driving the hops lint and seed through the plate or screen and without undue splashing.
Another very important object of our invention is to provide means for moving the hops and wort along another’ perforated plate or plates in such a Way as to accomplish further separation of the wort from the hops again without subjecting the hops to extreme pressures or harsh treatment.
A further object of our invention is to provide a final pressing action by means of which the last usable wort lis separated from the hops at the final stage in the separation process, this also being accomplished without damage to the hops and wort.
Another important object of our invention is to provide a hop strainer which may be .cleaned easily and quickly so as to protect the purity of the brew and make it economical to use.

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Patent No. 2536927A: Hop-Picking Machine

January 2, 2016 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1951, US Patent 2536927 A was issued, an invention of Porter E. Griswold, for his “Hop-Picking Machine.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

My invention relates to a machine especially designed for use in the hop-picking industry for stemming hop clusters.
Hops are generally grown on trellises from sixteen to twenty feet high, the vines being trained over these trellises. In picking by machinery, the vine stalks are out about four feet from the ground and passed through the hop-picking machine, the hops being removed mechanically from the vines during the traverse of the latter through the machine. Some of the hops are removed from the vine -in the form of clusters or bouquets, such clusters having more or less of the stems or small branches, which are undesirable in the finished product, and it is necessary to pull these clusters apart to free the hops from this trash.
The object of the present invention is to design a simple, practical machine of large capacity for this work..
The invention consists of the parts and the construction and combination of parts as hereinafter more fully described and claimed, having reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a plan view of the invention, one-half of the outer casing being broken away to show the inner stemming centrifugal cone. Fig. 2 is a side elevation in partial section of the invention. Fig. 3 is a detail of the cooperating series of outer and inner, or stationary and movable, pickers.

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Patent No. 1013505A: Hop-Cluster Stemmer

January 2, 2016 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1912, US Patent 1013505 A was issued, an invention of George E Miller, for his “Hop-Cluster Stemmer.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

My invention relates to a machine especially designed for use in the hop-picking industry for stemming hop clusters.
Hops are generally grown on trellises from sixteen to twenty feet high, the vines being trained over these trellises. In picking by machinery, the vine stalks are out about four feet from the ground and passed through the hop-picking machine, the hops being removed mechanically from the vines during the traverse of the latter through the machine. Some of the hops are removed from the vine -in the form of clusters or bouquets, such clusters having more or less of the stems or small branches, which are undesirable in the finished product, and it is necessary to pull these clusters apart to free the hops from this trash.
The object of the present invention is to design a simple, practical machine of large capacity for this work..
The invention consists of the parts and the construction and combination of parts as hereinafter more fully described and claimed, having reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a plan view of the invention, one-half of the outer casing being broken away to show the inner stemming centrifugal cone. Fig. 2 is a side elevation in partial section of the invention. Fig. 3 is a detail of the cooperating series of outer and inner, or stationary and movable, pickers.

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Patent No. 2226813A: Hop Picking Machine

December 31, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1940, US Patent 2226813 A was issued, an invention of Charles John Gray, assigned to Guinness Son & Co. Ltd., for his “Hop Picking Machine.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

In this machine, although a number of hops are successfully separated from the bine, some of them are not so successfully separated, as they are either detached in clusters or singly, upon the short stalks or stems by which they were originally attached to the bine.
It has been proposed to provide a machine of this kind with an endless screen, or wire mesh, having its respective ends passed around drums which serve to support it, and which drums are suitably driven to in turn drive the screen.
In this proposed arrangement, the wire mesh screen has been so arranged as to permit all the properly picked hops to fall down through it whilst retaining upon its upper surface any hop bearing stalk or stem portions and carrying them beneath fingers, between which and the screen such relative movement takes place as will cause said fingers to, in effect, sweep said screen in a longitudinal direction, and, in so doing, cause the hops to be caught up against the sides of the mesh openings of the screen and so become detached in this manner from the stalks, or in some cases the fingers directly detach them.
The short stalks or stems from which the hops 35 are separated as just described, are carried along by the screen until they fall off it as it passes around one of the screen carrying drums. Leaves also fall through the mesh with completely picked hops, and are subsequently separated in any suitable manner from these hops. The arrangement just described has been found to be open to the objection that all the hops are not detached from the aforesaid short stalk or stem portions.

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Patent No. 3418135A: Light-Insensitive Malt Beverage

December 24, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1968, US Patent 3418135 A was issued, an invention of Peter D. Bayne, assigned to Schlitz Brewing Co., for his “Light-Insensitive Malt Beverage and Process of Producing the Same.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention relates to a process of producing a malt beverage such as beer, and more particularly to a process of producing a malt beverage which is insensitive to light.
Malt beverages such as beer and ale are not stable to light. When subjected to light, the beer develops an odor and flavor characterized as skunky. To prevent the development of the sunstruck or skunky odor, beer is generally packaged in colored bottles which minimizes exposure to sunlight. Even though packaged in colored bottles or in cans or kegs, the beer can nevertheless develop the sunstruck odor by virtue of the short exposure to sunlight in drinking glasses.
It has been found that the presence of isohumulones are responsible for the development of the sunstruck odor in beer. The hops, which are boiled with the wort, contain resins and oils which are contained in the lupulin. The resins include the alpha and beta resins, with the alpha resins containing a bitter acid called humulone and the beta resins containing an acid called lupulone. The alpha acids provide the bitter flavor for the beer while the beta acids have low solubility in the Wort and do not appreciably enter into the brewing process.
During the brewing-process, the humulone fraction is isomerized to the corresponding isohumulones. The sunstruck odor substance in beer has been identified as a mercaptan,3-Inethyl-2-butene-l-thiol, which is formed by the photolysis of the siX-membered side chain on the isohumulone molecule. The free radical formed by the intervention of sunlight splits Off carbon monoxide, forming the 3-methyl-2-butenyl radical. This product, in turn, reacts with hydrogen sulfide, which is formed from proteins or amino acids by photochemical action, to form 3- methyl-Z-butene-l-thiol. This mercaptan is considered to be the main component of the sunstruck odor in malt beverages.
To prevent the sunstruck odor, it has been proposed to convert a carbonyl group of the isohumulones into a secondary alcohol by reduction. In this reduced form, the molecule becomes insensitive to sunlight and there is no formation of odor on exposure to sunlight. This conversion has been carried out in the past by use of sodium borohydride as disclosed in Patent No. 3,079,262, but the use of sodium borohydride has not been completely successtul in that the reaction is difiicult to control. The contact time between the sodium borohydride and the isohumulone must be accurately controlled in order to effect a complete reduction of the isohumulones In addition, the sodium borohydride is a relatively costly material which adds to the overall cost of the beer.
The present invention is directed to a process for producing a light-insensitive malt beverage by reducing the isohumulones by use of an alkali metal dithionite. More specifically, the process consists of initially extracting ground hops with a solvent, such as hexane. The solvent is then evaporated, leaving a dark resinous oil which is isomerized in a dilute alkaline solution. After the isomerization, the material is neutralized to pH of 6.0 to 7.0 with a mineral acid and the lupulone, wax and chlorophyll are removed by further extractions with a solvent. The aqueous phase is then further acidified to a pH in the range of 1.0 to 2.0 and the isohumulones extracted with a solvent such as diethyl ether. The reduction is then accomplished by contacting the ether-isohumulone extract -with an aqueous solution of sodium dithionite.
After the reduction, the reduced isohumulone extract is separated from the dithionite solution and washed with brine. The ether is then removed by distillation to produce the reduced isohumulone concentrate.
The reduced isohumulone when added to a standard unhopped wort or beer produces a beer which does not develop the characteristic sunstruck odor when subjected to sunlight and at the same time allows precise control of the isohumulone bitterness levels which was hitherto impossible by traditional hopping methods.

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Patent No. 3927680A: Machine For Picking Hops

December 23, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1975, US Patent 3927680 A was issued, an invention of Hermann Daum and Johann Stefan, for their “Machine For Picking Hops.” Here’s the Abstract:

This invention relates to a hop picking machine and more particularly to a hop picking machine which includes a device for performing a secondary picking operation.

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Patent No. 978476A: Hop-Extraction Process

December 13, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1910, US Patent 978476 A was issued, an invention of Arvid Nilson, assigned to the Wahl-Henius Institute Of Fermentology, for his “Hop-Extraction Process.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

The object of my invention is to provide a process of extracting these constituents from the hops which shall produce the extract in a peculiarly desirable condition for the uses referred to; and this I accomplish by the novel procedure hereinafter described and claimed.

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Patent No. WO1997046116A1: Roasted Hop Solids

December 11, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1997, US Patent WO 1997046116 A1 was issued, an invention of Vinod K. Chaudhary, Laurel E. Maney, Robert J. Mizerak, David P. Newell, Sydney R. Rader, Subba C. Rao, David S. Ryder, Joseph E. Snyder, and Matthew L. Tripp, assigned to Miller Brewing, for their “Roasted Hop Solids and Methods of Using Them.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

A method of roasting hop solids (spent hops) is disclosed. The roasted hop solids are useful for making a light stable, fully kettle hop flavored beverage.
One aspect of the present invention provides a method of roasting hop solids, comprising the steps of feeding the hop solids to a heating means; and exposing the hop solids to a predetermined heating profile in the heating means to produce a roasted hop solids, wherein the predetermined heating profile is chosen so that a fermented hop flavored beverage made using the roasted hop solids has enhanced kettle hop flavor and greater light stability compared to such a beverage if made with an equal amount of unroasted hop solids. The heating means can be any type of dryer capable of drying particulate solids such as flakes, pellets, granules, powders, chips, shreds, leaf, agglomerates, and irregular shapes. For example, a truck dryer or a fluidized bed dry can be used. The predetermined heating profile is preferably further chosen so that substantially all the alpha acids are destroyed. Preferably, the predetermined heating profile is further chosen so that if a fermented hop flavored beverage is made using the roasted hop solids it is light stable. Most preferably, the predetermined heating profile is 98°C for 23-24 hours.
Another aspect of the invention provides a method of making a hop flavored beverage from a fermentable growth media, comprising the steps of adding to the media, prior to bio-conversion, a hop flavoring agent; and bio- converting the media to form the hop flavored beverage, wherein the hop flavoring agent comprises roasted hop solids.
A still further aspect of the invention provides a hop flavored beverage prepared by adding to a fermentable growth media, prior to bio-conversion, a hop flavoring agent comprising roasted hop solids, and then bio- convert the media to form the hop flavored beverage.

Several years ago, I gave a wine writer a hard time for, among other things, referring to the history of hops in northern California’s past, explaining how hops were once “roasted” throughout the region. Moonlight’s Brian Hunt chimed in, and claimed he’d actually “seen ‘roasted hops’ in print before.” So imagine my surprise when Miller Brewing actually patented a process for roasting hop solids, the spent hops after they’ve been used in the brew, and they also claim that “roasting the hop solids further enhances the fruity/estery hop character imparted by the hop solids.” Hmm.

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Patent No. 2816032A: Method Of Preparing A Hops Powder

December 10, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1957, US Patent 2816032 A was issued, an invention of Willy Heyer, for his “Method of Preparing a Hops Powder.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

The present invention relates to a method of preparing a hops powder by extracting natural or fresh hops with the aid of an alkaline solvent. A hops powder prepared by the method according to the invention has an application as a base material in the making of beer.
According to the invention, the hops is extracted in a brewing wort of 4 to 6 percent and softened brewing water, the hydrogen ion concentration (pH number) being adjusted from 8.0 to 8.3. With the pH number maintained within this range, an optimum yield of iso-humulone is obtained, which substance is of prime importance in regard to the making of beer, said substance being obtained as a transformation product of humulone which latter is soluble in wort and beer to a very slight extent only.
According to a specific object of the invention the desired pH number of between 8.0 and 8.3 is adjusted by the addition of alkaline salts. Substances particularly suitable for this purpose are soda lye, soda, potash and in the case of boiling under pressure, salt of ammonium. One major object of the invention is to be seen in the fact that the pH number, once it ‘has been adjusted to a value between 8.0 and 8.3, is stabilized by a buffer substance contained in the wort. A suitable buffer substance, is for example a solvent of potassium-sodium phosphate. A buffer substance of this type may be relied upon to maintain substantially constant the pH number which may take any value between 8.0 and 8.3, the use r of the butter substance preventing the pH number from exceeding its upper limiting value, thus preventing any undesirable formation of humulinic acid.
The adjustment of the pH number between 8.0 and 8.3 may be performed, according to the invention, by titrimetric or electrometric methods.

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