Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. 6032571A: Automated Home Beer Brewing Machine And Method

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Today in 2000, US Patent 6032571 A was issued, an invention of Brad Brous, Curt N. Torgerson, Terry Dubson, and Craig A. Wright, for their “Automated Home Beer Brewing Machine And Method.” Here’s the Abstract:

An automated home beer brewing machine and method makes beer in a single vessel under automatic control. The machine and method allows making of wort for beer without requiring apparatus to be sanitized, without boiling the wort, without the use of a traditional water-filled fermentation lock, and without using a wort chiller or ice-packing of a brewing pot. The inventive single-vessel automated brewing operation allows the user to load ingredients, conduct a grain-steeping if desired, and then automatically carries out the rest of the brewing process in a single vessel, until summoning the user days later to sugar-prime and bottle the beer. Thus, the user is required to provide much less time and labor than conventional home beer brewing, and the invention also frees the home-hobby brewer of much of the current art traditionally attached to home brewing.

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Patent No. 620820A: Automatic Keg-Soaking Apparatus

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Today in 1899, US Patent 620820 A was issued, an invention of Charles Zies, for his “Automatic Keg-Soaking Apparatus.” There’s no Abstract, but it’s described as follows:

It is the object of my invention to provide an improvement in that class of troughs or tanks for soaking and rinsing beer-kegs and other casks which are provided with automatic apparatus for causing such kegs or casks to roll and travel through the tank and to deliver them therefrom, say, to a scrubbing machine. I have devised improved means or mechanism for submerging the kegs or casks in the body of water contained in the tank and also for causing the same to roll and travel from one end of the tank to the other, where an improved elevating and delivery mechanism is arranged for automatic cooperation with the means for submerging as aforesaid. I further provide an improved guard for regulating the admission of kegs or casks to the tank, the same being automatically operated in connection with the other mechanism above referred to.

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Patent No. 3647473A: Malting Grain

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Today in 1972, US Patent 3647473 A was issued, an invention of Peter Michael Howlett, and Keith Christopher Stowell, for their “Malting Grain.” Here’s the Abstract:

A process and apparatus for dehusking cereal grain by a dry mechanical method at a temperature not above about 105 DEG F., and wherein the moisture content of the grain is above about 8 percent by weight in order to damage the grain so that substantial rootlet growth is prevented without substantially damaging the aleurone layer. The dehusked grain is subsequently malted and there are advantages compared with conventional malting of husked grain.

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Patent No. 7186428B1: Method Of Oxygenating Yeast Slurry Using Hydrophobic Polymer Membranes

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Today in 2007, US Patent 7186428 B1 was issued, an invention of Nick J. Huige, Murthy Tata, Jeffrey F. Fehring, Michael C. Barney, David S. Ryder, and Alfonso Navarror, assigned to Miller Brewing Company, for their “Method of Oxygenating Yeast Slurry Using Hydrophobic Polymer Membranes.” Here’s the Abstract:

Disclosed is a an economical method of efficiently oxygenating yeast slurry without bubble formation. The method employs a membrane oxygenator comprising at least one hydrophobic, microporous membrane having a gas side and a liquid side. The yeast slurry flows over the liquid side of the membrane; oxygen is delivered to the gas side of the membrane and passes through the pores to the yeast slurry.

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Patent No. 535267A: Electrolytic Conduit For Beer Or Other Liquids

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Today in 1895, US Patent 535267 A was issued, an invention of Louis Wagner and John Marr, for their “Electrolytic Conduit for Beer or Other Liquids.” There’s no Abstract, but the description states that their “invention relates to that class of apparatus in or by which an electric current, preferably of an alternating character, may be applied to or through liquids for the purpose, among other things, of destroying the life of organisms which would otherwise cause the deterioration or souring of beer, or effect similar or other objectionable results in other liquids.”
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Patent No. 399200A: Apparatus For The Pasteurization Of Beer

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Today in 1889, US Patent 399200 A was issued, an invention of Charles V. Koehler, for his “Apparatus For the Pasteurization of Beer.” There’s no Abstract, but the description states that the “invented a new and useful Improvement in Apparatus for the Pasteurization of Beer, of which the following is a specification.”

My invention relates to improvements in the mode of introducing steam into the steaming-vats, in which the bottles tilled with beer from the brewery are placed and covered with cold water, and then subjected to heat by introducing steam into the vat containing the bottled beer and water and heating the contents to a sufficient degree to destroy the yeast molecules in the beer contained in the bottles and arrest fermentation, thus bringing about that condition of the beer called pasteurization; and the object of my invention is, first, to provide a continuous distribution of the heat throughout the water from the top downward, thus saving breakage; second, to afford facilities for obtaining an equalization of the heat of the water and bottled contents of the vat; third, to reduce the amount of the surface of steam-pipe heretofore used and dispense with the holes or perforations therein; fourth, to insure the direct contact of every part-0t the water in the vat to the steam-supply.

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Patent No. 3079925A: Machine For Plucking Hops Or Like Plants

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Today in 1963, US Patent 3079925 A was issued, an invention of Albert Edward Brookes, for his “Machine for Plucking Hops or Like Plants.” There’s no Abstract, but the description claims that the “The object of this invention is to provide a convenient machine more particularly for plucking hop flowers from their bines, but also usable for analogous purposes, such, for example, as the plucking of beans from their bines, or for separating seeds from herbs and the like.” The description continues:

A machine according to the invention comprises in combination a plurality of endless conveyor chains each incorporating a plurality of spaced and outwardly extending conveyor fingers, means supporting complementary runs of the plurality of conveyor chains for traverse through substantially straight parallel paths, a plurality of fixed parallel channels within which the outer ends of the conveyor fingers are adapted to engage during movement along said substantially straight paths, and a plurality of endless plucking chains each having a substantially straight run extending parallel to the straight runs of the conveyor chains, said plucking chains having outwardly extending plucking fingers adapted to pass between the conveyor fingers, and being adapted to be driven at a speed such that the plucking fingers on the straight run will move in the same direction as, but at a greater speed than the conveyor fingers.

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Patent No. 2233904A: Bottle Cap

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Today in 1941, US Patent 694584 A was issued, an invention of William G. Wagner, for his “Bottle Cap.” There’s no Abstract, but the description claims that the “object of the invention is to provide an improved bottle cap for use on conventionally shaped or conventionally formed bottle mouths wherein the cap is of such design that it may be readily applied to the bottles by means of conventional bottle capping machines, the cap being advantageous in that it forms and maintains a superior seal with the bottle mouth.”
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Patent No. 694584A: Process Of Converting Wort Into Beer

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Today in 1902, US Patent 694584 A was issued, an invention of Otto Selg and Carl Guntrum, for their “Process Of Converting Wort Into Beer.” There’s no Abstract, but the description begins by explaining that in their new invention the “body of the yeast has been withdrawn [and] it is impregnated with carbonic-acid gas and simultaneously clarified. Thus the separate processes heretofore carried on in the fermenting-tub, the storage-tub, and the chipcask are all combined and the latter two processes are carried on simultaneously.”
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Patent No. 4253878A: Light Protective Bottle Glass

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Today in 1981, US Patent 4253878 A was issued, an invention of Robert L. Weaver and Alastair M. Jamieson, assigned to The Molson Companies Limited, for their “Light Protective Bottle Glass.” Here’s the Abstract:

A light protective bottle glass for use in beer bottles to prevent or reduce flavor deterioration by exposure to light is prepared by adding 0.065 percent by weight of nickel oxide to the Ultraviolet Absorbing Green glass usually used in green beer bottles.

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