Today in 1937, US Patent 2082222 A was issued, an invention of Frederick P. Siebel, for his “Brewing Process.” There’s no Abstract, though it’s described in the application as an “invention relat[ing] to the art of brewing, and pertains particularly to the preparation of the wort.” I assume this is the same Siebel who led the Institute after it reopened after Prohibition in 1933.

One of the objects of the invention is the provision of a process whereby a desired wort may be produced in a condition suitable for immediate cooking, in a period of time very substantially less than is required for the mashing and sparging operations heretofore quite generally employed.

`Another Object is the provision of a process whereby there can be accomplished a substantially higher extraction and conversion of the desired constituents of the malt and other grains than has been the case under commercial brewing procedures heretofore generally employed; this obtaining a more complete utilization and hence a saving, in the raw materials required.

Yet another object of the invention is the provision of a process which maybe carried on rapidly and with facility for preparation of a wort on a commercial brewing scale, whereby the enzymatic conversion or modification of the grain starches and albumens may be accomplished more completely and rapidly than with commercial procedures heretofore generally employed.

Yet another object of the invention is the provision of a wort-preparing process of a character such as to permit successive batches to be prepared in rapid succession one after another in the same apparatus.

Yet another object is the provision of a process for wort preparation which may be carried on under very definite and accurate control, for production of a wort of a desired character very rapidly and with very close uniformity as between different batches.

Today in 1870, US Patent 103498 A was issued, an invention of Charles Pohlmanx, for his “Improved Apparatus For Preserving Beer.” There’s no Abstract, though it’s described this way in the application:

The nature of my invention consists in an elastic bag, formed in a shape to accommodate itself to the inside of a barrel, to which it is applied, in such a manner that, when the bag is filled with air, and supplied with air under pressure, the bag will gradually expand, and exert a pressure upon the liquid in the cask in which it is placed.

Today in 1969, US Patent 3443958 A was issued, an invention of George E. Dennis, Richard C. Quittenton, and Kenneth R. Robinson, assigned to John Labatt Ltd., for their “Method of Preparing Ground Cereal Grains in the Production of Brewery Mash.” There’s no Abstract, but the invention is described as a “process for producing brewers wort in which cereal grains are dehulled, the dehulled grain is ground to form a fine grist and at least part of the hulls removed before grinding are recombined with the ground dehulled grain and passed through the mashing stage in the usual manner.” Here’s why they think their method is better.

According to this invention it has been determined that the above difficulties [milling problems] can be overcome by removing the hull from the grain before the milling operation. With the hulls removed the kernels of grain can now be more finely ground than was possible in the past and then the finely ground kernels can be recombined with the hulls at any point before the lautering stage. The result of this is an increased yield without any significant sacrifice in run-off time. A series of pilot plant tests indicated that an average yield increase of up to 2% could be obtained with a less than a 15% increase in lautering time.

The degree to which the kernels can be more finely ground according to this invention will be entirely dependent upon the particular situation. Thus, the actual particle size will be dependent upon the nature of the grain, the balance of the lautering time against yield permissible in a given situation, etc.

Today in 1983, US Patent 4383040 A was issued, an invention of Richard Fricker, for his “Fermentation Process and Apparatus.” Here’s the Abstract:

A method for continuous fermentation in which carbohydrate solution is fed continuously into a fermentation zone containing substantially homogeneously distributed yeast and carbohydrate solution whereby the carbohydrate is fermented to ethanol, a proportion of the fermenting liquid continuously passing to a pressurized settling tank, yeast depleted liquid being withdrawn from the upper part of the settling tank and yeast enriched liquid being withdrawn from the lower part of said tank and returned to the fermentation zone, a proportion of yeast being withdrawn without being returned to the fermentation zone, said proportion being such that the concentration of yeast in the fermentation zone is substantially constant, and the pressure within the settling tank is sufficient to prevent the formation of gaseous carbon dioxide. The method enables rapid continuous fermentation to take place using high concentrations of yeast.