Abstract:
An over cap brush for a squeeze dispensing bottle comprising a body injection molded as a single piece, the body being formed of a relatively soft elastomeric material, the body including a circular end wall, a generally cylindrical skirt at an outer periphery of the end wall defining a central axis and extending in one direction along the axis, the end wall having a central through hole and an outer face with a multitude of bristles distributed about the hole and extending axially from said face in a direction opposite the one direction, the skirt being of sufficient length so as to extend along the threads of a screw-on cap to retain the over cap brush on the cap by frictionally engaging the exterior of the skirt of the cap while the cap is disposed on a squeeze dispensing bottle.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    The invention pertains to dispensers and applicators for sauces and other edible liquids of varying viscosity. 
       PRIOR ART 
       [0002]    In the preparation of food, sauces, bastings, glazings, and other more less viscous liquids (hereinafter “sauces”) are often applied to the food when broiling, frying, baking, and the like. Typically, the sauce is brushed onto the food product while it is being cooked. Traditionally, the sauce is disposed in a bowl, pan or other open container and the cook or chef wets a brush in the container and then applies the sauce to the food product. Several dips of the brush into the container may be required to transfer an adequate quantity to the food. Repeated dipping of the brush is time-consuming and makes it difficult to apply a uniform or consistent coating. Open bowls, pans, or like containers in a food preparation area is less than ideal from a sanitation standpoint. When sauces are applied by a brush and the brush is replenished frequently by dipping it into the container, there is a risk of dripping the sauce onto surrounding surfaces especially when the cook is hurried. If the container is hand-held close to the food being prepared, a person has to devote both hands to the task and, therefore, cannot simultaneously reposition or reorient the food being coated. 
         [0003]    Another approach is to dispense the sauce from a container directly onto the food and then spread the deposits of sauce more evenly with a brush. The latter approach may require both hands and a fair degree of concentration or may require successive steps that increase the time involved. 
         [0004]    These circumstances are especially acute in a commercial kitchen where mealtimes impose peak demands on personnel. A cook or cooks at these times are particularly busy and any time and/or labor-saving device or method is especially valuable. 
         [0005]    At some foodservice establishments several flavors and/or types of sauces are offered on a menu and/or are used by the chef. Particularly in these circumstances, use of conventional brushes can lead to their mishandling, misplacing, and/or dipping into the wrong container. Still further, even where the sauce is applied from a dispensing container, there ordinarily needs to be a storage space or a brush dedicated to a particular sauce. All of these devices take up valuable counter space and, from time-to-time, lead to confusion. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0006]    The invention provides a novel elastomeric over cap brush for converting various squeeze bottle dispensers into brush dispensers. The resulting brush dispenser is ideally suited for use in the foodservice industry for applying sauces such as barbecue sauce and other liquids of various viscosities to food products including barbecue ribs, and other red meats, poultry, fish, as well as non-meat food products. The disclosed brush dispenser permits a sauce to be simultaneously dispensed and brushed onto the food object or material thereby saving labor and time and reducing the risk of mix-ups between containers or dispensers of a sauce and a brush dedicated to that sauce. 
         [0007]    The invention improves on sanitation thereby affording a great benefit to commercial kitchens. The disclosed highly flexible non-slip nature of the brush body makes it extremely easy to install or remove from a rigid bottle cap with simple push-on, push-off hand movement. The brush is provided with bristles that, while great in number and soft in nature, are molded in an open pattern that makes the exterior of the brush relatively easy to clean and easy to inspect. The bristles, at the same time, are robust and large enough that they resist breakage, a problem existing with conventional brushes. 
         [0008]    The flexibility of the over cap brush permits it interior including its inside corners, to be completely exposed for thorough machine or hand cleaning by simply turning the over cap brush inside out. The disclosed over cap brush, when produced in a given size, is advantageously compatible with standard commercially available dispensing caps of various styles, shapes, and actual molded dimensions. This saves both the supplier and customer the expense that would otherwise be incurred if a custom over cap brush was needed for the dispensing cap or caps of different styles and/or different manufacturers. 
         [0009]    The disclosed over cap brush is easily installed and removed by virtue of its flexible, compliant sidewall design. The sidewall or skirt can be grasped and pressed at its top, since it is unencumbered by the bristles and it can be easily lifted by grasping its bottom edge since it stands radially away from the dispensing cap on which it is fitted. In the preferred embodiment, the sidewall is relatively thin and is caused to stand off the cap on which it is installed by a series of circumferentially spaced axially extending internal ribs. The ribs, besides supporting the sidewall off the dispensing cap for an easy grip, permit the brush to be pushed on or off the cap by reducing friction between the brush and cap. The ease with which the brush can be installed on or removed from a cap reduces the risk that a foodservice employee will ignore sanitation procedures calling for removal of the over cap brush from the dispensing container at appropriate times to effectuate a thorough cleaning. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0010]      FIG. 1  is an exploded view of a squeeze bottle, dispensing cap and over cap brush that form a combined dispenser and brush assembly; 
           [0011]      FIG. 2  is a top view of the over cap brush; 
           [0012]      FIG. 3  is a side elevational view of the over cap brush with the dispensing cap shown in phantom and in assembled relation thereto; 
           [0013]      FIG. 4  is a bottom view of the over cap brush; 
           [0014]      FIG. 5  is a cross-sectional view of the over cap brush taken in a vertical plane; 
           [0015]      FIG. 6  is a bottom perspective view of the over cap brush; 
           [0016]      FIG. 7  is an exploded view of the over cap brush and another squeeze bottle and dispensing cap; and 
           [0017]      FIG. 8  is a perspective view of the over cap brush demonstrating its ability to be turned inside out for cleaning purposes. 
       
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
       [0018]    Referring now to the figures and in particular to  FIG. 1 , there is shown an exploded view of a combined dispenser and brush applicator for edible liquid food materials of varying viscosity such as sauces, bastes, glazings, oils, and the like, (hereinafter “sauces”). The combined dispenser and brush applicator unit  10  includes a bottle  11 , cap  12 , and over cap brush  13 . The bottle  11  is of the squeeze-dispensing type and made of a suitable food grade plastic such as low density polyethylene with a nominal wall thickness of 1 mm. The bottle  11  is conveniently made by blow-molding, but can alternatively be injection blow-molded. The bottle  11  can be of the type disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/120,283, filed May 14, 2008, or can be a bottle with more conventional construction. The bottle  11 , preferably, is cylindrical in shape, closed at its bottom end, and formed with a large neck opening  14  nearly the diameter of the cylindrical main body of the bottle. A neck  16  of the bottle has external threads  17 . 
         [0019]    The cap  12 , also shown in the foregoing cited patent application, compared to the bottle  11 , is relatively rigid, having relatively thick walls and being injection molded of high density polypropylene. By way of example, the cap  12  can have a wall thickness of, on average, about 2 mm. In contrast, the bottle wall thickness on average, is about 1 mm. The cap and bottle neck  16  have a nominal size of 63 mm. The cap  12  includes a generally cylindrical sidewall  21  and a circular end wall  22 . The end wall  22  has a central dispensing hole or aperture  23 . The central area of the end wall  22  is stepped to form a spout  24  so that the size of the dispensing hole can be increased by cutting off a portion of the spout at a height corresponding to the desired hole size. By way of illustration, but not limitation, the outside diameter of the cap is about 71 mm and the height of the cap, disregarding the raised central spout area, from the bottom of the sidewall  21  to the exterior of the end wall, disregarding the raised central area, is about 63 mm. 
         [0020]    The cap has internal threads  24  proportioned to mate with the external threads  17  of the bottle. When the cap  12  is screwed or threaded onto the neck  16  of the bottle and tightened, an effective seal is developed at the neck opening  14 . The over cap brush  13  is injection molded of a suitable soft elastomeric material such as food grade silicone having a Shore hardness of about 55. The over cap brush  13  is injection molded in a single or unitary piece, i.e. all being formed of the same material at the same time. The brush includes a cylindrical sidewall or skirt  26  depending from a circular end wall  27  such that the sidewall and end wall are concentric about a common axis. The end wall is provided with a relatively large central aperture  28 . 
         [0021]    Brush bristles  31  extend from an outer face of the end wall  27  axially in a direction away from the skirt  26 . The bristles are arranged in generally uniformly spaced circular rows concentric with the axis of the cap. The bristles are very long in comparison to their diameters. By way of example but not limitation, the bristles can be about 44 mm long and have their diameters tapering from less than about 2 mm where they are joined to the end wall  27  at their base, to about 1 mm at their free or distal ends. The bristles  31 , by virtue of the relatively soft material from which the over cap brush  13  is made and their slender configuration are relatively soft to the touch at their free ends thereby making it easy to uniformly apply a light brush pressure to an object being coated. 
         [0022]    The over cap brush sidewall or skirt  26  has axially extending annularly or circumferentially spaced ribs  36 . The ribs project inwardly from the sidewall  26  in planes radial to the axis of the cap. The radial extent of the ribs is about 4 mm, being roughly about twice the nominal thickness of about 2 mm of the sidewall proper by way of example, but not limitation. Ends  37  of the ribs  36  remote from the end wall  27  are beveled to facilitate assembly of the over cap brush  13  onto the cap  12 . 
         [0023]    Where the outer periphery of the brush end wall  27  merges with the sidewall  26 , a rounded transition area exists such that an inside corner  38  has a radius of a dimension at least equal to the wall thickness of the over cap brush  13 . 
         [0024]    The over cap brush  13  is manually assembled onto or removed from the cap  12 . The ribs  36  collectively leave an inside clearance diameter in a free state of about 65 mm which serves to provide an adequate interference fit with the cap  12  described above to retain the brush  13  on the cap  12  during even vigorous brushing action. Preferably, the axial length of the brush sidewall or skirt  26  is at least ¼ of the outer diameter of the brush so that it can establish a stable mount on the cap  12 . It will be understood that the projecting spout  24  of the cap  12  can extend through the central aperture  28  of the over cap brush  13  so as to allow unencumbered dispensing of sauce or other flowable product out of the bottle  11  when the same is inverted and squeezed. 
         [0025]    The over cap brush  13  is easily installed on the cap  12  by simply pushing it axially onto the cap. The bristles are inward of the periphery of the end wall and the transition of the end wall into the sidewall so as to enable an axial force to be manually applied to the over cap brush and enable it to be readily installed on the cap. The ribs  36  serve to reduce the frictional contact area of the skirt  26  against the cap so as to reduce the effort required to position the over cap brush onto the cap. The ribs  36  also serve to hold the brush sidewall  26  away from the cap sidewall  21  thereby enabling a person to achieve an easy finger grip under the brush sidewall when it is desired to remove the brush from the cap. The over cap brush  13  can thus be easily removed from the cap  12  at appropriate times to sanitize these components. The over cap brush  13  can be machine or hand-washed. Moreover, even stubborn deposits on the inside of the over cap brush  13  can be easily removed by hand or machine washing by, as suggested in  FIG. 8 , turning the brush inside out, thereby fully exposing the inside corner  38  of the transition area between the sidewall  26  and end wall  27 . The brush  13  is sufficiently resilient to completely restore itself to its original shape when it is turned right side out. 
         [0026]      FIG. 7  illustrates use of the same over cap brush  13  with a dispensing cap  51  of a common style. The dispensing cap  51  has a generally cylindrical skirt or sidewall  52  with a small peripheral lip  53  at its lower edge. The dispensing cap  51  has a nominal outside diameter measured at the skirt of 67 mm, while the small lip has an outer diameter of about 69 mm. The disclosed over cap brush  13  is adequately frictionally retained on the dispensing cap  51  despite the lesser interference existing between its minimum inside diameter and that of the skirt  52  and lip  53 . Moreover, the brush skirt  26  is long enough to extend down over a portion of a bottle  56  on which the cap  51  is threaded. It will be also understood that a spout  54  of the dispensing cap  51  projects through the central aperture  28  of the over cap brush  13  and that the bristles  31  extend axially beyond this spout  54 . It will also again be understood that the over cap brush  13  is installed on the dispensing cap  51  by simply pushing it on the same, and removed by pushing it axially off the cap. No extraneous motions or undue effort need be extended to accomplish the same which would otherwise be a disincentive for personnel to periodically sanitize these dispenser/applicator components. 
         [0027]    While the invention has been shown and described with respect to particular embodiments thereof, this is for the purpose of illustration rather than limitation, and other variations and modifications of the specific embodiments herein shown and described will be apparent to those skilled in the art all within the intended spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the patent is not to be limited in scope and effect to the specific embodiments herein shown and described nor in any other way that is inconsistent with the extent to which the progress in the art has been advanced by the invention.