IM- PROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF BEER, CONFERRING PERFECT KEEPING QUALITIES AND PREVENTION OF SEDIMENT IN BOTTLE
Year: 1873

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alfred Tooth at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 27th
November 1873.
I, ALFRED TOOTH, of 16, Philpot Lane, in the City of London,
Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF BEER, CONFERRING PERFECT KEEPING QUALITIES
AND PREVENTION OF SEDIMENT IN BOTTLE," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in the treatment of all kinds of beer, rendering
them fit for bottling for the most distant tropical climates immediately
(if required) after brewing and converting the nitrogenous compounds
in beer into non-nitrogenous substances, thereby ensuring the most perfect
keeping qualities in any climate under any temperature, and preventing
the production of sediment in bottle after bottling.
It is a well-known fact that from the moment the process of brewing
is completed all beers gradually acquire an increasing acidity, more or
less rapidly, according to temperature and other circumstances, until they
ultimately without exception become unfit to drink.
In the best conducted breweries the per centage of acidity in newly
brewed beer is often as low as '06 per cent., dependent upon the quality

page_text: of the water, the goodness of the materials used, the skill in the pro-
duction of the beer, and the perfection of the fermentation.
The per centage of acidity in fresh beer produced from good malt and
hops may however be averaged generally at about 12 to 15 per cent.,
and this small quantity of acid when only doubled gives a distinct ||
sharpness to the taste; and when trebled, i.e., equal to about one-half
per cent., renders beer sour to the palate and unfit to drink. The sole
cause of this generation of acid is due to the nitrogenous matter
extracted from malt, which in conjunction with the oxygen of the
atmosphere acts on and converts the alcohol of the beer into acetic
acid.
This Invention has for its object the separation or conversion of this
nitrogenous matter, whereby acidity and the production of sediment after
bottling are rendered impossibilities.
Various means have been tried, such as the use of bi-sulphite of lime
to arrest acetous fermentation, but this compound in contact with the
acid in beer liberates free sulphorous acid, which is again liable by
other complex changes at a temperature above 70° to become converted
into sulphuretted hydrogen, a gas most offensive to both taste and
smell.
By this Invention the required conversion of the nitrogenous matter
is effected simply by the agency of heat at a temperature that may be
necessary for the object, according to circumstances, thereby imparting
to beer even under tropical heats keeping qualities, either in cask or
bottle, for a period practically unlimited.
Beer subjected to this process may be bottled for the most distant
climates immediately after it is brewed, rendering the existing custom of
vatting or keeping beer for many months before being bottled quite
unnecessary.
Sediment after bottling is also entirely obviated, and pale ales have
imparted to them an improved delicacy of flavour and an unalterable
brilliancy, and may be kept as clear as champagne indefinitely without
deterioration.