AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FININGS AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR ISINGLASS FOR CLARIFYING WINE AND BEER
Year: 1869

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Cowdery Martin, of High Street, Barnes,
in the County of Surrey, Gelatine Manufacturer, for the Invention
of "AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FININGS AS A SUBSTITUTE
FOR ISINGLASS FOR CLARIFYING WINE AND BEER."
Sealed the 31st May 1870, and dated the 18th December 1869.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Cowdery Martin
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 18th December 1869.
I, JOHN COWDERY MARTIN, of High Street, Barnes, in the County
of Surrey, Gelatine Manufacturer, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FININGS AS
▲ SUBSTITUTE FOR ISINGLASS FOR CLARIFYING WINE AND BEER," to be as
follows:-
My Invention consists in obtaining from hide peices or skin cuttings
a substance closely resembling in the nature of its fibrous appearance

page_text: and clarifying properties the natural isinglass now used for fining wine
and beer. I effect this by reducing such hide peices or cuttings to a
fibrous jelly or gelatineous pulp by crushing, grinding, or pounding them
to a minute state of subdivision, together with a subsequent treatment
with an acid solution, as sulphurous or acetic acid or vinegar, instead of
reducing such hide peices by dissolving in hot water, as in the ordinary
method of making gelatine or jelly from hide peices or skins. A pestle
and mortar effects the desired degree of disintegration perfectly, but the
machinery ordinarily used for reducing fibrous materials to pulp can be
employed. The softest and more fibrous parts of the hide or skin are
those best adapted for the purpose, but the denser parts may be softened
by treating with a strong solution of caustic soda. The fibrous jelly or
gelatineous pulp produced has the property of forming with the liquor to
be clarified a mechanical solution in a minute state of fibrous sub-
division, exposing a large surface of gelatine to the action of the tannin
and the alcohol of the wine and beer to be clarified, and which from the
soft and flocculent condition of its fibres remains suspended in the liquor
sufficiently long to combine with their impurities, when it subsides
carrying them down in a. manner similar to ordinary isinglass, and
leaving the liquor clear.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said John Cowdery Martin in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 16th June 1870.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
COWDERY MARTIN, of High Street, Barnes, in the County of Surrey,
Gelatine Manufacturer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Eighteenth day of December, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine, in the thirty-
second year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said John Cowdery Martin, Her special licence
that I, the said John Cowdery Martin, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, or such others as I, the said John Cowdery Martin, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with,

page_text: and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during
the term therein expressed, should, and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom. of Great Britain and.
Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man,. an Invention for
"AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF FININGS AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR
ISINGLASS FOR CLARIFYING WINE AND BEER," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said John. Cowdery Martin, my executors or
administrators, by an instrument in writing under , or their, or one-
of their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the
nature of the said Invention, and in, what, manner the same was to be-
performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office-
within six calendar months, next and immediately after the date of the.
said Letters Patent..
NOW KNOW YE, that I,. the said John Cowdery Martin, do hereby-
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and.
by the following statement (that is to say) :-
My Invention consists in obtaining from hide peices or skin cuttings;
commonly known as glue peices, a substance closely resembling in the
nature of its fibrous appearance and clarifying properties the natural.
isinglass now used for fining wine and beer. I effect this by reducing.
such hide or glue peices or skin cuttings to a fibrous jelly or. gelatinous.
pulp by crushing, grinding, or pounding them to a minute state of sub-.
division, together with a subsequent treatment with. an. acid. solution; as
sulphurous or acetic acid or vinegar, instead of reducing such hide peices
by dissolving in hot water, as in the ordinary method of making gelatine.
from hide or glue peices or skins..
In carrying out my Invention I select such raw material as is most
free from fat, flesh, and other extraneous matter, using those portions.
that if submitted to heat in the ordinary method of manufacturing
gelatine would melt and dissolve almost entirely away, and I prefer the
thicker portions of ordinary glue or hide pieces as yielding the best.
article. I cut the raw material to be operated upon into small strips or
peices of about a quarter of an inch wide and about three or four inches
long, either with a knife, by hand, or by revolving knives, or by any
other suitable machine driven by steam or other power. These peices
are then to be ground or reduced to a finely comminuted or subdivided

page_text: condition by any machine or machines capable of sufficiently reducing
or subdividing them. I have reduced the material by finely chopping
it in an ordinary sausage machine, and afterwards finishing it by
pounding in a pestle and mortar, but any description of machine exerting
a similar action on the chopped or cut-up material, or that is capable of
reducing it to the condition of a short fibrous pulp, may be used. The
material when dry may also be rasped, cut, or scraped into small particles,
and afterwards ground into a sufficiently divided condition.
In practice the method I have found to answer best is to submit the
material in a a wet or moist condition, after liming in the usual manner,
and after having been cut into the peices or strips above described and
thoroughly washed, to the action of a beating engine such as is used by
paper makers for reducing rags to pulp, and so soon as they readily
circulate with the water in the trough through the machine the roll is
to be lowered close down to the bed knives, so as to cut up and reduce
the material to the greatest degree, and the action is to be continued
until it is ground quite fine, and is separated into minute fibres or
particles of raw or unconverted gelatine. The time this operation will
take depends on the hard or soft nature of the material and the closeness
with which the bars or knives of the roller are made to work against
those of the bed plate. I have found it take from twenty-four to forty-
eight hours.
Although hide or skin cuttings, as they consist chiefly of raw or
unconverted gelatine in its most suitable fibrous condition, are, as above
described, the material much to be preferred, all other descriptions of
glue peices or raw materials of which glue or gelatine is made, and
which being of a like nature consist of gelatine in its raw or unconverted
state, may be used for this manufacture, as the gelatinous tendons, the
skin-like or cartilaginous material obtained from bones after the carthy
matters have been dissolved away with an acid, and any other animal
matters that consist chiefly of gelatine in its raw or unconverted state.
Previous to grinding or pulping the materials they may be softened to
acclerate the operation by submitting them to the action of caustic soda,
as is well understood in the ordinary manufacture of gelatine, or they
may also be allowed to become slightly decomposed, and afterwards
limed and washed to remove the decomposed parts, but I prefer to use
them in the ordinary state after liming without being softened. When

page_text: the material has been sufficiently ground or reduced to a condition
resembling fine short paper pulp, which may be known by stirring a
little in some water and observing if it readily diffuses through it in
small flocculent fibres without felting together into masses, it is to be
removed from the trough of the engine and placed in any suitable vessel,
and as much of a solution of acetic acid of about the strength of ordinary
vinegar, or of a solution of sulphurous acid of about a similar strength,
well stirred in as will swell the small fibres or particles and cause them to
thicken, and convert the pulp into a kind of fibrous jelly that will admit
of thinning out with cold beer or water into the condition of ordinary beer
or wine finings. A solution of any other acid used in preparing finings,
as tartaric acid, or any vegetable or mineral acid that will produce a
thickening effect on the ground or reduced material, and that is suitable
for and not injurious to the variety of liquor to be clarified, may be used.
The stronger acids, as muriatic, sulphuric, or nitric, must when used be
diluted with water to about the strength and sourness of ordinary
vinegar. If the material has been ground in a dry state it may be
moistened with water and treated with an acid as above described. The
ground or reduced material after the acid solution has been stirred in
should be placed in vessels which exclude the air, and allowed to digest
for some months, for although directly after the pulp is thickened with
an acid solution it will clarify wine or beer, its effects are much improved
by keeping or digesting.
For most wines and some varieties of beer I have found sulphurous
acid answer best, for some varieties of beer I have found acetic acid or
vinegar most suitable, and for others I have used weak solutions of
muriatic, sulphuric, and nitric acids or combinations of them, but the
acid best to be used for any particular description of wine or beer I have
found greatly to depend on the character and analysis of such liquor, to
vary with diferent descriptions, and is best determined by experience.
Having now described and ascertained the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, I would have it
understood that I do not confine myself to the precise details above set
fourth, and I do not claim any particular form of grinding or pulping
apparatus, or seperately reducing hide or glue peices to pulp, except
when the same are employed for the purposes
of my
said Invention; but
what I do claim as the Invention for which the said Letters Patent

page_text: are granted is, grinding or pulping hide or glue peices or other raw
gelatenous material of a like kind, together with with the treatment of
such ground or reduced materials with an acid solution or acid solutions,
as described, for the manufacture of finings as a substitute for isinglass
for clarifying wine and beer.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Cowdery Martin, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Sixteenth day of June, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy.
Witness,
ALFRED MARTIN.
JOHN C. (L.S.) MARTIN.