AN IMPROVED METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR REFINING AND AGEING LIQUORS
Year: 1870

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 3rd
August 1870. A communication from abroad by Samuel H. Gilman,
of Galveston, Texas, United States of America.
7
I, WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co.
Patent Agents, Southampton Buildings, London, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF AND APPARATUS
FOR REFINING AND AGEING LIQUORS," a communication, to be as follows:-
The objects of this Invention are,—
:-
First. To complete the fermentation of the saccharine principle which
remains more or less unfermented in all distillations, and passes over with
the alcoholic product. When this fermentation is complete by my
process the liquor is that much more attenuated, and the specific gravity
being diminished the proof and volume are both necessarily increased:
With some new liquors the proof and volume have each in this manner
been raised three per cent. or six per cent.. total increase:.

page_text: Second. To crystalize the fousel oil, and thereby increase its specific
gravity so much that it will quickly precipitate.
Third. To carbonize the herbaceous and vegetable matter, and thereby
increase its specific gravity causing it to precipitate easily.
Fourth. To absorb the absorbable acids by the carbonized herbaceous
matter, and precipitate them with it.
Fifth. To expel the acids that are more volatile than alcohol; also to
perfect the chemical combination of alcoholic mixtures, expelling and
precipitating such ingredients as cannot from their nature or quantity
chemically combine.
My Invention accomplishes all of these purposes by heating the spirits
to a temperature above their own boiling point under a pressure in an
air-tight vessel immersed in a water bath, by which the spirits are heated
and then cooled gradually down by the atmospheric temperature, or to
about 90° before the vessel is opened. The most perfect uniformity in
heating and cooling the entire body of spirits under treatment being
indispensable, I obtain that result by immersing the vessel containing
them in a water bath, and then by filling the vessel with vertical
diaphragms of thin sheet copper, one in about every inch of its diameter;
these diaphragms are all attached to the sides and bottom of the vessel
with solder, in order that the temperature of the sides of the vessel may
be conducted at once to the central parts of the body of the spirits which
are in this manner heated uniformly with the outside, this cannot be done
in a plain vessel where the liquor is heated next to the sides of the vessel
first, and forced up into the cooler portion which takes its place; hence
it is important in order to accomplish one of the objects of my Invention
that the liquor while being heated should have as little circulation as
possible as will appear herein-after. The heat conducting power of the
copper diaphragms keeps them at the same temperature nearly as that
of the sides of the vessel to which they are attached, and to insure a
perfect mixture during any circulation that may occur in heating the
spirits I arrange the diaphragms horizontally at about the centre of their
height, into two sections, and turn the upper and lower sections at a
right angle, so that the ascending current from each space between the
diaphragms of the lower section will enter every space above it. The
vessel which contains the spirits under treatment and in which the
diaphragms are placed is preferably made of sheet copper of sufficient

page_text: strength to bear a working pressure of thirty pounds per square inch,
and may be of any form or size that the amount of business to be done
may require. It may be cylindrical with both heads of a hemispherical
form, the upper end being provided with a funnel-shaped pipe with a
stop-cock for filling the vessel and with a thermometer and pressure
gauge, and the lower end with a discharging pipe and cock. The vessel
thus described containing the spirits is to be placed in another vessel,
which may be made of iron and of a diameter that will leave an annular
space of about two inches, between the outside of the inner vessel and
the inner side of the outer vessel, and a space of about six inches between
the bottoms of the two vessels. The sides of the said outer vessel must
be about six inches higher than the top of the inner one, so that it will
be entirely immersed when the outer one is nearly filled with water.
The outer vessel may have a loose fitting cover and an overflow pipe
near its top to allow the vapors of the hot water to escape. This vessel
may be set in a brick or partial iron furnace and be heated by fire direct,
or its water may be heated by a coil of steam pipes in its bottom and
leading to a steam boiler. The inner and immersed vessel being charged
with spirits through the funnel pipe at its top, heat is applied to the
outer vessel which is full of water, the charging cock is left open until as
much of the atmospheric air is expelled as will escape at the temperature
of 170° or near the boiling point of the spirits, when it must be closed.
Care must be taken not to fill the inner vessel with spirits to its full
capacity, but to leave about five per cent. of its capacity for the attenuation
of the spirits. The heat must be applied to the outer vessel until its
water boils and the spirit thermometer indicates a temperature of 210°
or 212°, and the pressure gauge a pressure of twelve to thirty pounds per
square inch according to the proof of the spirits under treatment, then
the heat must be abated by leaving the fire to die out or shutting off the
steam, and the whole apparatus allowed to cool down to nearly atmo-
spheric temperature when the spirits may be withdrawn and the operation
repeated with another charge. The spirits after this treatment will be
from one to three degrees higher in proof and the volume of spirits
coming out of the apparatus will be from one to three per cent. larger
than when it was put in. This results from the fermentation of the
saccharine principle in the spirits, which increasing the alcohol attenuates
the liquor, raises its hydrometrical proof and enlarges its volume. To
perfect the fermentation it is indespensable that the body of liquor should

page_text: be heated and cooled in all its parts so uniformly equal that the usual
circulation incident to heating liquids will not occur, but that the entire
body of liquor during the operation will have no motion whatever. The
same dormant state in heating is also indispensable to effect the
chemically equivalent combination above referred to.