AN IMPROVED AUXILIARY APPARATUS APPLICABLE TO BREWING AND DISTILLING GENERALLY."
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Augustus Collingridge and Henry
Richard Brett at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th
August 1879,
AUGUSTUS COLLINGRIDGE, of 15, Galene, Cherbourg, Paris, (presently residing
at 46, Fish Street Hill, London), Distiller, and HENRY RICHARD BRETT, of 26 and
27, High Holborn, London. AN IMPROVED AUXILIARY APPARATUS APPLICABLE
TO BREWING AND DISTILLING GENERALLY."
**
Whereas hitherto in the boiling of the wort after the addition thereto of the
requisite proportion of hops during the process of brewing ales and other beers, it
has been the usual practice in the trade to employ for that purpose coppers either
entirely at the top, or if partially, covered over, then so constituted as in effect
equally to expose their contents to the normal pressure of the surrounding atmos-
phere, whereby it is impracticable to succeed in obtaining a higher temperature
than that of boiling water, which is insufficient for the extraction from the hops of
by far the most important constituents of the flavoring matter, consisting of
essential oil and of the volatile essential oil contained therein, the operation
of boiling down the hops as at present usually conducted being chemically speaking
defective, and commercially speaking conducive to an extensive waste of costly
ingredients as well as of fuel.
Now our Invention, as relates to brewing, has for its object to facilitate the more
thorough extraction of the bitter and aromatic principles of the hop than is at
present possible under the system of open boiling above described, and likewise
while so doing to effect a notable reduction in the expenditure of fuel consumed
during the operation. And as relates to distilling generally, and more especially
where the product is susceptible of reduction from a state of vapour into a state
of liquid by condensation, to better effecting the disintegration and volatisation of so
much of the charge as it may be desirable to run off by means, in both cases, of
certain apparatus and appliances hereafter described, calculated to permit of the
operations, both in brewing and distilling as before described, being carried on in
a vacuum, and to secure the automatic maintenance of such vacuum, thereby
economizing, say, about 120° Farenheit in the generation of caloric.
1st. For brewing purposes we substitute for an open or only partially covered
copper, a hermetically closed boiler or boilers, with or without an agitator as the
case may be), but if an agitator is deemed necessary, then the driving shaft would
require to work through a carefully packed stuffing box or tube and gland) con-
structed of sufficient thickness of plating, and properly rivetted and stayed to
withstand a working internal pressure consequent on the contents attaining a

page_text: maximum heat of 360 Farenheit during the process of digesting the hops at high
temperatures, preferentially taking care to keep below the point at which the
volatile essential oil of the hop distils.
2nd. By the addition to such boiler or boilers, and situated in convenient proximity
thereto, of an accessory pneumatic condensing apparatus consisting of a closed
receiver. of adequate capacity in proportion to the cubical contents of the boiler,
and fitted internally with a refrigerating appliance capable of affording adequate
cooling surface for efficient condensation, such as an ordinary worm or tubular
arrangement, or jets of spray or other well known hydrostatic adaptation suited to
the end in view, of producing the circulation or contact of cold water in order to
condense the vapour generated in the boiler, and carried over into the receiver by
means of a double elbowed steam pipe set on to the crowns of the boiler and con-
denser by the usual means of, broad flanges and screws, and nuts, and having a
two-way cock so fitted as to enable them to be turned on or shut off at will.
.
The pneumatic condenser for efficient working purposes should be elevated about
33 ft. above the surface of the ground at sea level. It is furnished with a tube
descending vertically from the sole of the condenser reaching nearly to the ground,
and of just sufficient calibre to carry off the flow of condensed vapours (nothing
but ordinary steam being generated in the boiler, and coming over so long as care
is taken to keep below distilling point of the volatile essential oil, and it is
important to note that whenever this point has been exceeded, then in such case
steam should be kept shut off and the heating medium lowered until the tem-
perature is sufficiently reduced) as fast as the condensation is effected. At or near
the bottom of this hanging tube there should be a two-way stop cock in order to
regulate the volume of outfall. The column of water in the tube, so long as the
latter is maintained full by proper attention to the stop cock, serves to counter-
balance the pressure of the atmosphere and thereby maintain a constant vacuum in
the condenser immediately such vacuum shall have been started by the steam from
the boiler first expelling the air through a blow off pipe fitted to the condenser
with a clock valve sufficiently weighted, and then such steam being condensed as
.before stated.
In like manner the apparatus is also applicable to distilling operations generally,
and is capable of adaptation to existing stills by simply raising the cooling tank
containing the worm or other refrigerating apparatus, so far above the ground that
the nose of the worm is raised to the requisite elevation for a column of spirit to
counterbalance the pressure of the air. In lieu of the condenser used in brewing
we employ a closed receiver in the form of an ordinary spirit safe, but necessarily
much stronger in regard to the construction connected with the nose of the worm,
so as to receive the run from the still, with one or more hanging tubes descending
therefrom in all respects similar to what has been above described. The manipu-
lation as to the starting and automatic maintenance of the vacuum being equally
similar in principle, and the saving in caloric being: also 120° Farenheit, or less
in barometic proportion as the drop of the hanging tube is curtailed.