AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING CIDER AND PERRY
Year: 1839

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, wе, EDMUND
JOHN JONES, of Poulstone House, Hereford, Gentleman, and JOHN HAM, of
Bristol, in the County of Somerset, Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS, Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Sixth day of July, in the third year of Her reign, did, for Herself,
Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said Edmund John Jones
and John Ham, our exors, adñiors, and assigns, Her especial licence, full power,
sole privilege and authority, that we, the said Edmund John Jones and John
Ham, our exors, adiñors, and assigns, or such others as we, the said Edmund
John Jones and John Ham, our exors, adñmors, or assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term
of years therein mentioned, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed,.
and also in all Her said Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, and in
the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, and Man, our Invention.
of "AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING CIDER AND PERRY ;" in which said
Letters Patent is contained a proviso that we, the said Edmund John. Jones.
and John Ham, or one of us, shall cause a particular description of the nature
of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to
be inrolled in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar
months next and inmediately after the date of the said in part recited Letter
Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully
ind at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, we, the said
Edmund John Jones and John Ham, do hereby declare that our improved
process of manufacturing cider and perry consists of two parts:-First, of an
improved mill for grinding the apples or pears; and, secondly, of an improved
method of filtering the juice after it comes from the press; and first, as
regards the mill, we take a cylinder of wood or cast iron of about sixteen
inches long and eighteen inches in diameter, and we cover this cylinder with
hoops or plates of the best tough wrought iron, and after turning it true, we
raiso with steel peckers, a multitude of burrs over its whole surface until it
resembles a rasp or grater; or we fix fine saws on the circumference of the
cylinder, parallel with the axis thereof, and about one inch or more apart,
filling up the spaces between each with wood or other material, so that the
teeth only shall project beyond the surface; we then fix the cylinder, prepared
in one or other of the modes before described, in a frame on a shaft or gudgeon,
so that it can freely revolve, and having done so, we force against it by wedges or
'screws, a piece of hard wood forming a tangent to the circumference, allowing
the cylinder, when in motion, to cut away a little curve therein; over the space
formed by the upper part of the cylinder and this tangent, we place a bin or
hopper to receive the apples or pears to be ground, and underneath it a
receiver for the pulp, the juice from which is then pressed out in the usual
way. The cylinder is caused to rotate by any suitable power, and is worked
with best effect at about four hundred revolutions per minute.
To filter the juice, we perforate a number of round holes in the bottom of a
wooden trough or tub, such holes being of an inverted conical shape about
three inches in diameter on the upper side and as closely together as possible,
to which holes are loosely fitted wooden conical plugs about three inches long,
having a hole through their centre of one inch diameter, or thereabouts; we
prepare a sufficient number of filtering bags of close wove linen, cotton, or
woollen, to insert into these holes, together with a quantity of similar spare
bags, in the following manner:-The bags are generally about a yard deep and
one yard and a half in circumference; but they may be of a greater or lesser
depth or width; the mouths of these bags are tied round the plugs above-
mentioned, so as to allow the liquid to pass readily into them through the holes
in the same, and each bag is then inserted into another of the same length, but
of twelve inches circumference only, or thereabouts. The case or outer bag
last mentioned may be of the like material as the inner one, or of any open
wove fabric or netting, so that the filtering bag shall be compressed within it.
The filtering bag thus incased is then pressed down through one of the holes
in the tub or trough by a small rod reaching to the bottom of the bag through

page_text: the hole in the plug until the latter comes to its bearing, when it is securely
fastened by a few taps with a hammer into the hole of the trough, thus wedging
or securing the mouths of the filtering bag and its case securely into the same.
All the holes therein are in the same manner filled with bags and their cases,
and the bags are thus kept from expanding to au inconvenient size and
dangerous weight when filled with the liquid to be filtered, by the contracted
space of the cases, although the filtering bags themselves possess the same
filtering surface as if they were wholly expanded.
Through this bed of bags we pass the cider or perry as soon as the fermen-
tation commences, putting into the trough or tub about one pound of finely
pulverized wood charcoal to every fifty gallons of cider or perry thus requiring
to be filtered, and the same operation is repeated, and a like quantity of char-
coal added every time the fermentation recommences, until the cider or perry
becomes transparent and remain so. The spare bags and their cases already
spoken of are for the purpose of replacing any of the others which may happen
to lose their efficacy through the choking up of their pores, so that the
filtering process may continue uninterupted, and at the same time sufficiently
rapid; any number of bags, from one-tenth to one-fifth of the whole bed, more
or less, may be removed at a time, in manner following (that is to say):-
The plug at the mouth of each is loosened by a rod passed into the hole thereof.
The bag and case are drawn up sufficiently to untie and remove the plug,
and to tie the mouth of both bag and case, and the latter are then dropped
down through the hole in the trough to the receiver underneath, and replaced
by the spare bags and their cases and plugs, these having been previously
prepared for use as already directed. The used bags are then to be stripped
of their cases and to be turned inside out, and the fluid sediment reserved to
subside or at once submitted to pressure to expel all the cider or perry
remaining in them, after which they are to be rinsed in clear water and again
prepared with their cases and plugs as the next spare set to replace others.
We generally economize space to the extent of making a trough of four
feet square capable of containing from one hundred and twenty to one hundred
and thirty filtering bags.
The mechanical arrangements for conveying the liquid to the trough, for
receiving it from the bags, and for returning it to the casks, whether by
buckets or pumps, are so simple, and depending so much upon the locality of
the cellars and extent of business, that we do not deem it necessary to describe
them further than to say, that in all cases everything metallic should be
avoided, and that, therefore, where pumps are employed, we recommend them
to be of wood.

page_text: And having now described the nature of our said improved process of
manufacturing cider and perry, and the manner in which the same is to be
performed, we declare that we do not claim as new, any of the parts of the
improved mill herein-before described as separately new; but that we claim
as of our Invention the general combination and arrangement of the same.
.We declare also, that we do not claim the addition of wood charcoal to cider
or perry, for the purpose of checking its fermentation; but that we claim as of
our Invention, the method herein-before described of filtering cider or perry
through wood charcoal, and by means of filtering bags of any size compressed
into smaller external dimensions by other bags or cases of cloth, wood, or
other material of lesser circumference or size. And such our said invented
improvements, being to the best of our knowledge and belief entirely new and
never before used within that part of Her said Majesty's United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland called England, Her Dominion of Wales,
Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney,
Sark, and Man, and also in all Her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations
abroad, we do hereby declare this to be our Specification of the same, and
that this our Specification doth comply fully and in all respects, without the
least reserve or disguise, with the proviso in the said herein-before in part
recited Letters Patent contained; wherefore we bereby claim to maintain
exclusive right and privilege to our said Invention.
In witness whereof, we, the said Edmund John Jones and John Ham,
have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Second day of January,
One thousand eight hundred and forty.
JOHN
(L.S.) HAM.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Second day of January, in the
year of our Lord 1840, the aforesaid Edmund John Jones and John Ham
came before our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged
the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and
specified, in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was
stamped according to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Fourth day of January, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and forty.