Foods and beverages: apparatus – Mechanical – fluid or heat treatment of dairy food – With temperature or atmosphere modification
Reexamination Certificate
2000-12-12
2001-07-31
Simone, Timothy F. (Department: 1761)
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Mechanical, fluid or heat treatment of dairy food
With temperature or atmosphere modification
C099S348000, C099S452000, C062S342000, C366S144000, C366S149000, C366S314000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06267049
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention concerns an apparatus to produce ice-cream as set forth in the main claim.
The apparatus according to the invention is the type with an ice-cream making receptacle which can be inserted into and removed from a cooling chamber.
The apparatus is suitable to be used particularly, but not exclusively, in the domestic field to prepare ice-cream or other cold food products such as “sorbets”, crushed-ice fruit-drinks or otherwise.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The state of the art includes devices used in the domestic field to prepare ice-cream, crushed-ice fruit-drinks, “sorbets” and other similar cold products, including an ice-cream making receptacle suitable to be temporarily positioned inside a cooling chamber.
The desired ingredients are poured into the receptacle, which is cooled from outside; the ingredients are mixed and amalgamated together by a rotary whisk mounted on a shaft arranged substantially axially with respect to the receptacle.
In this type of device, since the ice-cream making receptacle can be removed, it is possible to obtain various advantages, including that of facilitating and accelerating both the collection of the ice-cream produced and the cleaning operations.
However, the fact that the ice-cream making receptacle can be removed also entails some technical problems which make the apparatus in its entirety more complex, and therefore more costly.
The state of the art includes an apparatus equipped with a a conical ice-cream making receptacle suitable to be inserted, thanks to the mating shape, into a mating conical cooling chamber defined by cooling conduits coiled substantially in a spiral.
This embodiment does not give high productivity inasmuch as it is extremely difficult to achieve a precise coupling of the cooling conduits of the cooling chamber and the removable receptacle.
The state of the art also includes an apparatus wherein the cooling chamber is defined by a receptacle suitable contain a liquid, for example brine, inside which a cooling circuit is immersed.
If on the one hand this embodiment allows to obtain great therma efficiency with repect to the previous embodiment, on the other hand it has considerable constructional complicantions apart from being very inconvenient to use.
Another disadvantage of devices known in the state of the art is that the whisks used co-operating with the aforesaid receptacles perform a satisfactory mixing of the ice-cream only in the central area of the receptacle, but they are not able to clean the bottom and inside wall.
Thus encrustations are formed which give a non-homogenous final product and limit the cooling exchange, which consequently increase the processing times.
Moreover, the mixing and amalgamation of all the ingredients is unsatisfactory.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,361 disclose a self-contained apparatus for making an ice cream type mixture having a mixer chamber which is cooled by a refrigerator unit and a flexible blade which is rotatably mounted in the container.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,604 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,573,329 disclose ice cream making machines each having an ice-cream making vassel which can be inserted in and removed from a cylindrical cooling chamber, wherein cam elements of circular from are provided for selectively enlarging the cooling chamber.
The present Applicant has designed and ambodied this invention to overcome these shortcomings and to obtain further advantages.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is set forth and characterised in the main claim, while the dependent claims describe other characteristics of the idea of the main embodiment.
The purpose of the invention is to achieve an apparatus to produce ice-cream wherein the ice-cream making receptacle an easily be extracted, yet at the same time the thermal efficiency is maintained.
Another purpose of the invention is to facilitate the operations to extract the ice-cream making receptacle using an extremely simple, economical and functional embodiment.
A further purpose is to reduce the possibilities of breakdowns and malfunctioning of the mechanical parts involved in these operations to remove the ice-cream making receptacle.
Another purpose is to achieve an apparatus to produce ice-cream wherein the whisk co-operates with the ice-cream making receptacle in such a manner as to achieve a homogeneous mixing of the ingredients of the ice-cream and to give the ice-cream the proper qualities of softness and creaminess.
The apparatus according to the invention comprises a substantially cylindrical cooling chamber, not completely closed due to the presence of a vertical aperture.
According to one characteristic of the invention, the cooling chamber is at least partly elastic and co-operates with opening means suitable to temporarily widen the vertical aperture and thus the cooling chamber itself, to allow the ice-cream making receptacle to be inserted or removed.
When the opening means are inactive, the cooling chamber tends to elastically assume a closed position suitable to hold the ice-cream making receptacle inside itself, for example when the apparatus is being used.
According to another characteristic of the invention, moreover, the cooling chamber co-operates externally with at least a layer of elastically yielding and thermally insulated material, suitable to prevent cooling losses towards the outside.
The ice-cream making receptacle comprises a hole, in a substantially central position, inside which the driven shaft which is associated with the whisk passes.
The whisk comprises a central coupling element suitable to co-operate with the driven shaft, with which at least two blades are associated, arranged diametrically opposite the coupling element.
In a preferential form of embodiment, the blades are made of an at least partly flexible material, and lie on a plane angled with respect to the plane defined by the bottom of the cooling container.
According to the invention, a first blade is substantially L-shaped, with a first side co-operating with the bottom of the ice-cream making receptacle and a second side facing upwards and suitable to co-operate with the side wall of the receptacle.
A second blade is substantially pointed and has a slightly convex surface with the convexity facing the bottom of the cooling container.
The second blade comprises an outer profile suitable to co-operate with the side wall of the cooling container and a curved profile facing the bottom of the cooling container.
As the whisk rotates, the first blade scrapes the bottom and the side wall of the ice-cream making receptacle, cleaning these surfaces and conveying the mixture towards the central zone of the container.
At the same time the second blade pushes and crushes the mixture from the central zone of the receptacle towards the side wall and the bottom.
The mixture, compressed by the second blade, is subjected to a softening action which is more efficacious due to the curved profile of the second blade.
The curved profile defines, with the bottom of the ice-cream making receptacle, an aperture through which the mixture flows before being raised again in order to be compressed again.
The combined action of the two blades, therefore, not only prevents encrustations from forming on the side wall and on the bottom of the cooling container; it also mixes the ingredients homogeneously and amalgamates the ingredients perfectly and whisks the ice-cream in an optimum manner, making it extremely soft and creamy.
The processing times are also considerably reduced, which saves a considerable amount of energy and makes the ice-cream maker more productive.
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patent: 5351606 (1994-10-01), Matsuzaki
patent: 5363746 (1994-11-01), Gordon
patent: 54
Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP
Simac-Vetrella SpA
Simone Timothy F.
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