Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Packaged or wrapped product – Having consumer oriented diverse utility
Patent
1995-06-20
1997-08-26
Kepplinger, Esther
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Packaged or wrapped product
Having consumer oriented diverse utility
426115, 426124, 426131, 426132, 206222, 220501, 220553, B65B 3100, B65B 1700, B65B 2500
Patent
active
056608675
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention concerns the packaging of beverages including alcoholic beverages such as beer, lager, ale and stout which are sold in packaged form in sealed bottles and cans. The invention also lies in an improved package for such beverages particularly cans for alcoholic beverages as aforesaid and for devices for fitting in such packages particularly cans, to alter the characteristics of the beverage when it is dispensed from the package.
This invention is of particular application to canned beers particularly of the type containing dissolved nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The expression beer is intended to include any alcoholic beverage such as ale, beer, porter, stout and the like.
BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION
It is characteristic of some alcoholic beverages especially stout and traditional ales and beers to generate a foamy head of gaseous bubbles during the dispensing of the beverage into a glass and to consume the drink with this head evident upon the liquid. The source of gas for the bubbles is the gases dissolved in the beverage which are caused to break out of solution through a nucleation process. When dispensing from the bar this nucleation process has been stimulated by forcing the beverage under very high pressure through small nozzles which create sufficient sheer force to stimulate gas nucleation.
It is also known that if nitrogen is dissolved in such beverages, the bubbles are smaller, more stable and are perceived as creamier than when only carbon dioxide is present. It has therefore become common practice to add nitrogen to certain beers, ales and stouts. To maintain the nitrogen in solution, nitrogen has been used in the gas over pressure dispensing systems for dispensing such beverages so as to promote a stable and creamy head.
It has also become commonplace to add nitrogen to canned alcoholic beverages as aforesaid and to pressurise the can with nitrogen to the extent of adding liquid nitrogen during filling, so that after the can is sealed the evaporating dose of liquid nitrogen will increase the internal pressure typically to two atmospheres or more.
The can pressurisation has enabled thinner walled cans to be used and the use of non-oxidising gas for the pressurisation (after purging the can and contents of all oxygen), has ensured that oxygen will be absent from the interior of the can. If nitrogen is used, it will be taken up by, and become dissolved in, the beverage, so that if the latter can be stimulated to give up the nitrogen on dispensing, a rich creamy head of nitrogen bubbles will be formed on the beverage.
Various techniques have been adopted to stimulate the bubble formation on dispensing from such a pressurised can.
Early attempts are described in GB 1266351 particularly in relation to FIG. 3, wherein a secondary chamber is defined within the can which is adapted to retain a charge of gas under pressure, which discharges into the beverage through a fine orifice, driven by the pressure difference arising immediately after the can is opened to atmospheric pressure by the consumer.
Practical difficulties with this described technique apparently prevented commercial application for many years. The problems included the complexity and cost of modification to standardise packaging, the necessity to develop specialised can or bottle filling equipment for non-standard packages, the necessity to minimise oxygen in the package usually causes a beverage to change in flavour, the requirement that there should be minimal reduction in effectiveness of the gassing device caused by temperature and pressure fluctuation which can arise during transportation and distribution, and that the end product appearance and taste should be independent of the procedure used by the consumer to open and pour the packaged beverage.
Some of these difficulties were overcome by the use of a secondary chamber in the form of a capsule disclosed in EP 227213A2 in which the secondary chamber is pressurised from the primary container and its contents discharged through a permanently o
REFERENCES:
patent: 4518082 (1985-05-01), Ye
patent: 4832968 (1989-05-01), Forage et al.
patent: 5231816 (1993-08-01), Lynch et al.
patent: 5514393 (1996-05-01), Lynch et al.
Conway John Kelshaw
Cox Peter Erich
Freshwater Stephen Michael
Poley John
Reynolds Andrew John
Courage Limited
Kepplinger Esther
Sherrer Curtis E.
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