AU2003247997B8

AU2003247997B8 - Wood retention system

Info

Publication number: AU2003247997B8
Application number: AU2003247997A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Sergio Dicenso
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Dicenso Sergio
Priority date: 2003-09-18
Filing date: 2003-09-18
Publication date: 2008-11-13
Anticipated expiration: 2023-09-18
Also published as: AU2003247997B2; AU2003247997A1

Description

54874 KMC:PFB P/00/011 Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A STANDARD PATENT

ORIGINAL

Name of Applicant: SOUTH EAST MACHINING Name of inventor(s): Serge DiCenso Address for Service: COLLISON CO.,117 King William Street, Adelaide, S.A. 5000 Invention Title: WOOD RETENTION SYSTEM The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us: This invention relates to the retention of lengths of wood within the body of liquid within a tank in particular to the retention of lengths of wood within the body of a tank of wine or liquor during the maturation process.

It is known during the process of making many types of wine or liquor for a product to be matured in wooden barrels. In the case of wine these barrels are generally made of French or American oak.

The rate and degree to which wood character is imparted to the maturing liquid is substantially dependent upon the ratio of the area of the internal surface of the barrel to the volume of liquid contained within the barrel. Thus the upper limit upon the size of the oak barrel which can be effectively used for maturation of wine or other liquors is quite small.

Furthermore barrels are expensive. The oak from which they are made is relatively rare and expensive and the cooperage skills required to form this oak into quality, liquid-tight barrels is also relatively expensive.

A combination of small size and high cost of wine barrels means that their use for the production of wine which is to be marketed at a moderate price is prohibitively expensive.

The problem of the small size of the barrel has been addressed by the use of very large tanks of a liquid impervious material such as stainless steel which may hold many thousands of litres of wine as the maturation vessel.

However the imparting of the oak character is an important and desirable part of the wine making process. Thus in order to impart this character to wine matured in stainless steel tanks methods of direct oaking have been developed.

At its simplest direct oaking involves no more than placing chips of oak either loose or retained within a liquid pervious vessel into the body of wine held within a stainless steel tank.

This has the disadvantage that the surface area of the oak, which is crucial for determining the rate at which oak character is imparted to the wine, varies dramatically depending upon the fineness of the oak chips. Further the oak chips when loose within the wine may foul pumping or filtration equipment or at worst be carried through into the final product.

An alternative is to place substantially sized planks of oak into the tank of wine where they may be allowed to float at the surface. This has the advantage that the area of the wood in contact with the wine is more easily determined but is only a partial solution to the problem of the oak fouling equipment. Also the upper surface of the oak wood is not in contact with the body of the wine thereby increasing the quantity of extensive oak wood which must be placed within the tank in order to achieve a desired level of oak contact.

Methods have been proposed to form constructions of oak wood attached to the floor of a large stainless steel tank. This has the disadvantage that again not all of the available surface area of the oak wood is exposed to the liquid within the tank. More seriously when the tank is drained the lees remain attached in and around the oak construction. In order to effectively clean this oak construction it must be dismantled and removed from the tank when the planks are heavily fouled with lees and/or skins. This is a difficult, messy and time consuming task.

In one form the invention may be said to reside in an apparatus for retaining lengths of wood within the body of a liquid contained within a tank, including wood retention means adapted to retain at least one length of wood both against gravity when the tank is empty, and against the displacement pressure of a liquid when the tank contains a liquid, and attachment means adapted to attach said wood retention means to an inner side wall of the tank, whereby the or each length of wood is constrained to float within the body of the liquid.

In another form the invention can be said to reside in a vat for holding wine with at least one length of wood held above a floor and below a normal height of wine in the vat and retained so that it will remain in a position below a level of wine in the vat when the vat is filled with wine.

In preference the length of wood has at least one surface charred.

In preference said wood retention means includes at least one retention bar adapted to pass through a hole in a length of wood, thereby retaining said length of wood.

4 In preference the attachment means includes a plurality of end-bar support means comprising plates adapted to be welded or otherwise attached to the inner wall of a tank each plate having a support member projecting substantially orthogonally from it, the end of each support member remote from the respective plate being adapted to engage an end of a retention bar.

In preference the attachment means includes a plurality of mid-bar support means comprising plates adapted to be welded or otherwise attached to the inner wall of a tank each plate having a support member projecting substantially orthogonally from it, the end of each support member remote from the respective plate being adapted to engage a retention bar other than at an end of said bar.

In preference the end of the support member remote from the respective plate of the or each end-bar support means is adapted to further engage a second retention bar, thus extending the length of the retention means.

In preference there are a plurality of retention bars, each formed into the arc of a circle such that the retention means can be extended to form a complete or any part of a circle.

In preference the apparatus is secured in a tank.

In a further form the invention may be said to reside in a method for assisting effecting wood characteristics in wine held within a non wooden tank including securing wood retention means to the non wooden tank which retention means are adapted to secure a length of wood both against gravity when the tank is empty so that it will be held above a floor of the tank at least, and against floating to a top under displacement pressure of wine when the tank is filled with wine for maturation.

In preference there are included attachment means adapted to attach said wood retention means to an inner side wall of the tank, the method including the steps of attaching at least one length of wood to the wood retention means and filling the tank with wine.

In preference the length of wood is attached to the attachment means by a hole in the length of wood through which the attachment means is fed.

In preference there are a plurality of lengths of wood.

In a preferred form of the invention the lengths of wood are each retained above a floor of the tank when the tank is empty, and are restrained so that they will be held under the liquid against any floating pressure when the tank contains a liquid.

In preference the lengths of wood are planks.

In a further form the invention may be said to reside in a method for imparting wood characteristics to a liquid held within a tank including providing wood retention means adapted to retain a length of wood both against gravity when the tank is empty, and against the displacement pressure of a liquid when the tank contains a liquid, and attachment means adapted to attach said wood retention means to an inner side wall of the tank, attaching lengths of wood of a selected type of wood to the wood retention means and filling the tank with a liquid which is to have the wood characteristic imparted to it and leaving the liquid within the tank for a selected time period.

In preference in the method the lengths of wood are attached to the attachment means by a hole in the lengths of wood through which the attachment means is fed.

In preference the lengths of wood are retained above a floor of the tank when the tank is empty, and float below the surface of the liquid when the tank contains a liquid.

For a better understanding of this invention it will now be described with respect to the preferred embodiment which shall be described with the assistance of drawings: FIG 1 is a cross sectional view of a maturation tank fitted with a wood retaining apparatus according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention; FIG 2 is a cross sectional view of the tank of FIG 1 when filled with wine; FIG 3 shows a view of the wood retention system of FIG 1 with the tank and the retained lengths of wood removed; FIG 4 is a detail of a mid-bar support used in the wood retention system of FIG 1; FIG 5 is a detail of an end-bar support as used in the embodiment of FIG 1; and FIG 6 is a view of the wood retention system of FIG 3 showing the method whereby the lengths of wood are placed in position.

Referring now the drawings in detail FIG 1 shows a tank 1 fitted with two wood retention apparatus 2. The tank is shown empty and the lengths of wood 3 are therefore hanging downward under the influence of gravity.

It can be seen that a number of lengths of wood 3 are supported by a number of wood retention bars 4. These are connected to form a continuous support encircling the inner circumference of the tank.

In FIG 2 the tank is shown filled with wine 5. It can be seen that the lengths of wood 3 now float upward within the body of the liquid retained in that position by the wood retention bars 4.

These bar supports are of two types as shown in FIGS 4 and The wood retention apparatus is shown without the tank or the lengths of wood in FIG 3. The apparatus is made up of a number of wood retention bars 4. Each of these is in the form of an arc of a circle. In this embodiment six such bars are sufficient to form a full circle.

It can be seen that the wood retention bars are supported by a number of bar supports 6.

The full circle wood retention apparatus is formed of units 7 comprising a retention bar 4 to end-bar supports 8 and a mid-bar support 9. The end-bar supports 8 may be shared between two such units.

FIG 4 shows a detail of a mid-bar support 8.

There is a support plate 10 adapted to be welded to an inner surface of a maturation tank. Projecting from this is a support bar 11 which terminates in a ring support 12. A retention bar 4 is supported by this mid-bar support by being fed through the ring support 12.

FIG 5 shows the detail of an end-bar support.

There is a support plate 13 which is adapted to be welded to the inner surface of a maturation tank. Projecting from this is a support bar 14 which terminates in a spring pin retention assembly 17.

Each retention bar 4 terminates in an elongate support ring 15. This elongate support ring is adapted to be placed onto the end-bar support assembly and retained thereon by a spring pin 16. If a fully circular retention assembly is desired each end-bar support assembly will have on it two elongate support rings from separate retention bars.

The method of use of the wood retention apparatus can be seen in FIG 6. In order to load lengths of wood onto the wood retention apparatus the spring pin 16 is removed from one end of a retention bar 4, allowing elongate support ring 15 to be removed from the end bar support 8. The retention bar continues to be supported by mid-bar support 9 and by another end bar support Lengths of oak wood 3 are fed onto the retention bar 4 through hole 20 in one end of each length of wood. These processes are greatly facilitated by the fact that the bar continues to be supported by mid-bar support 9. When sufficient lengths of wood have been fed onto the first portion of the retention bar the elongate support ring is pushed back onto the end bar support assembly 8, and retained thereto by spring pin 16. The process is then repeated for the other end of the retention bar.

This entire process is repeated for each unit 7 of the wood retention apparatus.

When the tank is emptied the lengths of wood may be cleaned in situ, being able to be moved slightly in order to facilitate cleaning between them without the need to completely remove them from the tank. This may allow the tank to be refilled without the necessity of removal of the oak wood at all, but even if removal for cleaning is still considered to be essential the wood can be cleaned of all gross matter in situ meaning that removal is a far easier and less unpleasant task.

Claims

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the plurality retention bars are interconnected by attachment means, said attachment means having end-bar support means comprising plates adapted to be welded or otherwise attached to the Inner wall of the tank each plate having a support member projecting substantially orthogonally from it, the end of each support member remote from the respective plate being adapted to engage an end of a retention bar. COMS ID No: ARCS-206845 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:40 Date 2008-09-19 13/09 2008 16:57 FAX 6182311273 COLLISON -1 IP AUSTRALIA 01012/067 00 9 0
3. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the attachment means further includes a C) d) plurality of mid-bar support means comprising plates adapted to be welded or otherwise attached to the inner wall of a tank each plate having a support member projecting substantially orthogonally from it, the end of each support member remote from the respective plate being adapted to engage a retention bar other than at an end of said bar.
4. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the end of the support member remote from t' the respective plate of the or each end-bar support means is adapted to Sfurther engage a second retention bar, thus extending the length of the retention means. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein there are a plurality of retention bars, each formed into the arc of a circle such that the retention means can be extended to form a complete or any part of a circle. COMS ID No: ARCS-206845 Received by IP Australia: Time 16:40 Date 2008-09-19