JP6850006B2 - Bottle stopper - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a bottle stopper, and more particularly to a bottle stopper that seals the mouth of a liquor bottle.

As a bottle stopper for sealing the bottle mouth of a liquor bottle, Patent Document 1 describes a bottle stopper provided with a cup-shaped stopper having a hollow portion and an upper lid attached to the upper portion of the stopper. In the bottle stopper described in Patent Document 1, the stopper body is formed of resin, and the bottle mouth is sealed by press-fitting the stopper body into the bottle mouth.

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2016-49999

However, in the bottle stopper described in Patent Document 1, when the burning is performed by sterilizing the bottle, it may not be possible to maintain good airtightness of the bottle mouth. Burning is performed by heating sake in order to prevent the sake from being altered by the action of lactic acid bacteria, for example, or being over-ripened by the action of enzymes. Generally, the method of burning sake is to heat sake before bottling, but in recent years, attention has been paid to sterilization of sake by heating sake after bottling.

Bottle sterilization is performed by putting sake in a liquor bottle, plugging it, and then heating the sake together with the bottle to 60 to 65 ° C., for example, with warm water. According to bottle sterilization, it is possible to prevent the mouthfeel and aroma of sake from being impaired, and it is possible to maintain a good flavor.

As described above, in bottle sterilization, sake is injected into a liquor bottle, plugged, and then the sake is heated. Further, as the material of the plug body, generally, soft polyethylene is used from the viewpoint of opening property and food hygiene. Therefore, when a conventional general plug body is used for sterilizing bottles, the plug body is thermally deformed at the time of burning, a gap is created between the bottle mouth and the plug body, and the contents may leak from the bottle mouth. possible. In addition, even if a hard material is used as the material of the stopper in order to avoid thermal deformation of the stopper, there is a gap between the bottle mouth and the stopper, and the stopper is not sterilized. Is too hard to open the bottle stopper easily.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a bottle stopper capable of maintaining good airtightness of a bottle mouth even when sterilizing a drink with a bottle.

The bottle stopper disclosed in the present application includes a stopper body and a contact member. The plug includes a first resin as a main component, a hollow portion, before Symbol cylindrical wall surrounding the hollow portion, and a bottom cover portion. The peripheral wall has an upper large-diameter portion and a lower small-diameter portion. The bottom lid portion is connected to the lower end of the peripheral wall. Further, when the stopper is press-fitted into the bottle mouth, the large diameter portion of the peripheral wall comes into contact with the bottle mouth and seals the bottle mouth. The contact member is arranged in the hollow portion of the plug body. Moreover, the abutting member abuts on the large diameter portion of said peripheral wall, said heat resistance rather higher than the peripheral wall of the plug body has a cylindrical body portion and a bottom portion. The main body portion is arranged coaxially with the peripheral wall and faces the large diameter portion of the peripheral wall. The bottom portion is connected to the lower end of the main body portion, and is arranged at a certain distance from the bottom lid portion of the plug body.

In the bottle plug disclosed in the present application, the bottom portion of the contact member is arranged between the bottom lid portion of the plug body and the bottom lid portion at a distance substantially equal to the axial length of the small diameter portion.

Further, in the bottle stopper disclosed in the present application, the contact member contains an inorganic compound or a second resin as a main component. The thermal deformation temperature of the second resin is higher than the thermal deformation temperature of the first resin.

Further, in Binsen disclosed in the present application, the peripheral wall has a rib of multiple. The plurality of ribs are projected from the inner peripheral surface of the peripheral wall at intervals wider than their own width in the circumferential direction so as to extend from the large diameter portion to the small diameter portion. Then, the abutting member abuts the previous SL plurality of ribs.

Further, in the bottle stopper disclosed in the present application, the main body portion has a plurality of recesses. The plurality of recesses are fitted into the plurality of ribs.

According to the bottle stopper of the present invention, the stopper body has a hollow portion and a tubular peripheral wall surrounding the hollow portion, and a contact member is disposed in the hollow portion of the stopper body and abuts on the peripheral wall. Higher heat resistance than. Therefore, even when the bottle is sterilized for drinking, the airtightness of the bottle mouth can be maintained well.

(A) is a side view showing a bottle stopper according to the first embodiment of the present invention. (B) is a cross-sectional view showing a bottle stopper according to the first embodiment of the present invention. It is sectional drawing which shows the internal structure of the plug body which concerns on Embodiment 1 of this invention. It is sectional drawing which shows the bottle stopper which concerns on Embodiment 2 of this invention.

Hereinafter, embodiments relating to the bottle stopper according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Since each of the embodiments described below is a preferable specific example for carrying out the present invention, various technical restrictions are made, but the present invention particularly limits the invention in the following description. Is not limited to this form unless otherwise specified. Further, in the following description, "upper" indicates an upward direction in FIGS. 1 to 3, and "lower" indicates an opposite direction.

[Embodiment 1]
Hereinafter, the first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. 1A is a side view showing a bottle stopper according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1B is a cross-sectional view showing a bottle stopper according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing the internal structure of the plug body according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the bottle stopper according to the embodiment includes a stopper body 1 that closes the bottle mouth 20 and a contact member 2. Further, the bottle stopper according to the embodiment includes an upper lid 3 and a film 16.

The plug 1 contains the first resin as a main component, and has a hollow portion 11 and a tubular peripheral wall 12 surrounding the hollow portion 11. That is, among the components contained in the plug 1, the component contained most is the first resin. When the stopper body 1 is press-fitted into the bottle mouth 20, the peripheral wall 12 comes into contact with the bottle mouth 20 and seals the bottle mouth 20. The first resin is, for example, polyethylene. The contact member 2 is arranged in the hollow portion 11 as shown in FIG. 1 (b). Further, the contact member 2 comes into contact with the peripheral wall 12 and has higher heat resistance than the peripheral wall 12. Regarding the level of heat resistance, the higher the temperature at which properties such as morphology change in various tests in which heat such as thermal deformation temperature, glass transition temperature, and softening point is applied, the higher the heat resistance.

As shown in FIG. 2, the plug 1 has a cup shape, and includes a peripheral wall 12, a step portion 13 connected to the upper end of the peripheral wall 12, and a flange portion 14 connected to the upper end of the step portion 13. It has a bottom lid portion 15 connected to the lower end of the peripheral wall 12. The peripheral wall 12 has a cylindrical shape in the embodiment. When the stopper 1 is press-fitted into the bottle mouth 20, the outer peripheral portion of the peripheral wall 12 comes into close contact with the inner peripheral surface of the bottle mouth 20 to seal the bottle mouth 20.

As shown in FIG. 1, a ridge 18 can be provided on the outer peripheral surface of the peripheral wall 12 in order to enhance the airtightness of the bottle mouth 20. The ridges 18 are annular and are formed on the outer peripheral surface of the peripheral wall 12 so as to extend in the circumferential direction of the peripheral wall 12. Further, only one ridge 18 may be provided on the outer peripheral surface of the peripheral wall 12, or a plurality of ridges 18 may be provided in order to more stably seal the bottle mouth 20.

The step portion 13 has a ring shape having a diameter larger than that of the peripheral wall 12. The inner peripheral surface of the step portion 13 is continuous with the inner peripheral surface 17 of the peripheral wall 12. When the stopper 1 is press-fitted into the bottle mouth 20, the lower end portion 13a of the step portion 13 comes into contact with the upper end portion of the bottle mouth 20. An annular ridge may be provided on the lower end 13a of the step 13 so as to extend in the circumferential direction in order to enhance the airtightness between the lower end 13a and the upper end of the bottle mouth 20.

The flange portion 14 has a ring shape having a diameter larger than that of the step portion 13. The inner diameter of the flange portion 14 is larger than the inner diameter of the step portion 13. The outer diameter of the flange portion 14 is larger than the outer diameter of the step portion 13. As described above, the step portion 13 is arranged between the peripheral wall 12 and the flange portion 14. By disposing the step portion 13 between the peripheral wall 12 and the flange portion 14, a gap is formed between the flange portion 14 and the upper end portion of the bottle mouth 20 as shown in FIG. 1 (a). Therefore, when the bottle stopper is pulled out from the bottle mouth 20, the fingertip can be inserted into the gap, and the bottle stopper can be easily pulled out from the bottle mouth 20. Further, the bottom lid portion 15 has a dish shape with a raised central portion, and closes the hollow portion 11 from below.

As shown in FIG. 1B, the upper lid 3 is attached to the flange portion 14 so as to cover the upper opening of the plug 1. The upper lid 3 has a top plate portion 31, a side plate portion 32, and a lower plate portion 33. The top plate portion 31 has a circular fitting plate portion 31a and a peripheral edge portion 31b. The fitting plate portion 31a is fitted into the upper opening of the plug 1. The peripheral edge portion 31b covers the upper end surface of the flange portion 14. The side plate portion 32 has a cylindrical shape and covers the outer peripheral surface of the flange portion 14. A plurality of groove portions 32a can be formed on the outer surface of the side plate portion 32 to prevent slipping. The lower plate portion 33 is formed by caulking inward a cylindrical plate material extending downward from the lower end of the side plate portion 32. The lower plate portion 33 comes into contact with the lower end portion of the flange portion 14. The film 16 is formed of, for example, a resin-laminated aluminum foil. The film 16 prevents the odor from being transferred from the stopper 1 to the drink during bottle sterilization. In the embodiment, the drink is sake.

[Peripheral wall 12]
Next, the peripheral wall 12 will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. As shown in FIG. 2, the peripheral wall 12 has a large diameter portion 12a and a small diameter portion 12b, and a plurality of ribs 40. The small diameter portion 12b is arranged below the large diameter portion 12a. In the stopper body 1, the large diameter portion 12a is mainly in close contact with the bottle mouth 20, and the bottle mouth 20 is sealed.

Further, the peripheral wall 12 has a connecting portion 12c that connects the large diameter portion 12a and the small diameter portion 12b. The diameter of the connecting portion 12c increases from the bottom to the top. Further, the inner peripheral surface 17 of the peripheral wall 12 is divided into an upper portion 17a, a lower portion 17b, and an intermediate portion 17c corresponding to the peripheral wall 12 being divided into a large diameter portion 12a, a small diameter portion 12b, and a connecting portion 12c. Will be done.

As shown in FIG. 2, the plurality of ribs 40 project from the inner peripheral surface 17 of the peripheral wall 12 so as to extend from the large diameter portion 12a to the small diameter portion 12b. Further, the plurality of ribs 40 are projected from the inner peripheral surface 17 at regular intervals in the circumferential direction. The length of the plurality of ribs 40 protruding inward in the radial direction on the upper portion 17a of the inner peripheral surface 17 is the length of the plurality of ribs 40 protruding inward in the radial direction on the lower portion 17b of the inner peripheral surface 17. Longer than that. Further, in the intermediate portion 17c of the inner peripheral surface 17, the length of the plurality of ribs 40 protruding inward in the radial direction increases from the bottom to the top. In the embodiment, the plurality of ribs 40 extend upward from the upper portion 17a of the inner peripheral surface 17 to the inner peripheral surface of the step portion 13.

[Abutment member 2]
Next, the contact member 2 will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. The contact member 2 contains an inorganic compound as a main component. That is, among the components contained in the contact member 2, the component contained most is the inorganic compound. Therefore, the contact member 2 is less likely to be thermally deformed than the first resin of the plug 1, and has high heat resistance. As the inorganic compound forming the abutting member 2, a metal such as aluminum or an aluminum alloy, a metal oxide such as silicon oxide, aluminum oxide, zirconium oxide, or barium titanate can be used. Further, the contact member 2 has a tubular main body portion 21. The main body 21 comes into contact with the plurality of ribs 40. In the embodiment, the contact member 2 has a cup shape and has a cylindrical main body portion 21, a bottom portion 22, and an edge plate portion 23. The contact member 2 has a cup shape in the present embodiment, but may have various shapes such as a tubular shape, a columnar shape, and a spherical shape in other embodiments.

Further, the main body 21 has a plurality of recesses 24. The plurality of recesses 24 are recessed inward in the radial direction. Further, the plurality of recesses 24 are in close contact with the plurality of ribs 40 of the plug 1. The positions where the plurality of recesses 24 are formed correspond to the positions of the plurality of ribs 40, and the plurality of ribs 40 abut on the main body 21 at the bottoms of the plurality of recesses 24. The main body 21 of the contact member 2 does not have a plurality of recesses 24 in advance, and the plurality of recesses 24 have a cylindrical shape when the contact member 2 is pushed into the hollow portion 11 of the plug body 1. The main body 21 is deformed and formed on the main body 21. Further, the plurality of recesses 24 may be formed in the main body 21 so as to face the rib 40 in advance before the contact member 2 is pushed into the hollow portion 11 of the plug 1.

The bottom portion 22 is continuously provided at the lower end portion of the main body portion 21. The edge plate portion 23 is an annular plate material, and is continuously provided so as to project outward in the radial direction from the upper end portion of the main body portion 21. The lower surface of the edge plate portion 23 comes into contact with the upper end surface of the step portion 13. The contact member 2 is pushed into the hollow portion 11 from the upper end opening of the plug 1 until the lower surface of the edge plate portion 23 abuts on the upper end surface of the step portion 13 with the bottom portion 22 facing down.

[Bottle sterilization]
When the drink is sake, the burning by sterilizing the bottle is performed by the following first to fourth steps. By burning by sterilizing bottles, it is possible to prevent the mouthfeel and aroma of sake from being impaired, and it is possible to maintain a good flavor.

In the first step, sake is injected into a liquor bottle (for example, a bottle). In the second step, the plug 1 is press-fitted into the bottle mouth 20 until the step portion 13 comes into contact with the bottle mouth 20, and the bottle mouth 20 is sealed. The first step and the second step are repeated a predetermined number of times, and a predetermined number of liquor bottles in which sake is injected and the bottle mouth 20 is sealed are prepared. In the third step, a predetermined number of liquor bottles are placed on a conveyor and moved so as to pass through a shower space where hot water of 60 to 65 ° C is poured, and the sake is continuously heated to 60 to 65 ° C. In the fourth step, sake is cooled. In the third step, a predetermined number of liquor bottles can be heated in a batch manner by boiling water.

As described above with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, according to the present embodiment, the contact member 2 is arranged in the hollow portion 11 of the plug body 1, and the contact member 2 is a peripheral wall. It comes into contact with 12 and has higher heat resistance than the peripheral wall 12. Therefore, the stopper 1 is made of a resin having relatively low heat resistance, such as soft polyethylene, and the airtightness of the bottle mouth 20 is good even when sterilizing a drink such as sake. Can be maintained. More specifically, when the bottle stopper is pulled out from the bottle mouth 20, the bottle stopper is not easily pulled out too easily or the bottle stopper is not too loose, and a good opening feeling can be obtained.

In addition, in order to prevent the problem that the stopper body 1 cannot be sealed due to thermal deformation, it is not possible to obtain a good opening feeling only by using a harder and less heat-deformable resin as the material of the stopper body 1. Have difficulty. Bottle sterilization is performed under various heating temperatures and heating times, and it is difficult to obtain a good opening feeling under all conditions. Further, even if a hard resin is used as the material of the stopper body 1, if the material is denatured due to the heat history, the airtightness with the bottle mouth 20 cannot be sufficiently maintained. On the contrary, the plug 1 may be too hard to be pulled out, especially when the bottle is not sterilized. In the present embodiment, the material of the plug 1 is not changed to a hard resin, but the contact member 2 prevents a problem that the plug 1 cannot be sealed due to thermal deformation. Therefore, a good opening feeling can be achieved for bottle sterilization performed under various conditions. In addition, it is possible to prevent the plug 1 from being too hard to be pulled out.

Further, as described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, according to the present embodiment, the plurality of ribs 40 are formed on the inner peripheral surface 17 at regular intervals in the circumferential direction, and the contact member 2 Abuts on a plurality of ribs 40. Therefore, the inner peripheral surface 17 of the peripheral wall 12 does not abut on the contact member 2 on the entire surface, and the tolerance for elastic deformation of the plug body 1 can be ensured, and it is more effective that the plug body 1 is too hard to be pulled out. Can be prevented.

Further, as described with reference to FIG. 2, according to the present embodiment, the small diameter portion 12b is arranged under the large diameter portion 12a in the plug body 1, and is shown in FIG. 1 (a). As described above, a gap is secured between the lower portion of the plug 1 and the bottle mouth 20. Therefore, when the bottle stopper is pulled out from the bottle mouth 20, the axis of the stopper body 1 can be tilted with respect to the axis of the bottle mouth 20, and the bottle stopper can be easily pulled out from the bottle mouth 20. That is, when the fingertip is inserted between the flange portion 14 and the bottle mouth 20, the bottle stopper can be tilted greatly, and the bottle stopper can be easily pulled out from the bottle mouth 20.

Further, since the small diameter portion 12b is arranged in the lower part of the stopper body 1, when the stopper body 1 is press-fitted into the bottle mouth 20, it becomes easy to insert the stopper body 1 into the bottle mouth 20, and the bottle stopper can be inserted. It becomes easy to attach to the bottle mouth 20.

[Embodiment 2]
Next, the second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a bottle stopper according to a second embodiment of the present invention. Hereinafter, the differences between the second embodiment and the first embodiment will be mainly described.

In the second embodiment, the plug 1A has a peripheral wall 12, a step portion 13, a flange portion 14A, and a bottom lid portion 15. The flange portion 14A has an annular convex portion 19. Further, the upper lid 3A has a top plate portion 31A, a side plate portion 32, and a lower plate portion 33. The top plate portion 31A has a circular portion 31c, an inclined portion 31d, and a peripheral portion 31b.

The circular portion 31c has a diameter equal to the outer diameter of the annular convex portion 19 and is arranged on the annular convex portion 19. The inclined portion 31d is arranged between the circular portion 31c and the peripheral edge portion 31b, and connects the circular portion 31c and the peripheral edge portion 31b. As described above, in the second embodiment, the flange portion 14A has the annular convex portion 19. Therefore, it is possible to impart a design different to that of the bottle stopper of the first embodiment to the bottle stopper.

The embodiments of the present invention have been described above with reference to the drawings (FIGS. 1 to 3). However, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and can be implemented in various aspects without departing from the gist of the present invention (for example, (1) shown below).

(1) In the above embodiment, the contact member 2 contains an inorganic compound as a main component, but the contact member 2 may contain a second resin as a main component. However, regarding the thermal deformation temperature, which is one of the indexes indicating heat resistance (for example, it can be measured by the test indicated by the deflection temperature under load in JIS7191-2: 2007), the thermal deformation temperature of the second resin is the first. 1 Higher than the heat distortion temperature of the resin. From the viewpoint of productivity, the contact member 2 preferably contains an inorganic compound as a main component, but when polyethylene is used as the first resin of the plug 1, polypropylene or the like is used as the material of the contact member 2. Even if a resin having a high thermal deformation temperature is used, the same effect as that of the above-described embodiment can be achieved. The abutting member can also be formed from cork.

1, 1A ... Plug 11 ... Hollow part 12 ... Peripheral wall 12a ... Large diameter part 12b ... Small diameter part 17 ... Inner peripheral surface 2 ... Contact member 20 ... Bottle mouth 21 ... Main body 40 ... Ribs

Claims (6)

A cylindrical peripheral wall containing a first resin as a main component, having a hollow portion, an upper large diameter portion and a lower small diameter portion, and surrounding the hollow portion , and a bottom lid portion connected to the lower end of the peripheral wall. When the bottle mouth is press-fitted, the large diameter portion of the peripheral wall comes into contact with the bottle mouth to seal the bottle mouth.
A contact member that is disposed in the hollow portion of the plug body, abuts on the large diameter portion of the peripheral wall, and has higher heat resistance than the peripheral wall of the plug body, and is arranged coaxially with the peripheral wall. It is arranged at a certain distance between a tubular main body portion of the peripheral wall facing the large diameter portion and the bottom lid portion of the plug body which is connected to the lower end of the main body portion. A bottle stopper with a contact member having a bottom. The bottle plug according to claim 1, wherein the bottom portion of the contact member is arranged between the bottom lid portion of the plug body and the bottom lid portion at a distance substantially equal to the axial length of the small diameter portion. The bottle stopper according to claim 1 or 2 , wherein the contact member contains an inorganic compound as a main component. The contact member contains a second resin as a main component and contains.
The bottle stopper according to claim 1 or 2 , wherein the thermal deformation temperature of the second resin is higher than the thermal deformation temperature of the first resin. The peripheral wall of the plug body, before the Kitai diameter to the inner peripheral surface of the peripheral wall so as to extend across the small diameter portion, a plurality of re blanking which is projected at a wider spacing than its width in the circumferential direction Have and
It said abutment member, Binsen according to any one of claims 4 請Motomeko 1 you contact with the plurality of ribs. The bottle stopper according to claim 5 , wherein the main body of the contact member has a plurality of recesses fitted to the plurality of ribs.

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