JPH05337049A - Fully automatic coffee extractor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To extract the coffee for the desired number of people from the preset quantity of coffee beans without deteriorating flavor at the desired time. CONSTITUTION:The compressed air from a blast means 41 is heated by a heating means and fed to a parching section 43, and coffee beans are parched. The quantity (a) of coffee is inputted to a control means 48, and a valve mechanism 47 arranged on a conveyance section 46 is controlled to be opened or closed. When the valve mechanism 47 is opened, the parching section 43 is communicated with a crushing section 44 via a conveyance section 46, and the parched coffee beans are conveyed to the crushing section 44 by the compressed air via the conveyance section 46. A hot water feed means 45 feeds hot water to the coffee beans crushed at the crushing section 44. The control means 48 controls the hot water feed quantity of the hot water feed means 5 in response to the quantity (a) of coffee.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a fully automatic coffee brewing apparatus, and more particularly to a fully automatic coffee brewing apparatus (hereinafter, abbreviated as a device) for fully automatically extracting coffee from green beans.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when raw coffee beans are put into an apparatus, the coffee beans are roasted, the roasted coffee beans are ground, and the ground coffee beans are poured with hot water to extract the coffee. A fully automatic coffee brewing device that automatically performs a series of steps is known.

According to the conventional fully automatic coffee brewing device,
The coffee beans roasted in the roasting unit into which the coffee beans are put are ground in a coffee mill unit for grinding the coffee beans through a conveying unit such as a conveying pipe having an opening / closing mechanism such as a valve arranged at one end. It is transported to (crushing section). Generally, the roasting unit is arranged at a higher position than the coffee milling unit, and when roasting is completed and the coffee beans are cooled, the valve opens, and the coffee beans fall inside the conveyor unit by their own weight and the coffee It is configured to reach the mill section.

[0004]

However, in the conventional fully automatic coffee brewing apparatus, the coffee beans fall inside the conveyor section due to their own weight and reach the coffee mill section. There was a drawback that it was difficult to control the amount accurately.

That is, the opening / closing mechanism such as a valve is opened for a certain period of time after the roasting is completed, and the coffee beans can fall inside the transporting section only during that time. Therefore, if the roasted coffee beans do not fall smoothly into the coffee mill part due to somewhere in the transport part, all of the coffee beans put into the roasting part by the desired number of people are all added to the coffee mill. The opening / closing mechanism such as a valve might be closed before reaching the section.

On the other hand, when the coffee beans have been ground, the water preset in the fully automatic coffee extraction device for the desired number of people is heated and supplied to the coffee mill section to extract the coffee.

As a result, the predetermined number of coffee beans desired in advance is extracted from a smaller amount of coffee beans than the predetermined number of coffee beans previously put in the roasting section. Therefore, the extracted coffee may be thin and have a poor flavor.

On the other hand, in the conventional device, when the coffee beans drop smoothly into the coffee mill without sticking to the conveyor,
Since all of the coffee beans put in the roasting section are conveyed to the coffee mill section, it was not possible to store a certain amount of the roasted coffee beans in the apparatus.

Therefore, in such a case, in the conventional apparatus in which all of the roasted coffee beans are conveyed to the coffee mill section to be made into powder and extracted, the number of people who want to extract each time coffee is extracted It was necessary to accurately measure the amount of coffee beans for each minute and put them in the roasting section to extract coffee for a desired number of people.

In view of the above points, according to the present invention, a desired number of coffee beans can be reliably extracted from a desired number of coffee beans without impairing the flavor, and a fixed amount of roasted coffee beans is stored in the apparatus. It is another object of the present invention to provide a fully automatic coffee extraction device capable of extracting coffee beans having a fragrance by grinding a desired number of coffee beans at a desired time.

[0011]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention is configured as shown in the principle diagram shown in FIG.

That is, the compressed air blown by the blowing means 41 is heated by the heating means 42 to roast the coffee beans in a green state, and the coffee beans roasted by the roasting section 43. In the fully automatic coffee extraction device, which includes a crushing unit 44 for crushing coffee and a hot water supply unit 45 for supplying hot water to coffee beans crushed by the crushing unit 44 to extract coffee, A conveying unit 46 that communicates with each of the crushing units 44 to convey roasted coffee beans to the crushing unit by compressed air, a valve mechanism 47 disposed in the conveying unit,
The valve mechanism 47 is opened and closed to control the roasting section 43 and the crushing section 44 to communicate with each other, and the hot water supplied to the crushed coffee beans by the hot water supply means 45 according to the input desired coffee amount a. A control means 48 for controlling the quantity is provided.

[0013]

According to the present invention having the above-described structure, the roasting unit and the crushing unit are communicated with each other through the conveying unit by opening and closing the valve mechanism, and the roasted coffee beans are crushed by the compressed air through the conveying unit. Acts to be transported to the section. The valve mechanism is controlled to open and close by the control means. The amount of heated hot water supplied to the coffee beans conveyed to the crushing unit is controlled by the control unit according to a control signal input to the control unit.

[0014]

2 is a perspective view showing the external appearance of an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the outer appearance of the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a top view of an embodiment of the present invention, in which the part is enlarged and shown in a crushed view. FIG. 2 is a crushing front view obtained by crushing along line I-I in FIG. Below, FIG.
An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

The fully automatic coffee brewing device 1 shown in FIG.
Roughly speaking, the roasting unit 2, the crushing unit 3, and a conveying unit not shown in FIG. An operation panel 4 is provided on the front of the extraction device body 1a.
Is provided. Reference numeral 5 is a cartridge tank that is removably attached to the brewing apparatus main body 1a, in which water used when brewing coffee is put.

The roasting unit 2 is, as shown in FIG.
The lid 6, a roasting cylinder 7 made of heat-resistant glass, a roasting tube 8, a roasting case 9, a roasting net 10, a blower 11 and the like are included. The blower 11 includes a heater 11a (heating unit), a fan motor 11b (blowing unit), and a fan 11c (blowing unit).

The lid 6 is openable and closable, and raw coffee beans are put into the roasting case 9 from the upper part of the roasting cylinder 7. On the other hand, a valve mechanism 13 which is opened and closed by a solenoid (not shown) is arranged at the bottom of the roasting case 9. The valve mechanism 13 is normally closed as shown in the figure, and the conveying section 14 communicating with the crushing section 3 is closed.

At the bottom of the roasting case 9, there is also provided a coffee bean measuring mechanism, which will be described later and which is enlarged and shown in FIG.

The fan motor 11b drives the fan 11c, and the roasting case 9 is fed through the heater 11a and the roasting pad 10.
Compressed air with a predetermined pressure is sent to. The heater 11a is a nichrome coil heater and heats the compressed air sent from the fan 11c to a temperature suitable for roasting. The roasting net 10 is provided with a large number of holes having a predetermined diameter, and the compressed air is blown from the fan 11c without the raw coffee beans introduced into the roasting case 9 entering the blower 11.
It is configured to be sent to.

The heater 11a and the fan motor 11b are connected to a microcomputer (control means), which will be described later, provided on a control circuit board 15 provided in the vicinity of the operation panel 4 on the front of the extractor body 1a, and their operations are controlled. There is. With this microcomputer, when both the heater 11a and the fan motor 11b operate, the fan 11c rotates to send compressed hot air, and when only the fan motor 11b operates, compressed air is sent. The microcomputer also collectively controls other electric components provided in the extraction device main body 1a.

The roasting section 2 and the crushing section 3 are connected by a conveying section 14. One end of the transport unit 14 is opened and closed by a valve mechanism 13 that is controlled to be opened and closed by a microcomputer provided on the control circuit board 15. The other end of the transport unit 14 has an opening 14 a above the crushing unit 3.

The crushing unit 3 includes a crushing container 16 and a crushing container 16
Crushing cutter 17 provided inside, crushing cutter 17
It is composed of a mill motor 18 and the like for driving the. The crushing unit 3 is generally called a coffee mill, and crushes the roasted coffee beans by rotating the crushing cutter 17.

At the upper part of the crushing unit 3, there is provided a hot water supply pipe 19 for guiding hot water from the bottom of the cartridge tank 5 not shown in FIG. By this pipe, the water in the cartridge tank 5 is placed on the mounting portion 22a on which the pot 22 is mounted via a check valve (not shown) arranged at the bottom of the cartridge tank 5.
Be led to. The check valve is opened and closed by a solenoid.

A heater (not shown) is provided in the mounting portion 22a, and water is heated and pressurized by the heater, and is then piped to the hot water supply pipe 19. The hot water supply means includes piping (not shown), check valve, heater, and hot water supply pipe 19
It is composed by. Hot water from the hot water supply pipe 19 is dropped onto the ground coffee beans inside the grinding container 16 through the drip portion 20 provided on the upper part of the grinding container 16 to extract coffee.

In the present embodiment, when the crushing is completed in the crushing unit 3 for crushing the roasted coffee beans, the hot water supply pipe 1
Hot water is dropped from 9 and coffee is extracted in the crushing unit 3. The extracted coffee is dropped into the pot 22 through the extraction pipe 21 as shown in FIG.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a part of the control circuit applied to one embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 5, reference numeral 23 is a microcomputer.

Data for designating a desired amount of coffee is input to the microcomputer 23 (control means) by operating the keys on the operation panel 4. Microcomputer 2
The drive circuit 24, 25, 26 drives the solenoids 27, 28, 29 respectively according to the input data. The solenoid 27 drives the valve mechanism 13 to open and close. Solenoid 2
8 opens and closes a check valve arranged at the bottom of the cartridge tank 5. The solenoid 29 drives a coffee bean measuring mechanism described later.

Next, the process of brewing coffee in the fully automatic coffee brewing apparatus 1 having the above structure will be described step by step.

First, the lid 6 is opened, raw coffee beans are put into the roasting case 9, and the lid 6 is closed. Next, the operation panel 4 shows the roasting time of coffee beans, the amount of coffee to be extracted, the steps to be performed (roasting, cooling, milling, extraction, heat retention) and the like.
Input more and set as desired.

The fully automatic coffee brewing apparatus of this embodiment is constructed so that a maximum of 12 cups of coffee can be roasted and extracted. For example, 12 cups of raw coffee beans are added, 4 cups of coffee are extracted, and the process of keeping warm is set and the extraction device 1 is started.

When the extraction device 1 is started, the microcomputer 23 starts the heater 11a and the fan motor 11b, which causes the fan motor 11b and the heater 11a.
The compressed hot air generated in step 3 is blown into the roasting case 9 through the roasting lining 10. The compressed hot air blows up inside the roasting pipe 8 as shown in the figure, and since the upper part is closed by the lid 6, it circulates along the glass cover 7 to the bottom part of the roasting case 9. As a result, the raw coffee beans are roasted while circulating in the roasting unit 2.

The surface of the raw coffee beans is covered with a thin skin, and if the roasted coffee beans with the thin skin attached are ground and extracted, the flavor is deteriorated. However, when roasted with compressed hot air as in the present application, the thin skin on the coffee bean surface is completely peeled off.

When the roasting section 2 blows compressed hot air for a predetermined time to complete roasting of coffee beans, the microcomputer 23 stops the heater 11a. As a result, only the air is blown to the roasting case 9, and the roasted coffee beans are cooled.

When the coffee beans are cooled to the extent that they do not cause any inconvenience even if they are conveyed to the crushing unit 3, the microcomputer 23 stops the fan motor 11b to stop the blowing. When the blowing is stopped, the microcomputer 23 operates the drive circuit 26 to drive the solenoid 29. A solenoid 29 drives a coffee bean measuring mechanism arranged at the bottom of the roasting case 9.

Here, the coffee bean measuring mechanism will be described with reference to FIG. 4, those parts that are the same as those corresponding parts in FIG. 2 are designated by the same reference numerals, and a description thereof will be omitted. In FIG. 4, the solenoid 29 is fixed to the extraction device body 1a. A measuring cylinder 30 is arranged in the cylindrical portion 9a at the bottom of the roasting case 9. The measuring cylinder 30 has openings at the top and the bottom. A measuring lever 31 whose end is locked to a solenoid 29 is fixed to the measuring cylinder 30, and is driven up and down in the figure by the solenoid 29.

In the figure, the solid line shows the lower limit position of the measuring cylinder 30, and the broken line shows the upper limit position. A lock lever 32 is fixed to the roasting pipe 8. The lock lever 32 has a mortar shape at its tip as illustrated. The lock lever 32 is arranged at the uppermost position of the measuring cylinder 30 at the center of the upper opening of the measuring cylinder 30 to prevent coffee beans from entering the measuring cylinder 30. When the measuring tube 30 is at the lower limit position, coffee beans can enter and drop into the measuring tube 30.

When the coffee beans are roasted and cooled and the air supply is stopped, the microcomputer 23 actuates the drive circuit 26 to drive the solenoid 29 to move the measuring cylinder 30 up and down a predetermined number of times according to the input data. Measuring tube 30
Is in the lower limit position, the coffee beans enter the measuring tube 30 and fall to the bottom of the roasting case 9. This allows
Coffee beans for four persons set on the operation panel 4 are prepared at the bottom of the roasting case 9.

The remaining portion of the coffee beans that are put into the roasting section 2 and roasted is stored in the roasting case 9.

When coffee beans for the desired number of people are prepared,
The microcomputer 23 operates the drive circuit 24 to drive the solenoid 27 which does not appear in FIG. 4, opens the valve mechanism 13 as shown by the broken line in the figure, and connects the roasting section 2 with the transport section 14. Then, the microcomputer 23 operates the drive circuit 30 to rotationally drive the fan motor 11b, blows air as shown by an arrow A, and conveys the coffee beans to the crushing unit via the conveying unit 14. When the transportation is completed, the valve mechanism 13 is closed as shown by the solid line portion in the figure, and the blowing is stopped.

The roasted coffee beans for the desired number of people are ground in the grinding container 16 by the rotation of the grinding cutter 17. The crushing cutter 17 is driven by a mill motor 18 whose rotation is controlled by a microcomputer 23 for a predetermined time according to input data. As a result, when a desired number of coffee beans are crushed to a predetermined size, the check valve arranged at the bottom of the cartridge tank 5 is closed for a predetermined time, and a predetermined amount of heated hot water is supplied to the hot water supply pipe. The solenoid 28 is driven by the microcomputer 23 so as to be dropped from 19.

When hot water is dropped onto the ground coffee beans, the coffee is extracted and a desired amount of coffee is produced in the pot 22 through the extraction pipe 21.

As described above, according to the fully automatic coffee extraction apparatus of this embodiment, only a desired amount of the collectively roasted coffee beans is conveyed to the crushing section by compressed air and crushed to obtain a desired amount of hot water. Since the extraction is carried out by dropping, the desired number of coffees can be surely extracted from the desired number of coffee beans and the flavor is not impaired.

Further, a predetermined amount of roasted coffee beans can be stored in the roasting case of the apparatus without deteriorating the flavor, and when desired, a desired number of coffee beans are crushed, It is possible to extract highly flavored coffee.

In the above embodiment, the drip-type fully automatic coffee brewing apparatus has been described, but it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to a siphon type or other type of coffee brewing apparatus.

[0045]

As described above, according to the present invention, the desired number of coffees can be reliably extracted from the desired number of coffee beans without impairing the flavor, and a certain amount of coffee can be collected in advance. The roasted coffee beans are stored in the roasting part of the device without impairing the flavor, and when desired, the roasted coffee beans for the desired number of people are conveyed to the crushing part and ground to extract highly aromatic coffee. It has features such as being able to do.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a crushed main part of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an appearance of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a crushed view showing an enlarged main part of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a top view of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a part of a control circuit applied to one embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Fully Automatic Coffee Extractor 2 Roasting Part 3 Grinding Part 11 Blower 13 Valve Mechanism 14 Transfer Part 15 Control Circuit Board 19 Hot Water Supply Pipe (Hot Water Supply Means) 23 Microcomputer (Control Means)

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A roasting unit for roasting green coffee beans by heating compressed air blown by an air blowing unit by a heating unit, and crushing the coffee beans roasted by the roasting unit. In a fully automatic coffee extraction device equipped with a crushing unit and a hot water supply means for supplying hot water to coffee beans crushed in the crushing unit to extract coffee, each of the roasting unit and the crushing unit is provided. A conveying section that communicates with each other and conveys the roasted coffee beans to the crushing section by the compressed air, a valve mechanism disposed in the conveying section, and a valve mechanism that opens and closes the roasting section and the roasting section. And a control means for controlling the amount of hot water supplied to the crushed coffee beans from the hot water supply means according to the input desired amount of coffee. A fully automatic coffee extraction device.