Classifications

• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A23—FOODS OR FOODSTUFFS; TREATMENT THEREOF, NOT COVERED BY OTHER CLASSES
  • A23N—MACHINES OR APPARATUS FOR TREATING HARVESTED FRUIT, VEGETABLES OR FLOWER BULBS IN BULK, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; PEELING VEGETABLES OR FRUIT IN BULK; APPARATUS FOR PREPARING ANIMAL FEEDING- STUFFS
  • A23N1/00—Machines or apparatus for extracting juice
  • A23N1/02—Machines or apparatus for extracting juice combined with disintegrating or cutting
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A23—FOODS OR FOODSTUFFS; TREATMENT THEREOF, NOT COVERED BY OTHER CLASSES
  • A23N—MACHINES OR APPARATUS FOR TREATING HARVESTED FRUIT, VEGETABLES OR FLOWER BULBS IN BULK, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; PEELING VEGETABLES OR FRUIT IN BULK; APPARATUS FOR PREPARING ANIMAL FEEDING- STUFFS
  • A23N15/00—Machines or apparatus for other treatment of fruits or vegetables for human purposes; Machines or apparatus for topping or skinning flower bulbs
  • A23N15/02—Machines or apparatus for other treatment of fruits or vegetables for human purposes; Machines or apparatus for topping or skinning flower bulbs for stemming, piercing, or stripping fruit; Removing sprouts of potatoes
  • A23N15/025—Machines or apparatus for other treatment of fruits or vegetables for human purposes; Machines or apparatus for topping or skinning flower bulbs for stemming, piercing, or stripping fruit; Removing sprouts of potatoes for stemming grapes
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B30—PRESSES
  • B30B—PRESSES IN GENERAL
  • B30B9/00—Presses specially adapted for particular purposes
  • B30B9/02—Presses specially adapted for particular purposes for squeezing-out liquid from liquid-containing material, e.g. juice from fruits, oil from oil-containing material
  • B30B9/20—Presses specially adapted for particular purposes for squeezing-out liquid from liquid-containing material, e.g. juice from fruits, oil from oil-containing material using rotary pressing members, other than worms or screws, e.g. rollers, rings, discs

Definitions

• the present invention refers to a single-unit grape-processing apparatus of the type commonly known as a destemmer-crusher and used in the wine-making industry. Although such a ⁇ apparatus is used to also process other kinds of fruit (such as cherries, currants, and the like), for reasons of greater simplicity reference will in particular be made to the processing of grapes in the following description.
• An apparatus of this kind currently made by the Applicant and marketed under the model designation DPC, comprises: - a hopper for loading the bunches of grapes, which accommodates a screw feeder for introducing the bunches of grapes into a casing with an elongated shape; - a beater shaft, attached to the screw feeder and aligned therewith, provided with a plurality of radial vanes spaced from each other in a helical pattern; - a perforated cylindrical envelope, provided coaxially with the beater shaft, whose cylindrical surface is arranged at a very short distance from the free extremities of the vanes of the beater shaft.
• this cylindrical envelope ensures the so-called destemming of the bunches of grapes, i.e. the complete separation of the grapes (which are able to escape through the perforations of the cylindrical envelope) from the stalks (which are unloaded through an aperture provided at the end of the horizontal casing); - a first vertical-axis electric motor that rotatably drives the screw feeder, the beater shaft and the cylindrical envelope, or cage, via motion transmission means that comprise a bevel-gear drive; - a pair of parallel, counter-rotating and adjustably spaced rollers driven by a second motor, which are made of a food-grade soft rubber compound and are arranged at an adjustable centre-to- centre distance from each other.
• the average size of the grape clusters and the related grapes can vary to even a wide extent, and that an efficient operation must be in all cases and anyway ensured, the need arises for the rotating speed of the beater shaft (and, as a result, also the screw feeder and the perforated cylindrical envelope) to be adjusted each time.
• This adjustment may be carried out by using, as a first motor, an adjustable speed electric motor, a gearmotor or, again, a fixed-speed electric motor provided with variable-diameter pulley, i.e.
• the apparatus by equipping the apparatus with a beater-shaft driving means which is certainly expensive and/or sophisticated andor relatively unreliable; b) the pressing rollers are in turn driven by a separate motor, which can therefore be kept inactive, i.e. off, if it is not desired to press also the skins of the grapes in view of obtaining a white wine. It can be readily appreciated that the provision of a second motor constitutes a further complication of the apparatus, at least from an economic point of view.
• TJS-A-3 703 443 is also an apparatus which carries out with the same parts, and therefore at the same time, the separation of the grapes from the stalks and the pressing of the grapes, since the free extremities of the vanes attached to the beater shaft glide against the inner surface of a tube that slopes upwards starting from the loading hopper.
• this tube On its lower portion, this tube is provided with two arrays of perforations, wherein the perforations of the lower array are larger in their size than the perforations of the higher array, so that through said first, larger perforations there can be discharged the pressed grapes, including the skins thereof, while through said second, smaller perforations there can solely escape pressed grape juice.
• this apparatus has however a couple of major drawbacks, i.e.: a) it is in no case capable of solely destemming and/or solely pressing, so that it is scarcely flexible in its use; b) the functional adaptation to the changing physical properties of the raw material to be processed is obtained by varying the upward inclination of said tube, i.e. with an operation to be carried out by hand and, therefore, scarcely accurate. It would therefore be desirable, and is actually the main object of the present invention to provide a destemming-pressing apparatus, which is capable of ensuring a very flexible mode of operation capable of adapting to the physical properties of the raw material being processed without requesting any action to be performed manually by an operator to such purpose.
• Another purpose of the present invention is to provide a destemming-pressing apparatus of the above-cited kind, which is simple and reliable in its construction. According to the present invention, these and further aims are reached in a destemming- pressing apparatus incorporating the features as defined and recited in the appended claims.
• - Figure 1 is a front view of the apparatus according to the present invention
• - Figure 2 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the apparatus along the line A-A in Figure 1;
• FIG. 3 is a partial longitudinal cross-sectional view along the line B-B in Figure 1 ;
• FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of the apparatus along the line C-C in Figure 2;
• FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of the apparatus along the line D-D in Figure 2;
• - Figure 6 is a cross-sectional view of the apparatus along the line E-E in Figure 2;
• - Figure 7 is a front view of the apparatus according to the present invention in a second embodiment and a first operating condition thereof;
• FIG. 8 is a partial longitudinal cross-sectional view of the apparatus along the line A-A in Figure 7;
• FIG. 9 is a front view of the apparatus illustrated in Figures 7 and 8, in a second operating condition thereof;
• FIG. 10 is a partial longitudinal cross-sectional view of the apparatus along the line B-B in Figure 9.
• the grape destemming-pressing apparatus shown in the Figures comprises a roughly cylindrically shaped casing 10 made of stainless steel, which extends along a horizontal axis X and is associated to a hopper 15, which is also made of stainless steel and is loaded with the raw material to be processed, i.e. the bunches of grapes.
• This casing 10 is supported by two pairs of legs 12, which are situated under the hopper 15 and the front or free end portion thereof, respectively (see Figures 1 and 2), and are provided with wheels or castors 14 in view of enabling the apparatus to be conveniently displaced, if and whenever this may be needed, in particular within a winery or wine-making facility.
• a cover On the top portion of the casing 10 there is a cover, which is also made of stainless steel and is hinged along an axis extending parallel to the above-mentioned axis X, although it is not shown in the accompanying Figures in view of more clearly and evidently illustrating the functional parts and details of the apparatus described below.
• a screw feeder 16 of stainless steel On the bottom of the hopper 15 there is provided a screw feeder 16 of stainless steel, which extends along the axis X and transfers the raw material into the interior of the casing 10 through a circular aperture 11 in the wall that is shared by the casing 10 and the hopper 15.
• beater shaft derives from the plurality of radial vanes 22 that are attached to the shaft itself in a helical pattern with respect to the same axis X and co-operate with a cylindrical envelope 30 surrounding said shaft over most of the length thereof, i.e. up to a point close to said journal bearing 17 - see Figure 2.
• the cylindrical envelope 30 is obtained by means of generally known deep-drawing, roll- forming and welding techniques starting from a stainless-steel blank.
• the end portions thereof are provided with radial flanges 34A and 34B, which are obtained by means of heading operations and are such as to ensure the centering, i.e. the concentric placement thereof.
• radial flanges 34A and 34B which are obtained by means of heading operations and are such as to ensure the centering, i.e. the concentric placement thereof.
• the cylindrical envelope 30 features a second circumferential band, in which there is provided a series of equally spaced elongated slots 38, parallel to the axis X, whose function shall be explained in greater detail further on. Beyond these oblong slots 38, the remaining surface of the cylindrical envelope 30 features a great number of perforations 36 (distributed uniformly all over said surface, resemblant to the rotating drum of a clothes washing machine), which are sized as to prevent the sole stalks, after the separations of the grapes, from passing therethrough, as this shall be described in greater detail .further on. In proximity of the second flange 34B, the cylindrical envelope 30 features another smooth circumferential band 33, which is free from either perforations 36 or slots 38.
• this diffuser member 35 has the smaller base thereof located immediately beyond the circular aperture 11 of the wall shared by the casing 10 and the hopper 15, and the larger base thereof, whose overall size is suitably larger than the diameter of the circular aperture 11 and smaller than the inside diameter of the perforated cylindrical envelope 30, located in correspondence of the vanes 22 that are the closest ones to the hopper 15. Thanks to this diffuser member 35, an adaptation of the delivery rate of raw material undergoing destemming to the physical properties of the same raw material is obtained automatically, i.e. without any need for an operator to do this manually.
• the apparatus comprises a second casing 40, which is again made of stainless steel and houses the parts of the apparatus that are used to press the grapes upon them being separated from the stalks.
• These parts substantially consist of a pair of four-lobe rollers 41 and 42 (see Figure 5), which are made of synthetic materials capable of deforrning elastically and are mounted on respective horizontal shafts 43 and 44, whose axes PI and P2 are fixed and parallel to the axis X (see Figure 6).
• said second casing 40 is open on the bottom at 49, so as to be able to be connected, say, to a vinification tank and/or a transfer pump.
• a single fixed-speed electric motor 50 e.g. an asynchronous motor, which is supported by the lower portion of the first casing 10 by means of a bracket 51, in such a manner that the axis M of said motor is parallel to the axis X, too.
• a sprocket 28 that is connected via a second chain 55 and a chain-stretching (or belt-stretching) wheel to both a second gearwheel 57 and the sprockets 45 and 46 that are mounted on the cantilever end portions of the shafts 43 and 44 of the pressing rollers 41 and 42, respectively (see Figures 2, 5 and 6).
• This second gearwheel 57 is mounted on a first cantilever end portion of a shaft 58, whose axis C is parallel to the axis X.
• This shaft 58 is supported by means of bearings provided with two vertical brackets 18 and 19 protruding below the hopper 15.
• the second chain 55 also meshes with the teeth of the sprockets 45 and 46 that are mounted on the cantilever end portions of the shafts 43 and 44 of the pressing rollers 41 and 42, respectively (see Figures 1 and 6).
• These sprockets 45 and 46 which ensure a fixed gear ratio, are mounted idle, but, according to a further feature of the present invention, are provided with such means as cotter pins or the like, which enable them to be alternatively blocked on to the respective shaft, whenever this may also be needed.
• the second embodiment includes a system provided to vary the distance of the beater shaft with respect to the cylindrical envelope.
• This particular feature of the present invention enables not only the effectiveness of the beater shaft to be enhanced, so as to prevent residues of any kind from being able to mingle with destemmed grapes, but also the cylindrical envelope to be more effectively wiped clean and smaller grapes, that may still be attached to the stalks, to be properly destemmed, too.
• This second embodiment of the present invention differs from the first afore-described one for the details that are specifically illustrated in the Figures 7 to 10, the remaining construction of the apparatus being for the rest substantially unaltered with respect to the one described in connection with the first embodiment.
• homologous component parts entering the construction of this second embodiment will be indicated using the same reference numerals as used in connection with the first embodiment, however with the addition of the prefix "1".
• the beater shaft 120 is supported by a journal bearing 117, which is provided in contact with the inner surface of the casing 110 in a position corresponding to the front end portion 113 of said casing.
• Said bearing 117 has an eccentric cavity 117a adapted to receive a corresponding journal 120a of the beater shaft 120, which extends along the same axis X thereof.
• a crank 190 Firmly joined to the journal bearing 117, externally of said front end portion 113 of the casing and, therefore, accessible to the operator, there is provided a crank 190.
• This crank 190 is made so as to be able to perform a rotation of 90° in the clockwise or anti-clockwise direction with respect to an intermediate vertical position thereof (in which both the beater shaft 120 and the cylindrical envelope 130 usually extend along the same axis X), thereby reaching the positions shown in Figures 7 and 9, respectively, and correspondingly moving the journal bearing 117, which it is firmly joined to.
• This journal bearing 117 is mounted in such a manner that to said positions reached by said crank 190 there corresponds a maximum extent of upwards or downwards eccentricity of the cavity 117a with respect to the axis X, as this is illustrated in Figures 8 and 10, respectively.
• the movement of the crank 190 is capable of determining two extreme working points of the beater shaft 120.
• crank 190 Locking means (not shown in the Figures) may be provided for the crank 190, which may also have extreme positions differing from HIQ ones illustrated in the Figures.
• the beater shaft 120 Owing to the adequate mechanical clearance provisions in the gear assembly situated on the rear side of the apparatus (which is substantially the same as the one described in connection with the first embodiment), the beater shaft 120 is capable of inclining without any need arising for particular mechanical measures to be taken to such purpose. If required, especially in the case of quite marked extents of eccentricity of the cavity 117a, use can possibly be made of a universal joint (not shown) at the opposite end portion of the beater shaft.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
• Chemical & Material Sciences (AREA)
• Food Science & Technology (AREA)
• Polymers & Plastics (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Apparatuses For Bulk Treatment Of Fruits And Vegetables And Apparatuses For Preparing Feeds (AREA)

Priority Applications (3)

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Publications (1)

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ID=34531880

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (3)

Cited By (12)

Citations (4)

• 2003
  • 2003-11-03 WO PCT/IT2003/000712 patent/WO2005041696A1/en active Application Filing
  • 2003-11-03 AU AU2003292515A patent/AU2003292515A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2003-11-03 EP EP03768097A patent/EP1684601A1/de not_active Withdrawn

Patent Citations (4)

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