Specification of James Tate : furnaces, coppers, &c. for brewing and distilling.

  • Tate, James.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of James Tate : furnaces, coppers, &c. for brewing and distilling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Tates Improvements in Applying Fire to the Coppers of Brewers, cJ-c. boiling or beating any given quantity of liquor in a large vessell, such T, -§, and so on with a proportionable quantity of fuel; for by lighting only one fire the copper will boil one-third full of liquor in equal time as three fires would, if quite full, and so in proportion to the number of fires, which cannot be done by the old method. As the great object of this my Invention is the 5 saving of fuel or to obtain the greatest quantity of heat from the smallest quantity of fuel, to obtain this end it will be necessary, first, to expose the greatest possible part of the external surface of the vessels to be heated to the action of the fire, and next to press the fire or flame as close as possible to that surface; for if the flues are to wide the fire passes to the chimney without 10 being exhausted on the object, and if two small the fuel will not be sufficiently inflamed; therefore, in order to explain the benefit to be obtained by the improved flues hereafter to be described, it will be necessary to consider the effect produced by the same quantity of fuel conveyed in different sized flues to the object to be heated : for instance, let a given quantity of fuel be 15 put in a furnace, and a vessell or copper set at the distance of five feet from the fire, that only the flame might act upon the vessell, let the heat from this fire be conveyed round the copper in a flue eight inches high by four wide; then let the same quantity of fuel be put in such another furnace, and a copper of the same size set at the same distance, only the flue to be eight inches high 20 by two wide ; on lighting both fires it will be found that the one with the small flue will boil nearly as soon again as the other. I mean these coppers to be about the size of twenty gallons. Now if this last flue was yet diminished in width the copper would still attract a greater proportion of the passing heat. It thence follows that the heat communicated to coppers by flues is in a great 25 measure in proportion to the width of the flue from the side of the copper; therefore to obtain the benefit of narrow flues and to confine the heat as much as possible to the side of the copper, and to render these flues not liable to choak up, is the object of my improvement on flues, which is performed in the following manner. I cause the bottom of the flues to be made much about 39 the usual width or a little wider; from thence to about a fourth part of the whole height, to be tapered or drawn in a little; from thence to the top then again to be tapered or drawn in till it terminates at about one and half or two inches wide at top, tho’ from ten to twelve inches wide at the bottom more or less. This will be better understood by referring to the Drawing, Figure 4, 35 which represents both the old and the improved flues, and which on a due com¬ parison between them it wall be evident, first, that the surface of the copper exposed in each is equal; secondly, that the quantity of flame sufficient to fill the improved flue would do little more than half fill the other; thirdly, that