Suiter Swantz IP takes a look back at past inventions and inventors with our Patent Of The Day.
On this day in 1904, THeodore R. Timby was granted U.S. Patent No. 754,943 for a METHOD OF ROASTING COFFEE.
In carrying out this method a quantitiy of coffee-beans is added in the drum and them the drum is hermetically sealed. Then the fire is lighted under the drum or the drum otherwise heated, and the drum is slowly rotated, so as to keep the coffee-beans agitated and prevent them from burning to the side of the cylinder or from browning unequally. By preference there should be stirring-arms, within the drum, so as to act as scrapers or mixers for the coffee. The temperature within the drum may be carried to some 400° or to the heat necessary to secure a thorough roast of the coffee-beans, and the roasting may be continued as long as may be necessary. When pressure is formed in the drum by the expansion of air and gases and by the expansion of the coffee-beans, an outlet is permitted for the excess of pressure, as follows: The shaft is hollow and has perforations inside the drum. Shaft 2 is connected by a suitable pipe, which in turn communicates through suitable valves and by passages with the strong reservoirs, the valves serving to close the passages between these reservoirs and the pipe, which leads to drum. When it is desired to relieve the pressure in the drum, one of the valves is opened, and the aromatic vapor from the coffee produced by the heating or roasting then enters said reservoir, being thus withdrawn from the drum. Preferably, however, the full pressure developed during the roasting is allowed to remain on the coffee-beans until the same are roasted to such degree as experience shows is best adapted for the particular grade of coffee under treatment. Then the heat is permitted to fall away until the coffee is quite cool. There may still be a pressure in the drum, and the gas will then be led off into one of the reservoirs and there penned and stored. The cooling of the drum may be effected by the removal of the fire from the drum or the drum from the fire, as desirable, and any known means may be used to hasten the cooling. After coffee-beans are roasted in the drum they may be further treated to pressure by opening one or more of the valves permitting the entrance of air or gases stored under pressure in the reservoir to flow into the drum and restore to the beans any of the lost aroma due to the roasting.
Coffee as usually roasted in an open vessel loses from fifteen to twenty per cent in weight. By this process there is little or no loss of weight, as whatever is driven out of the beans in roasting is restored by the pressure of air and aromatic gases in the process of cooling.
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