The present invention refers to a device for regulating the temperature of beverages in a bottle equipped with means adapted to keep said temperature, cold or hot, by using cold or hot, soft or rigid accumulators, which can be used many times.
The device of the invention is suitable to regulate the temperature of said bottles in a range included between 0°C and 55°C, depending on the composition of said cold or hot accumulators.
The prior art baskets for ice have mainly two inconveniences.
A first inconvenience consists in that the bottle to be kept cool is actually immersed in water and this means that, when it is extracted to pour the beverage, it is wetted and therefore drops on the table and wets the hands of the person taking it.
A second inconvenience consists in that ice, and therefore water in which the bottle is immersed, is at the equilibrium water-ice temperature of 0°C, and therefore the system which uses ice is not useful to keep temperatures far from 0°C. In practice, there will be temperatures of a beverage by some degrees above zero degrees centigrade, said temperatures being too high for some distilled beverages which are drunk much colder, and too low for some wines, if it is desirable to drink them at ambient temperature or only a few degrees below ambient temperature. In some cases, it can be desirable to keep the beverage hot, and this is impossible if ice is used.
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Object of the present invention is providing a device adapted to keep beverages in a bottle at a desired temperature, said temperature being at will lower or higher than zero degrees centigrade.
The above and other objects and advantages of the invention, as will result from the following description, are obtained with a device for regulating the temperature of beverages in a bottle, as claimed in Claim 1, which is of the type comprising a bucket in which said bottle must be inserted, means being provided adapted to regulate said temperature, said means adapted to regulate the temperature comprising cold or hot accumulators, said cold or hot accumulators comprising phase-change substances.
In practice, the containers, which are usable many times, are extracted from the bucket and inserted in a freezer or in a heater, as the case may be.
If the object is keeping a wine fresh at the temperature of some degree above zero degrees centigrade, the containers can advantageously be filled with water and frozen in a freezer. In this case, once withdrawn from the freezer, they will be at a temperature near -20°C, but they will quickly rise to the temperature of 0°C, namely at the phase change temperature, at which they will remain much longer.
Anyway, substances which can be easily found on the market can be used, currently used to keep fresh the foodstuff in the thermal bags.
If the object is keeping distilled beverages at temperatures rather lower than zero degrees centigrade (for example vodka or limoncello), then a phase-change substance can be advantageously used, which has a transition at the temperature of about -16°C.
If the object is keeping a beverage hot, for example sakè, then a phase-change substance can advantageously be used, which has a transition at the temperature of about 58÷60°C.
In practice, if the beverage has to be kept below ambient temperature, a phase-change substance must be used which has a transition temperature by some degrees lower than the temperature at which the beverage must be kept. If the beverage must be kept above ambient temperature, a phase-change substance must be used which has a transition temperature by some degrees higher than the temperature at which the beverage must be kept.
Preferred embodiments and non-trivial variations of the present invention are the subject matter of the dependent claims.
It will be immediately obvious that numerous variations and modifications (for example related to shape, sizes, arrangements and parts with equivalent functionality) can be made to what is described, without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the enclosed claims.
The present invention will be better described by some preferred embodiments thereof, provided as a non-limiting example, with reference to the enclosed drawings, in which:
With reference to
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention (shown in an exploded view in
These containers (4) are filled with a phase-change substance. Said substance is preferably a eutectic having a well-defined transition temperature; however, also non-eutectic mixtures can be employed, provided that the transition range is restricted enough, depending on the beverage whose temperature must be regulated.
In particular, for beverages whose temperature must be kept by a few degrees above zero degrees centigrade, such as wine or beer or soft beverages, water can be conveniently used, whose latent melting heat (335.5 kJ/kg) is the highest one among the normally available phase-change substances, in addition to having the advantage of a practically null cost and no toxicity.
For lower temperatures, the following compositions can be used:
For beverages whose temperature must be kept above zero degrees centigrade, phase-change substances could be conveniently used of the paraffin type, available on the market with transition temperatures up to 60°C and above.
The containers (4) are preferably withdrawable from the bucket (3), in order to be able to be easily inserted in a freezer or a heater. According to the invention, said containers (4) are kept in position by a spring (5) which is housed in a seat (3a) of the bucket (3) (show in detail in the enlarged part of
Finally, on the upper part of the bucket (3), a cover (6) is advantageously applied.
The bucket (2) and the cover (6) could be made in a plastic material or a metallic material. However, for thermal reasons, the plastic material is preferable since it limits the thermal exchanges with the environment and, therefore, keeps the desired temperature longer. A possible alternative is a sandwich construction, namely outside a material having an aesthetic function (for example stainless steel) coupled with an insulating material of the type of foamed resins or aerogel.
According to a preferred embodiment, the device of the invention can be made in order to contain two or more bottle, in order to simultaneously satisfy many users.
As clearly appears from the above description, the device (1) of the invention is capable of keeping the bottle (2) at the desired temperature without it being immersed in a liquid, so that the bottle (2) itself remains substantially dry. Moreover, differently from the prior art devices, the device of the invention allows a wide margin of regulation of the temperature of the bottle (2).
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