Method of Dispensing a Beverage with Variable Pressure

Abstract

A method prepares and dispenses a beverage with a dispensing device. The device includes a housing with a beverage unit having a liquid line, a pressure controller to control liquid line pressure, and an ingredient container receiving means. The content of the ingredient container is in fluid communication with a liquid line to mix the ingredient container contents with a base liquid in the liquid line. The device further includes an ingredient container identification unit and a processor coupled for controlling the pressure controller. The method includes providing an ingredient container in the device, identifying the ingredient container, providing a base liquid, and mixing the contents of the ingredient container with the base liquid dispensing the prepared beverage. The pressure in the liquid line changes from a first pressure level to a second pressure level by the pressure controller during mixing and dispensing of the beverage.

Claims

1. A method of preparing and dispensing a beverage with a dispensing device, the device comprising: a housing comprising a beverage unit with a liquid line having a liquid inlet at one end and a beverage outlet at an opposite end; a pressure controller controlling the pressure in the liquid line; and a container, pod or capsule, receiving means such that when correctly installed, the content of the container is in fluid communication with the liquid line for mixing the content of the cartridge or pad with a base liquid in the liquid line; a container, pod or capsule, identification unit; a processor coupled to the identification unit and to the pressure controller for controlling said pressure controller in function of the container identification; the method comprising the steps of: providing a container in the device; identifying the container; providing a base liquid; mixing the content of the container with the base liquid to prepare the beverage to be dispensed; dispensing the thus prepared beverage; wherein the pressure in the liquid line changes from a first pressure level higher than ambient pressure level to a second pressure level higher than the ambient level by said pressure controller during mixing and dispensing of the beverage, the first pressure level being different from the second pressure level.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the pressure is maintained substantially constant at the first level during a fraction of the period needed for dispensing the beverage, and wherein the pressure is maintained substantially constant at the first level during a fraction of the period needed for dispensing.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the second pressure level is higher than the first pressure level.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the beverage dispensed is a fermented beverage having a gas pressure of at least 1.5 bar at a temperature of 2° C.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the beverage is a malt based beverage or apple juice based beverage.

6. The method according to claim 2, wherein the second pressure level is higher than the first pressure level.

7. The method according to claim 2, wherein the beverage dispensed is a fermented beverage having a gas pressure of at least 1.5 bar at a temperature of 2° C.

8. The method according to claim 3, wherein the beverage dispensed is a fermented beverage having a gas pressure of at least 1.5 bar at a temperature of 2° C.

9. The method according to claim 6, wherein the beverage dispensed is a fermented beverage having a gas pressure of at least 1.5 bar at a temperature of 2° C.

Description

[0031] With the intention of better showing the characteristics of the invention, hereafter, as example without any limitative character, some embodiments of a beverage dispensing device according to the invention are described, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

[0032] FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a first embodiment of a beverage dispensing device in accordance with the present invention;

[0033] The a beverage dispenser 1 according to the invention, illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, is a beverage dispenser of the type addressed as a home appliance, which is typically designed for home use to dispense one beverage per dispense cycle and which is configured as a table top appliance meaning it has a restricted height of about maximum 50 cm and a areal footprint of about maximum 2500 cm.sup.2.

[0034] The beverage dispenser comprises a housing 2 comprising a base liquid inlet 3 which is connected to a source 4 of a first base liquid source 5.

[0035] The dispenser beverage inlet 3 can for example be a pipe fitting which is suitable for connecting a source 4 to the beverage dispenser 1 or it can just be the inlet of a pipe or flexible tube used for flow of the base liquid 5 away from the source 4.

[0036] The base liquid 5 can be any product that could be used for composing a beverage, such as for example water, a malt-based beverage, a fermented beverage, beer, a cider based beverage or cider, a juice, a soft drink, milk, cream, coffee, tea or mixtures thereof, the base liquid source can either be non-carbonated or carbonated.

[0037] Depending on the type of the base liquid 5, the source 4 from which the base liquid 5 is supplied and in which the base liquid 5 is contained, can be for example a container, a plastic bag, a bottle, a keg or cask and so on.

[0038] The source 4 can be a pressurized vessel, containing a pressurized gas for driving the base liquid 5 out of the vessel.

[0039] In other cases the source 4 can comprise pumping means or separate gas bottles for that purpose.

[0040] It is clear that all kinds of other commonly used elements, such as valves, switches, detectors, electronic or not electronic controller equipment in general are not represented in the drawings.

[0041] The source 4 is in this case connected to the inlet 3 by means of a liquid line 6, formed for example by a flexible or rigid tube or pipe 6.

[0042] Turning now to the housing of the dispensing device, the base liquid inlet is coupled to a liquid line extending from the base liquid inlet to a beverage outlet through which a final beverage is to be dispensed.

[0043] The housing further comprises at least one container receiving means 7 for receiving an ingredient container 8 such as a pod or capsule comprising a unit dose of a beverage ingredient. The receiving means comprising an ingredient discharge 9 through which the unit dose contained in the pod or capsule can be discharged in the fluid line upon dispensing.

[0044] The ingredient containers comprise exactly one unit dose of beverage ingredient and are therefore suited for preparing exactly one beverage allowing maximal flexibility to customize a beverage to be dispensed. The containers are preferably of the kind generally addressed as pods or capsules and will be referred to as such in the description below.

[0045] The pods or capsules preferably comprise a solid or liquid ingredient, varying from hop concentrates, fruit concentrates, sweeteners, bittering additives, concentrated spices, foaming promoters, concentrated malt-based liquids, concentrated fermented liquids, concentrated beer, colorants and or mixtures thereof.

[0046] In this case the liquid line comprises two sections, a first extending from the base liquid inlet to a liquid inlet of the receiving means for guiding base liquid into the pod or capsule such as to discharge the unit dose beverage ingredient through the beverage discharge into the second section of the liquid line extending from the ingredient discharge at the receiving means to a beverage outlet 10.

[0047] At a location downstream the ingredient discharge, a mixing chamber 11 is provided in the liquid line, which mixing chamber comprises a wall defining a chamber having a liquid inlet and a liquid outlet, both controlled by a valve.

[0048] According to the invention, the device comprises a pressure regulator for controlling the pressure in the liquid line. Such pressure regulator 12 can be provided at the source 4 or can be provided separately in the device. The pressure regulator should be controllable by means of a control unit 13 preferably an electronic unit comprising a microprocessor housed in the dispensing device.

[0049] The device further comprises a pod or capsule comprising identification means 14 such as for example a bar-code scanner or RFID scanner that allows identifying content related identity tags on the pods or capsules such as a bar code or RFID tag 15.

[0050] In this case the pressure regulator control unit also comprises a memory comprising a set of pre-loaded dispensing pressure level sequences for setting and varying the pressure in the liquid line during a dispensing cycle, whereby the microprocessor selects a sequence based on input received from the pod or capsule identification means and controls the pressure regulator accordingly.

[0051] In order to allow a good control it is further preferred that the control unit comprises a flow meter allowing determining the volume of liquid flowing through the liquid line as an input to the microprocessor.

[0052] The source of pressurized gas can either be a metal high pressure cartridge comprising liquid food grade CO.sub.2, N.sub.2 or N.sub.2O readily available on the market or can be a plastic cartridge comprising food grade CO.sub.2, N.sub.2 or N.sub.2O at lower pressures of between 4 and 2 bar.

[0053] The above described device allows dispensing a beverage whereby the pressure in the liquid line changes from a first pressure level higher than ambient pressure to a second pressure level higher than the ambient level by said pressure controller during mixing and dispensing of the beverage.

[0054] As such it for example possible to load the device with a pod or capsule containing a concentrated beer and coupling the device with a source of carbonated water.

[0055] The device identifies the pod and thereby the content thereof and a pre-set pressure sequence for dispensing beer is loaded from the memory.

[0056] Upon dispensing, the pressure regulator will be controlled to set the pressure in the liquid line at a pressure corresponding to the gas pressure desired in the beer upon dispensing (eg. 2,2 bar). This pressure is maintained substantially constant during the dispensing of approximately 90% of the volume of the beer to be dispensed. Subsequently the pressure regulator is actuated to increase pressure to a level of eg. 2,4 bar in the liquid line, to promote foaming of the beer at dispensing and as such obtain a foam collar on the dispensed beer. This pressure in the liquid line is maintained substantially constant until all liquid for the beer is dispensed.

[0057] After the required volume of liquid is dispensed, the pressure regulator can be actuated to further increase the pressure to a level of eg. 3 bar to clean the liquid line and blow out any remaining liquid rests, thereby preventing liquid remaining in the liquid line which would increase the chance of the formation of a biofilm in the liquid line.