Means for separating substances from fluids have been employed in a wide variety of fluidic applications including brewing of alcoholic beverages, hydraulic systems, fuel systems, and engine lubrication systems.
In some applications, fluid filters may include fuel/water separators or sediment pots. In a fuel/water separator, water and sediments such as dirt, sand and grit are separated from a fuel/water mixture, in order to prevent damage to downstream engine components. Fluid filters which remove water will tend to accumulate the separated water and sediment by gravity at the bottom of the housing. The water should eventually be removed from the housing. Some models of liquid filters incorporate a mechanism to remove the water from the housing by using a pipe plug or a petcock. Often, the device begins to drain fluid as soon as it becomes unseated or loosened. The leaking fluid may run onto the operator's hand and down the arm as the device is turned the additional revolutions to the open, or separated, position. When the mechanism is to be closed, the operator is exposed to the fluid as the threaded shaft or plug is rotated several turns before it becomes closed or seated.
In other applications, for example, brewing of beer, wine, and other bottle-conditioned alcoholic beverages, i.e., beverages which are fermented, aged and naturally carbonated in the bottle may require the removal or addition of substances from the product. In the fermentation process used to prepare such beverages, yeast causes sugars in the liquid to ferment into carbon dioxide (CO2) and ethyl alcohol (C2H6O). During fermentation, the carbon dioxide may cause a relatively high pressure to build-up, in some cases up to 12 atmospheres. There are also various unwanted by-products of fermentation that vary according to the chemical composition of the liquid and the rate and manner of fermentation. These by-products either dissolve in the wine or precipitate as sediments. Various methods have been employed to remove excess carbon dioxide and unwanted by-products from the beverage or to add products to the beverage.
In the case of champagne making, for example, the bottle may be inverted or turned upside down to allow the sediment to collect in the tip region of the neck of the bottle. The bottle neck may then be placed in a freezing brine solution until the liquid in the tip region is frozen solid. The bottle may then be warmed slightly to loosen the frozen sediment plug, after which the bottle cap is removed and the pressure of the natural carbonation blows the sediment plug out of the bottle. Then the bottle may be recapped. This method, however, is complicated and time-consuming.
For the foregoing reasons, it is desirable to have a superior apparatus, method and system for venting and removing sediment from a liquid than what is currently available.