530 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[August 1, 1912. 



liard rubber to prevent them from being ground out by the metal. 

 By the use of the gaskets the tanks are closed as securely as if 

 the manhole did not exist. Notwithstanding the skill with which 

 such gaskets are made, however, they are far from being in- 

 destructible. In the nature of things, as soon as they become 

 worn, it is necessary to renew them. Hence the item of expense 

 for rubber gaskets for the steel tanks is not a small item of the 

 annual expense in breweries. 



The modern brewery appears to have more pipes than a 

 cathedral organ loft. Because of the pressure under which the 

 beer must be kept to prevent it from becoming "flat," all con- 

 nections in the pipes in a brewery must be as air- gas- and water- 

 tight as the pipes themselves. For this purpose hundreds of 

 rubber washers are used in every brewery. The nature of the 

 work demanded of these washers is such that it is cheapest, in 

 the long run, to use only the best rubber. A single rubber washer 

 may be bought at a trivial expense, but when the thousands used 

 in the breweries in the United States are taken into considera- 

 tion, it can be readily understood that the breweries make the 

 rubber washer business a profitable one. Apart from the use of 

 rubber washers at pipe 



connections, a larger -— 



and superior kind of 

 rubber washer is used 

 on the bushing at the 

 ■outlet of each tank, 

 from which is drawn 

 off the water used in 

 cleaning the interior of f 



the tanks. 



In connection with 

 the cleaning of the 

 tanks it is necessary to 

 use an electric light in 

 the interior. An incan- 

 descent lamp of fair- 

 ly high candle power is 

 used. That no water 

 may touch those parts 

 of the lamp where a 



short circuit would result from such moisture, the working parts 

 of the lamp and the heavily covered wire for two feet from the 

 lamp are covered with rubber. With such a covering, the man in 

 the tank can spray the interior surface of the tank without fear 

 of being left in darkness. The rubber used for lamp coverings is 

 a comparatively small part of the rubber expense in a brewery, 

 but in a consideration of the uses of rubber in the brewing in- 

 dustry it is by far too large to be unworthy of being taken into 

 account. 



In connection with the cleanliness which a brewery must 

 possess, more than a word in passing is necessary to explain an 

 interesting little device for the purpose of cleaning the pipes and 

 hose. It consists of a spiked rubber ball which is forced through 

 the pipes and hose by the pressure of water. The balls are made 

 of a circumference which makes their passage through the pipe or 

 hose snug. These balls are for the most part two or three inches 

 in circumference, with spikes three-sixteenths of an inch long. 

 They do the work required of them effectively and expeditiously, 

 and are no unimportant part of a brewery equipment. 



Another and quite notable item of a brewery equipment in 

 which rubber plays an important part, is a safety closing device. 

 In the non-technical language of a brewer's plumber, it consists 

 of a brass mounted glass valve in which a rubber ball may play 

 from one end of the valve to the other. The ball can be held 

 in one end of the valve by means of a screw. The purpose of 

 this safety arrangement is to shut off the compressed air pressure 

 from the beer, after the beer has left the tank on its way to be 

 drawn into the barrels in which it is shipped from the brewery. 

 By the time the beer is ready for shipment, it has accumulated 



GiwjuRiCH Brewers' and Bottlers' Supplies 



enough gas so that it is inadvisable to continue the compressed 



air pressure. Without the safety device it would be necessary to 

 have some more cumbersome arrangement, probably with a man 

 to watch it, to prevent the tank from being emptied of everything 

 it contained as well as the beer. The safety device, by means of 

 the' little rubber ball, stops the flow of everything after the last 

 of the beer has passed from the tank. Besides the prevention of 

 too much pressure on the beer in the barrels, the device also 

 prevents the compressed air in the tanks from forcing the yeast, 

 which has settled in the bottom of the tanks, through the pipes 

 into the barrels. If the yeast was permitted to enter the barrels 

 which are sent by the purveyor to the consumer, the result would 

 be a cloudy beer which the consumer would assert, and assert 

 rightly, was full of sediment. Such beer would neither be pleas- 

 ing to the eye nor palatable. 



Many miles of rubber belts are used in the breweries of this 

 country. The brewing industry in the United States is managed 

 on such a gigantic scale that machinery is used wherever possible. 

 The heat, cold and moisture in the atmosphere of a brewery are 

 such that rubber belting is a necessity where beer is made. 



Rubber belting is an 

 important part of the 

 rubber trade, but is a 

 subject by itself, yet it 

 must be taken into con- 

 sideration in connec- 

 tion with the subject 

 of rubber used in the 

 brewing industry. Next 

 to the cost of the 

 various kinds of hose 

 used in a brewery the 

 rubber belting probably 

 costs the brewer more 

 than anything else 

 made of rubber that he 

 uses in his establish- 

 ment. 



Asked if there were 

 anything else, not here- 

 inbefore mentioned, which causes the brewer to pay tribute to 

 rubber, Mr. Max Papai, brew-master of the Lion Brewery of 

 New York City said that the rubber automobile tires and rubber 

 horse shoes were no small expense. The heavy auto-trucks wear 

 out many tires annually in carting the beer from the brewery, 

 and the hundreds of horses used by the brewers in New York 

 City alone for the same purpose wear out almost innumerable 

 rubber horse shoes in the course of a year. That the rubber 

 story in connection with breweries may be complete, it should be 

 mentioned that, owing to the moisture about such a plant, it is 

 customary to have tlie offices of such establishments well 

 equipped w-ith rubber mats. 



The foregoing may give some idea of the importance of the 

 brewery industry to the rubber trade. It should at least prove 

 the proposition that every glass of beer pays its toll to rubber, 

 even if that toll is only a small fraction of a cent. There have 

 been various estimates of the quantity of beer consumed in this 

 country, whose people are said to be a beer drinking nation. All 

 of the estimates seem gigantic and almost beyond belief. It is in 

 the multiplication of the fraction of a cent toll on each glass of 

 beer which rubber exacts, that the grand total of income that 

 rubber receives from the breweries may be obtained. Under 

 existing conditions there could be little beer without rubber. 

 Fortunately the converse is not true. 



Brewing is the ninth industry in size in New York City. Its 

 annual value is over $63,000,000. New York brews one fifth of 

 all the beer and ale produced in this country. It contains 37 

 different breweries. The annual value of the brewing industry 

 in New York State is $93,000,000. 



