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com to remove the watermark

C ORK R EMOVER

History of the Cork Remover

Although people have been making and drinking wine for 8,000 years, only recently did we begin storing wine in glass bottles for which we need devices to remove their corks. In ancient times, wine was stored for only short periods of time, in wooden barrels or pottery vessels, before it was drunk. As glass-bottle-making technology improved in the 18th century, sealable bottles were invented. The English stoppered their bottles with cork from the bark of trees found in Portugal and Spain. The first corkscrew was invented in the late 18th century in England. The first U.S. patent to mention removing corks from a bottle was granted in 1856. Four years later, M. L. Byrn was awarded a patent for a device he identified as a corkscrew (patent number 27,615).

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The Way Kitchens Work

Patent no. 27,615

How Cork Removers Work

Most corkscrews give you some mechanical leverage to pull the cork up, which is helpful, because it takes between 25 and 100 pounds of force to yank out a cork. The model shown at the beginning of the chapter, called a wing corkscrew, is a popular, easy-to-use design. You twist the top handle, which doubles as a bottle cap remover, to embed the screw in the cork. As the screw buries itself in the cork, the wing handles rise out to the sides. By pushing down on these handles you use their leverage to pull the cork up and out. Simpler is the corkscrew on my Swiss Army knife or the slightly more useable waiters friend. Twist the screw into the cork and use lever action to pry the cork out. Either requires a bit of strength. But you can leverage the knife body against the lip of the bottle to budge the cork.

Swiss Army knife corkscrew

Putting It Back In
Once the cork is out, how do you get it back in? Corks expand in size soon after leaving the neck of the bottle, making it dicult to reinsert them into the bottle. Air-pump systems use a rubber cork substitute and a pump. With the rubber stopper in place, each stroke of the pump removes some of the air in the bottle. This creates a partial vacuum that holds the stopper in, and with most of the air removed, the wine will oxidize very slowly. See the chapter on wine savers, p. 198.

Other devices to remove corks include the twin-prong cork remover. You slide two prongs into the bottle, along the outside of the cork. With a twist and pull, the cork slides out. With air-pressure cork removers, you push a needle through the cork to pump up the pressure inside the bottle. As the pressure builds, it forces the cork out of the neck.

Inside the Wing Corkscrew Cork Remover

Everything is exposed; there is nothing to take apart. In a close-up of the wing corkscrew you can see how the gear at the end of each wing meshes with threads on the shaft that holds the screw embedded in the cork. The wings allow you to push down at a distance from the gear, giving you a large mechanical advantage.

Cork Remover

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C ROCK -P OT

History of the Crock-Pot

This thermostatically controlled cooking apparatus designed for slow cooking and deep fat frying appeared in 1968 (patent number 3,508,485). A second model, patented in 1975 (patent number 3,908,111), included a glass or ceramic insert that could be removed for cleaning. This became the Crock-Pot, which passed through two corporations and became a brand name owned by Sunbeam.

Patent no. 3,908,111

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The patent claimed on the bottom of the device disassembled in this chapter is number 6,498,323, assigned to the Holmes Group in 2002.

How Crock-Pots Work

Food is placed in a Crock-Pot along with water or another liquid, and the temperature dial or switch is turned on. The pot maintains the temperature in the range of 175 to 200 F, but can also warm food at a lower temperature of 160 to 165 F. The lid must remain on the pot to keep the food from drying and prevent bacteria from growing. The base of the cooking pot has a heating element made of loops of highly resistive wire. (For more information on how heating elements work, see the introduction, p. xiii.) The heating element warms the pot and its contents, and a thermostat turns the heating element on and off to keep the temperature in the desired range.

Patent no. 6,498,323

Inside the Crock-Pot

A single nut and screw eye hold this inexpensive cooking vessel Crock-Pot together. The metal base falls away when the nut is removed to show a very simple device. The electrical power cord delivers energy to a coil of heating wire, which is wrapped around the side of the cooking vessel. The vessel itself is made of ceramic, which is slow to warm up, so it allows the Crock-Pots contents to retain the heat imparted by the electric coil. At the bottom of the ceramic vessel is a metal bar, to which heating coil metal base the screw eye is anchored. The screw eye projects screw eye through the metal base and is held by the nut. The heating wire, which is coated with lacquer, has a total resistance of 430 ohms. (How do I know that arcane fact? I measured it with a voltmeter.) That means that the electric current flow is about a quarter of an amp, a reasonably small current. There are no other components; this inexpensive model even lacks a thermostat.

Crock-Pot

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