My first attempt to clear yeast faster

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My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby hoochlover » Wed Oct 21, 2015 12:47 am




Unfortunately I didn't realize the saturation in this video was so awful, making it incredibly difficult to fully see the effect. I'll improve it for my next run.

My idea is to use slanted plates to help the yeast settle faster. And it works very well in comparison to normal settling. There is very little yeast left floating in the region on the left which only looks "semi clear" in the video. It quickly separates into three layers with the plates rather than just 2 as on the right. Logic would dictate that more plates = faster settling. And I'm guessing refrigeration is even faster. The video is about 2 hours compressed .

Does anyone have any suggestions/ideas to improve this plated technique? Or know of any better ways to clarify yeast using gravity only. Eventually I want to do all my fermentations in a vessel with plates or other such techniques to passively settle the yeast faster.
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby Darwin award » Wed Oct 21, 2015 9:01 am

I'm not sure I understand, where are the slanted plates? Are they in the wash? Only way I know to enhance separation is usage of some kind of flocculant
or spinning it up in a centrifuge....I don't bother with either....I just wait
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby hoochlover » Wed Oct 21, 2015 11:34 am

Darwin award wrote:I'm not sure I understand, where are the slanted plates? Are they in the wash? Only way I know to enhance separation is usage of some kind of flocculant
or spinning it up in a centrifuge....I don't bother with either....I just wait


The plates are in the wash to the left. The other container is just left normally.
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby mudsta » Wed Oct 21, 2015 1:37 pm

In the commercial industry we use conical shaped fermenters (with dump valve on bottom) and cooling.
This speeds up the process, helps to settle yeast in layers and is easy to remove for reuse.
Jacketed/double skin fermenters normally have seperate cooling on the cone for targeted yeast management
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby WTDist » Wed Oct 21, 2015 2:39 pm

mudsta wrote:In the commercial industry we use conical shaped fermenters (with dump valve on bottom) and cooling.
This speeds up the process, helps to settle yeast in layers and is easy to remove for reuse.
Jacketed/double skin fermenters normally have seperate cooling on the cone for targeted yeast management

makes sense, having the cone at the bottom will increase pressure compacting it further im guessing :think:
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby mudsta » Wed Oct 21, 2015 3:28 pm

IMAG0130.jpg


With regard to beer yeast strains there are large variations of flocculation (time needed to drop out of suspension) speeds.
Some strains are 'high floc' and will drop clear in a week, while others take months 'low floc' even at near 0'c.

I however don't know much about specific distilling yeast strain floc rates
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby hoochlover » Wed Oct 21, 2015 4:50 pm

Yes I have another design which is basically a series of cones or bowls on top of each other. One cone like in the conical fermenters does help settle yeast faster, 10 cones will settle it somewhere approaching 10 times faster. If you doubt this theory it's easy to verify it for yourself horizontally with plates. The yeast falls, using gravity and the time it takes to fall depends on the height of the vessel. There is an equation you can find for exact times but yeast usually falls a bit faster than that due to its flocculant behaviour. This is why horizontal settling ponds settle much faster than vertical ones, and although I haven't verified the claim, many people say tanks which are more horizontal than vertical also ferment out faster. I'll be doing a test on this soon.

But getting back to my clarifying design, I don't want some overly complicated design. It must be easy to do otherwise I think it's use for us as home distillers/homebrewers is not as strong. I'm looking into various things that pretty much anyone can do with a drill and maybe a hand saw. My plate idea while it works well now I think about it doing it in a proper vessel would be harder. One way I think you could do plates fast, if you find a source of circular stainless steel sheets to match your vessel, is to drill 4-8 holes in them, thread a threaded stainless steel tube through it, and using stainless steel bolts to separate the plates, I think you could get a plate each 10mm this way. However you would need to find a way to slant the vessel or plates to 50-60 degrees which is more difficult than it sounds....

My new best idea is using stainless steel bowls. I've been looking at them more closely and I think if you get a flat lip one you could cut and fold 4 edges of the lip it to give a clearance of about 6mm to 12mm between bowls. Then you drill a hole in the center of the bowl, in the flat part, then cut it like a 90 degree cross until you hit the curved edge and fold it using pliers into a cone shape. Then you just need a vessel which is the same diameter as the bowls and you can simply stack them and reap the benefits of a settling time which is normal_speed multiplied by amount of bowls you've stacked. I think this could be relatively easy to achieve, the only issue is finding a vessel which snugly fits the bowls. But it's easy to clean, easy to do and possible for most people I think.

I also think you want the last bowl to make the yeast go into a container, perhaps even outside the main vessel. The advantage of this is you could then develop a screw system where you take the compacted yeast cake away without disturbing the wash. Drop a tiny amount of bentanite in there and you'll have a wash that is as clear as water in about 1 to 2 hours immediately after fermentation finishes. If you don't separate the yeast cake from the wash you'd have to use more bentanite, so I'm liking this valve type system to shut the cake off from the wash. I know many cone fermenters have this but it needs to be doable for home users, so I have to think more on it.
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby mudsta » Wed Oct 21, 2015 7:42 pm

You are correct in saying horizonal tanks settle yeast faster than vertical of the same size.
The German commercial brewers are the main ones who use that method during beer maturation due to using low floc yeast strains. Having more yeast surface area when dropped also helps clean up fermentation by products faster.

However when it comes to fermentation speed the taller the tank the faster the fermentation, this is because the height creates a convection current moving the yeast up the centre and down the sides.
The Australian major lager brewers use tall fermenters (in relation to diameter) with a conical base as its the fastest.
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby hoochlover » Wed Oct 21, 2015 7:52 pm

mudsta wrote:However when it comes to fermentation speed the taller the tank the faster the fermentation, this is because the height creates a convection current moving the yeast up the centre and down the sides.
The Australian major lager brewers use tall fermenters (in relation to diameter) with a conical base as its the fastest.


Yeah? I haven't found much scientific evidence either way (anecdotal evidence suggests opposing things) which is why I wanted to run a test. But thanks for the info, it's interesting to know. Have you done any tests yourself?
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby mudsta » Wed Oct 21, 2015 8:18 pm

Yeah? I haven't found much scientific evidence either way (anecdotal evidence suggests opposing things) which is why I wanted to run a test. But thanks for the info, it's interesting to know. Have you done any tests yourself?


If your experiments yield ground breaking results, be sure to let Weihenstephan in Germany know.
They will be interested as they have been brewing since the year 1040 and have their own university.
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby 1 2many » Wed Oct 21, 2015 8:24 pm

mudsta wrote:
Yeah? I haven't found much scientific evidence either way (anecdotal evidence suggests opposing things) which is why I wanted to run a test. But thanks for the info, it's interesting to know. Have you done any tests yourself?


If your experiments yield ground breaking results, be sure to let Weihenstephan in Germany know.
They will be interested as they have been brewing since the year 1040 and have their own university.


:text-+1: :roll:
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Re: My first attempt to clear yeast faster

Postby hoochlover » Thu Oct 22, 2015 12:02 am

mudsta wrote:
Yeah? I haven't found much scientific evidence either way (anecdotal evidence suggests opposing things) which is why I wanted to run a test. But thanks for the info, it's interesting to know. Have you done any tests yourself?


If your experiments yield ground breaking results, be sure to let Weihenstephan in Germany know.
They will be interested as they have been brewing since the year 1040 and have their own university.


Hehe I will. ;)

It's strange I haven't found much usage of plates or other natural ways to clear yeast faster. I guess in industrial distillation processes using agents of some type is much easier and shouldn't be carried over to the final product. And for beer/wine industry they typically use centrifuges after they have let the brew rest on the yeast cake which would be more effective than plates.

I've been trying bentonite recently and that stuff just gets the wash like water in not much time at all with the plates, but if you dont remove the yeast cake you need to add more to get the same effect which is why I think getting it off the yeast cake quickly is important. I'm looking forward to boiling a wash that has been completely cleared.
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