Brewhouse Operations Session
Simon Henke, TU München - Chair of Process Engineering of disperse Systems, Weihenstephan
Co-author(s): Jens Voigt and Karl Sommer, TU München, Chair of Process Engineering of Disperse Systems, Weihenstephan, Germany
ABSTRACT: The lautering process is the most time-consuming
step in wort production. Besides mash filters, the lauter tun is still
the most common device used for mash filtration in the brewhouse because
no other separation techniques have been established. For this reason
equipment suppliers have done a lot of development work on existing
lauter tuns that has led to acceleration of this filtration step.
Nevertheless, there are still many open questions regarding the
performance of mash filtration in the lauter tun. Specifically, causes
of filtration problems during this unit operation have not been fully
investigated. High flow rates through the filter cake often lead to
increased compaction of the compressible filter cake. This work
investigates how false bottoms with different free passage areas
influence the lautering performance and composition of the grain cake.
For this reason a pilot scale glass lauter tun was constructed, offering
the opportunity to make an image analysis of the grain cake during the
whole process. The lauter tun is equipped with four different false
bottoms with defined free passage areas between 6 and 20%, which cover
the range of available industrial scale systems. Besides optical
analysis the most important physical parameters of lauter wort are
recorded in-line. The presented filtration equations allow the
determination of filter cake permeability and the development of
permeability during filtration with these measurements. The experiments
conducted provide an answer to the introductory question whether the
false bottom’s free passage area is important for filtration.
Simon
Henke graduated from Technical University Munich in 2009 with an
engineering degree in brewing sciences and beverage technology. In 2010
he started his work at the Chair of Process Engineering of Disperse
Systems, TU Munich, as a research associate. His fields of activity are
mass transport phenomena and procedural aspects of the mashing process.
He is responsible for the pilot plant brewery at the Chair of Process
Engineering.
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