Single Vessel Beer Production with Frustoconical Filter Base
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing beer production methods in microbreweries face challenges in minimizing equipment requirements while maintaining high-quality processes, particularly in controlling filter layer formation and achieving efficient spent grain extraction and trub separation.
Innovation Solution
The method involves using a container for both mashing and lautering, with an agitator that minimizes stirring in the supernatant for improved circulation and temperature control, and employs a frustoconical filter base for efficient spent grain extraction and combined trub separation, allowing for reduced equipment needs and enhanced process efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a single container is used for both mashing and lautering to minimize equipment requirements, then device complexity is reduced, but controlling filter layer formation and achieving efficient spent grain extraction becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The container is divided into two distinct sections: an upper cylindrical section for mashing operations and a lower frustoconical section for lautering and filter formation. This segmentation allows each zone to be optimized for its specific function while remaining within a single integrated vessel, thus reducing overall equipment complexity while maintaining operational effectiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The frustoconical shape introduces a dimensional change from a simple cylindrical form to a conical geometry at the bottom. This dimensional modification enables spontaneous filter layer formation and efficient spent grain extraction through gravitational settling and conical convergence, solving the operational difficulty of filter control without adding separate equipment.
2Stability of the object's composition
If an agitator is used for mashing, then mixing is achieved, but stirring movement in the supernatant affects temperature control and circulation efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The agitator is designed to create localized mixing action primarily in the mash zone while minimizing disturbance to the supernatant. This local quality approach ensures effective mixing where needed (in the mash) while preserving temperature control and circulation efficiency in the supernatant region, resolving the contradiction between mixing stability and temperature control.
3Device complexity
If conventional lautering is performed without sparging, then equipment is simplified, but extraction efficiency of ingredients from spent grains is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
Compressed gas is introduced through the filter bottom to create pneumatic agitation of the spent grain filter cake during sparging. This pneumatic action loosens the cake structure and enhances liquid penetration, significantly improving ingredient extraction efficiency without requiring additional mechanical equipment, thus maintaining equipment simplicity while boosting productivity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for all beer production steps to be performed with minimal equipment, achieving high-quality beer production by optimizing mash circulation, temperature control, and spent grain extraction, while eliminating the need for a whirlpool and reducing water usage.
Implementation Method 1
The basic adjustment of the temperature of the mash takes place via a heating zone, which is provided in the cylindrical part of the container wall.
Implementation Method 2
For the mashing process, it is always necessary to mix the contents of the container by stirring. In the method according to the invention, the mixing takes place in such a way that an agitator is moved in the mash
Implementation Method 3
Lautering takes place by drawing off the wort downwards through the filter bottom and storing it in an intermediate container. As with conventional processes, the spent grain cake deposited on the sieve of the filter bottom serves as the actual filter
Implementation Method 4
this is carried out in such a way that the water is at least partially pumped in from below through the filter cake. In this way, the spent grain cake is loosened with water
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to a method for production of beer, in which the mashing is conducted in a first vessel (1) with supply of heat and while stirring, and the mash thus produced is then lautered in the same vessel (1), and then the wort boiling, the cooling of the wort, the hot and cold trub separation and finally the fermentation is conducted. A simplification of the method can be achieved through lautering by drawing the wort through a filter plate (3) in the first vessel (1).