False bottom, manifold, s/s tube... What about s/s ball bearings?

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kennett_brew

kennett_brew

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Currently looking at the plus/minus for false bottoms, manifolds and stainless steel braided tubes and thought...

Biggest thing that impacts flow and efficiency is how evenly you extract the liquid from the MLT....

What if I were to use stainless steel beads? or glass for that matter to create an even filter bed... Similar to a sand pool filter...

Anyone ever try it?

kb:drunk:
 
interesting... haven't heard of anyone trying it but my concern would be them getting clogged with grain, or getting stirred into the grain.
 
jtsims21 said:
interesting... haven't heard of anyone trying it but my concern would be them getting clogged with grain, or getting stirred into the grain.
Click to expand...

interesting.. the getting stirred into the grain is something I hadn't thought of...

pop'em into a bag possibly.. Just attempting to come up with a way to ensure the grain bed is uniformly circulating to avoid channeling, etc.....

hmmmmm
 
don't try to reinvent the wheel. commercial breweries use false bottoms for a reason...
 
a guy is australia proved you could make a filter bed out of gravel so i can't see why your idea wouldn't work
 
Why not try it if you are willing? If it works for you and is sustainable then why not?
Everything has been tried I'm sure..... branches, hay, rice hulls, barley hulls, metal lathe, stainless mesh braids, screens, manifolds, false bottoms and?????

EDIT: As long as its something you want to do and try and report back to share the results its all in fun right?
 
BargainFittings said:
Why not try it if you are willing? If it works for you and is sustainable then why not?
Everything has been tried I'm sure..... branches, hay, rice hulls, barley hulls, metal lathe, stainless mesh braids, screens, manifolds, false bottoms and?????

EDIT: As long as its something you want to do and try and report back to share the results its all in fun right?
Click to expand...

ha! no worries there.. I will def be trying it... The MLT I am planning on using is the 52qt cooler... I've only seen manifolds and tubes...

Exactly! worst case I prove myself wrong... Wasn't it Edison who said he found over a 1,000 ways not to make a light bulb:mug:?
 
Yeah, but if that analogy is going to stand, we already have the light bulb. It's called a false bottom. Just how are you going to clean grain chunks out of 800 ball bearings?
 
kennett_brew said:
ha! no worries there.. I will def be trying it... The MLT I am planning on using is the 52qt cooler... I've only seen manifolds and tubes...

Exactly! worst case I prove myself wrong... Wasn't it Edison who said he found over a 1,000 ways not to make a light bulb:mug:?
Click to expand...

Awesome.

I look forward to a post on this. I've personally moved to a point of least resistance and use screens or false bottoms for mashing but this idea still appeals to me on a very basic "what if" level!
 
Bobby_M said:
Yeah, but if that analogy is going to stand, we already have the light bulb. It's called a false bottom. Just how are you going to clean grain chunks out of 800 ball bearings?
Click to expand...

I am purely working through this as we all are typing. The size of the s/s balls would be 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter... Possibly a wire mesh?

Issue I have is that I'll be using a rectangle cooler, not round so manifolds or tubes are the only options I've seen other than a custom false bottom...
 
You could run water into the ball bearings from the bottom up and put a drain valve a few inches up from the top of the bearings. All of the grain would rinse up and drain out. It would have to be a big valve I guess
 
AdamCanFly said:
You could run water into the ball bearings from the bottom up and put a drain valve a few inches up from the top of the bearings. All of the grain would rinse up and drain out. It would have to be a big valve I guess
Click to expand...

Sadly, given I am going to use the 52Q rectangular cooler, that's not quite an option without a LOT of modification...

But good thought!
 
This is exactly what my brother does. He has a 10 gallon round cooler and uses glass marbles. He scrounged up flexible, woven SS mesh some where and just lays it across the top.

To clean it he just dumps the grain into the trash or whatever and when its about 1/2 of the way out (with the cooler on its side) he holds the mesh in place with his mash stirrer,thus retaining the marbles. then he just hoses the whole thing off with the sink sprayer and stirs the marbles around a bit.

His set up gives 100% draining on the bottom of the mash, is easy to clean, wicked cheap and on top of that, the marbles retain heat and stabilize the mash more than a false bottom would.

Bronze window screen would work too. I say give it a try for a few bucks what could go wrong. Good luck.
 
I dont think cleaning would be too bad... scoop them up and into another vessel, fill with water and cleaning solution, then scoop out again.

Maybe even throw them all into a zippered brew in a bag.

What amount and cost would it be for stainless ball bearings?

I could see a small accident causing some sort of benny hill soundtrack while chasing hot stainless balls all over the brewery!
 
tealio said:
What amount and cost would it be for stainless ball bearings?
Click to expand...

I am still researching the cost aspect. 1/2 s/s bearings are roughly 2 bucks a ball.. but that was just after a quick search...

tealio said:
I could see a small accident causing some sort of benny hill soundtrack while chasing hot stainless balls all over the brewery!
Click to expand...

I laughed out loud at that one.... My parents loved Benny Hill.. I grew up watching it...
 
I too was curious about marbles since I have over 18,000 of them I inherited from my father.

When googling I found information about cracking marbles by boiling them but I couldn't find any info about them at mash temps. My concern was glass shards in my beer. I think I would feel safer with stainless bearings but they are considerably more expensive than a manifold.
 
Heat/vibration would probably destroy the magnetism of the buckyballs. Interesting ideas all around...
 
Interesting idea, couple things to add.

Bucky balls could be interesting, but the way they stack I could see it creating too large of a hole for the grain to go into. Also I believe you need heat WAY above 175* to demagnetize them.

also on the cost of stainless steel balls, I checked Mcmastercarr.com they have 302 ss balls listed (not bearings but i don't think you need them that smooth)
at 1/4" they are 8.38 for 100
at 3/8" they are 10.60 for 25
at 7/16" they are 11.62 for 25 (largest diameter for best price)
at 1/2" they are 10.83 for 15

hope this helps.

Greg
 
You could use a big magnet to get the stainless steel balls out of the grain to clean.

I know this is about the least efficient way of doing it but it would be fun.
 
Not directly related, but My buddies and I did a Hefe mash in a new tun and had concerns with regards to stuck sparges so we had a pound or so of rice hulls. In a fit of "Why Not" I dumped all the hulls into the bottom of the tun and spread them out so they covered the manifold evenly.

Long story short, Best Mash Results Ever...

Worked like a charm, no sticking, there was lots of filtration going on with the hulls and the sparge ran quick and efficiently. We even stirred the grain at about half way through sparge and then re-settled the grain bed quickly and easily since the hulls weren't really disturbed and were still filtering nicely.
 
mthompson said:
I vote for beach pebbles.....like this

cheap, and readily available/replaceable.


[edit].....or polished pebbles
Click to expand...

Interesting idea... pebbles would no doubt be cheaper than stainless ball bearings. They obviously wouldn't be as uniform, but that would probably just be a matter of a few extra seconds smoothing the pebble bed out before starting. They would retain heat somewhat as well.

I wonder if any certain types of pebbles could (either negatively or positively) affect the water/wort. I know they use calcite (marble chips) to help neutralize pH when you have acidic well water. With that small amount at the bottom of a tun, any effect would probably be a very small if much at all.
 
weaselchew said:
Interesting idea... pebbles would no doubt be cheaper than stainless ball bearings. They obviously wouldn't be as uniform, but that would probably just be a matter of a few extra seconds smoothing the pebble bed out before starting. They would retain heat somewhat as well.

I wonder if any certain types of pebbles could (either negatively or positively) affect the water/wort. I know they use calcite (marble chips) to help neutralize pH when you have acidic well water. With that small amount at the bottom of a tun, any effect would probably be a very small if much at all.
Click to expand...

I think that the beach or river pebbles would have zero effects on the mash...they have been underwater for thousands of years, so I'd assume they are pretty neutral by now. I think it would be cool to get some from local river/beach or from your travels and use those.

As far as uniformity, as long as the outlet is covered it should be fine. Figuring out the best diameter range of stone would be trial & error though.

:mug:
 
GregZuk said:
Interesting idea, couple things to add.

Bucky balls could be interesting, but the way they stack I could see it creating too large of a hole for the grain to go into. Also I believe you need heat WAY above 175* to demagnetize them.
Click to expand...

Yeah it wouldn't be close to Curie temp BUT repeated heating mixed with pouring them in and out could have some impact. Either way, might not be advantageous anyway.
 
Marbles? I thought about it but talked myself out of it knowing that I would have to clean them every time.
 
acefaser said:
Marbles? I thought about it but talked myself out of it knowing that I would have to clean them every time.
Click to expand...

Agreed cleaning is a concern.. However, a nice cookie/cooling rack in the bottom of the sink or where ever you dump the grains would filter the marbles / ball bearings out...

I've got to get on this!! Time to hit the Homebrew store, get some grains and try it asap!
 

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