Would You Centrifuge

[FarmerTed]

I centrifuged an Orange Hefeweizen just because I could. The beer turned out really clear. Attached is an after picture of the beer. Sorry forgot to take before shots and pictures of the process, but it was really really cool!

I'll take more pictures next time.

I would totally centrifuge if I could. A lab I worked in as an undergrad had this ancient cast iron centrifuge with long arms that could probably hold beer bottles. I wish I could buy one of those suckers off of ebay and spin down my bottles after they are conditioned. It would totally kick ass, although I would be worried about the bottles breaking in there. I do have a centrifuge at work that could probably handle 8 oz bottles (I use them from time to time), but it spins under vacuum, and having a bottle blow in it would be an effing disaster, lol, so there's no way in hell I'm ever going to try it.

 

[Vigo_Carpathian]

For that size of centrifuge, 2 liters per minute would probably be ideal. Too much will flood the bowl and kill your separation. From your pic, it looks like the clarified beer exits the centrifuge via a hose. That would be the hose to slightly add a little back pressure to until you get the separation you want. The one I use (pictured) only has a pan for the "light phase" and applying back pressure is not an option.

 

[foose212]

Vigo, I see a hose in the background, is that what feeds yours centrifuge? If so what are you using to pump into it? I was thinking about buying an aquarium pump to feed my system, since my peristaltic isn't really ideal. So you keep talking about light phase, not sure what that is. I can change the speed on my centrifuge, but it doesn't have phases. If I get a better pool vessel I could add pressure to the vessel to provide back pressure.

My user manual says that it can handle up to 1400 L/hr so I'll play around with it when I get a pump.

Vigo is yours for dairy products? Thanks again for the information!

 

[Vigo_Carpathian]

The "light phase" is the stream of clarified beer whereas the "heavy phase" is the sludge with concentrated cells. Basically the two exit streams. I use a watson marlow pump to feed two or three liters a minute. I'm using it to separate biodiesel that is produced by bacterial fermentation. We have strains of ecoli that produce biodiesel and fatty alcohols. Centrifugation is our primary form of recovery.

 

[Joakgust]

I work at Alfa Laval here in Stockholm and we sell these centrifuges to all kinds of industries all over the world. Of course we also have a lot of customers in the brewery industry. Here we call them Separators though, since the separate liquids, particles, gases etc using centrifuge technology.

What I do exactly is more along the lines of designing, building and running them together with our customers, or rather run the separator systems (including valves, pumps etc) with them.
We recently delivered a Separator to Brewdog for their new brewery in Britain, they also previously bought a smaller system earlier last spring.

http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/putting-together-a-brewery-part-6
http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Beb4t52bzOs/T5WsZbdZkDI/AAAAAAAAX18/hlae9Y-b9_Q/s1600-h/image%255B4%255D.png

Depending on size of course a Separator with a PX-system would be a dream piece of equipment for any brewery for many of the reasons you have already mentioned here. A PX-system means that you continuosly discharge the sludge (particles) from the liquid and don't ever really have to stop to clean out the bowl. This is the system that you see in the Sierra Nevada video, although as correctly pointed out it comes from Westphalia. (Alfa Laval = Blue, Westphalia = Green).

Normally we sell a patented system to breweries that feeds the separator from the bottom to breweries which we call hermetic. Westphalia don't produce these and can therefore not ensure a fully hermetic process even though you can prime these with an inert gas. Sierra Nevada recently bought new hermetic separators for their new breweries in North Carolina as well.

Regarding the back pressures, this is definitely a good idea as it not only clarifies better but also makes minimizes the risk of foaming. The higher the flow the higher the back pressure is the rule of thumb.