Best method for seperating corn from mash

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ga flatwoods
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by ga flatwoods »

It is cheap enough to try! Perhaps the rim is strong enough to support a full bag of grist and simply place it over a barrel or other such container to strain into. As far as the product use, the four ounce stuff I use is often applied in exactly the same manner as this bag to help prevent sediments from filling storm drain lines during construction. As long as it filters is what counts but to catch and clean the mash of all cloudiness is a real positive. I have seen the filter materials so thin that they look like spider web. Will they strain? Yes. Will they clear at the same time? Doubtful. Does it matter? Not really. The idea is to pull the liquids out easily. Cloudy mash free of solids will settle in a few days easily enough. Perhaps efficiency maximized would be use of both a simple strai ing cloth and then run through a clearing cloth if time is of issue. The tensile strength of even the spider web appearing cloth is high enough that you can't rupture a cup or two of dirt twisted up into a ball by hitting it with your fist. All this material of quality is tough. If it is not, do not use it and prevent being pissed off!
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by raketemensch »

rgreen2002 wrote:What do we think about this...?
41HCa--000L.jpg
Found here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0025 ... BXPQYG1CTZ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
I dunno, 98 cents is an awful lot of money.

That looks pretty good to me, almost like it would fit right over one of my 16-gallon sterilites....
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by rgreen2002 »

raketemensch wrote:
rgreen2002 wrote:What do we think about this...?
41HCa--000L.jpg
Found here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0025 ... BXPQYG1CTZ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
I dunno, 98 cents is an awful lot of money.

That looks pretty good to me, almost like it would fit right over one of my 16-gallon sterilites....
LOL....don't forget shipping!

Agreed... I'm wondering if it will fit right over my 55 gallon drum!
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by Fart Vader »

Pintoshine mentioned 600 micron EZ-Strainers from US Plastics somewhere.

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.a ... &catid=685" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I bought several and they work great!

After I siphon off the clear beer, I use a scoop and fill up the strainer. Then I just use my hand and swirl it around, after that I just shake it like panning for gold to get the last of the liquid out.
Repeat until you feel there no point in continuing scooping and straining.

Easy-peazy! :D
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Fart Vader wrote:Pintoshine mentioned 600 micron EZ-Strainers from US Plastics somewhere.
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.a ... &catid=685" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Thanks for this link. I just got one of the large ones made for 55 gallon drums.
It looks like it would fit perfectly on a 55 barrel lip, but it also fits great in a 44 gallon Brute trash can.

This is a very cool strainer, looking forward to trying it out.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Fart Vader wrote:Pintoshine mentioned 600 micron EZ-Strainers from US Plastics somewhere.
Well, folks, this is it. This is the end of looking for the "Best Method For Separating Corn From Mash", or any other grains.

I got the coarse, 600 micron, 55 gallon version: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=37439" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

This thing is a dream. It looks like it's made to fit the lip on a 55 gal drum, but it also fits perfectly into a 44 gallon Brute trash can.

Just simply dump your mash through this thing, and when it starts to back up and hold liquid, stop, give it some vigorous back and forth shaking, and watch it drain right out.
As Fart says, like panning for gold, just shake it until the grains are as dry as you want. Then dump the damp grains out, and repeat. It is extremely satisfying.
I did mine post fermentation, but I don't see any reason this wouldn't work just as great for sparging before fermentation.

I just filtered an 85# corn, barley, rye, oat mash in about 20 minutes without breaking a sweat on a hot day.
I grind my grains very fine, and this doesn't get everything, so I'm still going to let it settle in carboys, at least overnight, but this really works great for separating the grain.
They also make 400 and 200 micron versions of this, and I'm going to try them as well, maybe as a 3 step process.

The whole key to this is the ability to shake, or vibrate the filter. The filters are fairly flimsy, and the 55 gallon version isn't really stout enough to grab and shake by itself with a lot of mash in it. I was putting about 3 gallons at a time through it.
I've got an old trash can that is too beat up to mash in anymore, so I'm going to cut the top of that off and use it for a sort of support handle for the filter to be able to better lift it and shake it. I'm also already envisioning some kind of vibrating shaker mechanism that I can hook up to it just to make it even easier.


Easy Peasy, indeed, thanks for posting, Mr. Fart, my search is OVER for this one!
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by Fart Vader »

:D
I've also been fermenting on the grain.
I was wondering if the 55gal version might have been too big to "pan for gold".
I guess not.
MichiganCornhusker wrote:I'm also already envisioning some kind of vibrating shaker mechanism that I can hook up to it just to make it even easier.
Too funny, I've been thinking the same thing.

Cheers!
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by Fart Vader »

Eureka!

Why didn't I think of this before.
Too easy for a "vibrating shaker mechanism".
And I was imagining all sorts of complicated solutions.

Tada!
https://www.google.ca/search?q=reciproc ... DO8QsAQISA

Whadayathink ?
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Fart Vader wrote:Whadayathink ?
We are on the same page, my friend! I was actually standing right next to one of those on my shelf when I was doing this today.

Another idea I had was a piece of plywood with a hole in it large enough to hold the filer, have that held down loosly on a table, and then a round circle of wood in the plywood arm, screwed down with a screw off-center, that could be driven with a drill as kind of an eccentric shaker. Could experiment with offset and drill speed to find a sweet spot where you get good flow through the filter without a whole lot of splashing of the mash.

But that may be overthinking it, i mean what could beat a sawzall duct taped to a trash can! Hold on, baby!

Edit: Just did a quick test with my sawzall, and I think it might be a little too much action. I drilled a hole through the blade and screwed it down to the rim of the trash can and it shakes aplenty. Maybe with a soft rubber grommet or something to absorb some shock and stroke? Even at slow speeds, the direct connection is a bit much.

Edit again: Sometimes less is more, this one has half the stroke, less power, one hander, might be perfect... http://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-4-Amp-Ke ... aw/3799697" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
I should add that a shaker tool is in no way necessary for this filter to work great, just makes it even more even more effortless for lazy guys like me.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by ga flatwoods »

Congratulations! You all may feel free to name this entire method after me!
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by Fart Vader »

ga flatwoods wrote:Congratulations! You all may feel free to name this entire method after me!
Very well, hence forth this method shall be known as:

"The Flatwoods Shuffle system" :mrgreen:

Hey Michigan, do you have an orbital sander kicking around?
That might be worth a try also.

My sawszall is variable speed, I'll try that next run too.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by ga flatwoods »

Why not try an offset rod similar to a bread attachment for a blender your variable speed drill ?
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

ga flatwoods wrote:Why not try an offset rod similar to a bread attachment for a blender your variable speed drill ?
Ga Flatwoods
Yes, I think that's the idea. Might be more about vibration than heavy handed shaking. Jimbo will not doubt be along soon to contribute his vibrator knowledge.

I just received my medium, fine, and ultra fine filters today, and I'm testing them out with a contraption that I cobbled together for shaking. Early results are extremely positive. Will post pics and update soon.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Ok, here is my setup.
I have the top cut off a 44 gallon brute trash can setting on top of a 55 gallon brute trash can. It would also nest into another 44, but I had the 55 handy.
My shaker rig is a little embarrassing. I bought this ridiculous tool many years ago. It was sort of a Ronco TV special or something. It's a hand held magic tool that turns your drill into a sawzall.
The reason I'm using this instead of my regular sawzall is that the stroke is too long on a sawzall at around 1-1/8". This cheapy tool has a stroke of about 5/8", and more slop in the action.
To attach it to my trash can top, I used a piece of old radiator hose, bolted it to the trash can lid, and then drilled a hole in the sawzall blade and screwed it through the hose into a block of plywood inside the hose.
Admittedly, this is pretty crude, but it does give me good attachment, with some shock absorbing, and the ability to move the angle of attack for the sawzall side to side and up and down.
That motion, along with the variable speed of the drill, gives lots of ways to find the sweet spot of shake for the mash to drain.
IMG_3653.JPG
IMG_3655.JPG
I had already strained all of my current mash through a 600 micron filter by hand, but I was anxious to see how these other filters would work with my shaker.
After filtering through the 600 micron, I let everything settle in carboys. I wound up with about 3" of trub in the bottom, so I racked off the clear and did my new filter testing with the trub left behind.
This stuff was pretty thick, about the consistency of thin pancake batter, or a thin milkshake. I put about 2-1/2 gallons of the stuff into each filter and gave it the shake action:
IMG_3645.JPG
IMG_3646.JPG
IMG_3648.JPG
IMG_3649.JPG
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by Fart Vader »

Oh brother, and I though I was obsessive compulsive!
Hats off to you Michigan, now I have to step up my game.

P.S. are you sure you can't get any more out of that last 2 and a half gallons?
LOL.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

The shake filter allowed damn near every drop to fall out even as low as the 100 micron filter.
IMG_3651.JPG
IMG_3652.JPG
So now I've filtered out everything larger than 100 micron, and will allow it to settle again.

All of the clear that I racked off I ran through GA Flatwoods GeoFabric, and it is now ultra clear.

I don't think I would do a multi-stage filtering again, using finer and finer filters. I think I will pick either the 400 micron, or even the 200 micron, and just do a one-shake filter for the mash, let it settle, and then either steam strip the dregs, or just toss them. I will know after this last batch settles how much is really lost by tossing the trub left behind after racking the clear.

All in all, this is an absolute dream come true for filtering.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by shadylane »

I like :clap:
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Sorry for the wandering post, but for anyone interested, I wanted to share my impressions:

So, here are the numbers from this experience.
After my first filtering of the coarse grains, I had about 35 gallons in carboys to settle.
Given 24 hrs, they all settled down to about 3" of trub. Given another day, I'm pretty sure they would have all compacted a little bit more, maybe to 2".

As it was, I racked off about 27 gallons of clear, leaving behind 8 gallons of gunk.
As I continued to filter the gunk, I quickly rinsed the carboys, trash can, and buckets as I went, and added the rinse water back to the goop, not letting anything get away!, so ended up adding another gallon to the project overall.
I was a little surprised that I didn't pull more waste grain out of the trub, even going all the way down to the ultra fine 100 micron filter. I bet I didn't collect more than a half gallon of spent grain overall. That seems to be telling me that dang near all that volume of gunk is booze to be collected.

As a comparison, I recently stripped a whiskey ferment in a similar way, stripped the clear, racked beer, and then steam stripped what was left, without filtering even the large grains out, just tossed the messy enchilada into the steamer.
I found that I got at least 75% of the clear yield from the mess that I steam stripped. I'm expecting that because I filtered out the bulk of the grain on this one, the yield from the gunk will be even more. Bottom line, by tossing trub, I'm betting that you're tossing a lot of hooch.

Two things I'm still hoping to learn by this whole exercise. How will the whiskey from the clear, filtered ferment taste compared to a whiskey made from the dregs. Also, how much booze is left behind if I rack off the clear and toss the trub.

My plan is to run the clear separately, then do another run, steam stripping and then distilling the cloudy stuff. As it stands right now, I have 27 gallons of clear clean ferment, and 9 gallons of cloudy. But whatever is in the cloudy carboys at this point must be smaller than 100 microns, so A) who knows how long suspended powder will take to settle, and B) I'm guessing what's left in there is yeast and grain dust. If there is a substantial taste difference from the yeast vs. the clear, I should find it in this comparison.

I apologize if this is drifting too far off topic, but it is kinda all about the reason why we care about separating corn from mash!
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by Kegg_jam »

MCH, that was clear as trub to me.

No seriously, I'm looking forward to your results. Was wondering the same things.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Ok, I did my little test strip.
I steam stripped 8 gallons of the trub with water in the boiler for steam. I got 8 quarts low wines @ 29% abv. (8x29% = 2.32 qt alcohol)
Then I steam stripped 10 gallons of clear settled ferment, also with water in the boiler for steam just to keep conditions the same, and I got 10 quarts @ 38%. (10x38% = 3.80 qt alcohol)

So I got about 25% less alcohol from the trub, gallon for gallon, than I did from the clear beer, but still, that's a lot of hooch locked up in the muck.
The question is, am I satisfied with the 27 gallons of clear racked off the lees, or do I want to go after 22% more low wines by processing the settlins.

With the ability to steam strip, that's a no-brainer, I just run everything and collect it all as low wines.
So now I will need to follow through with a taste comparison by doing spirit runs on the separate low wines and see where I end up.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by still_stirrin »

:clap:

Good data MCH. Thanks for this experiment and sharing. It helps to know.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by WIski »

There has to be a ton of flavor in that muck. I'm guessing it's going to be good. Thanks for all this information.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

I was able to do a spirit run with the muck low wines.

The middle of the run is very clean and I think it will end up being very much like the clear run.
This is a whiskey recipe that I do a lot, and there isn't any substantial immediate difference to me in the hearts.

Now the tails, that's another story. They are powerful and skanky. If I never really knew what the wet dog smell was, I sure do now. They even came over with a filthy brown oil on the surface. There will be no temptation to add any of these to the blend.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by jedneck »

MichiganCornhusker wrote: There will be no temptation to add any of these to the blend.
Then age them on their own. Never know maybe a good drop for the great grand kids
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

jedneck wrote:Then age them on their own. Never know maybe a good drop for the great grand kids
Hmm, not sure I want me legacy bottle to be a collection of randy tails from an all-trub run... :sick:

But back on topic. I know what you all are thinking, sure that vibro-filter works great for corn and barley, but what about potatoes??

I'm happy to report that it works just as great with thick potato slurry!
tater01.JPG
tater02.JPG
Potatoes are self pooling, so they did benefit from a little spoon action. While vibrating, I ladled the slop in the middle of the pile to the outside edges of the filter. This rotation of product, while draining, makes the process go even faster, and you can really just go until everything is as dry as you want.

These filters are pretty amazing. They are very durable, super thin, and they don't clog at all when vibrating. Seems like they would work well for any false bottom setup as well.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by Bohunk »

Mhusker, boy I have tried and tried to order these filters, but after about 30 minutes of farting around answering questions, I gave up. I created an account, and still they won't let me pay for the order. I wonder how these folks ever sell anything, maybe tomorrow I'll try calling the order in.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Bohunk wrote:Mhusker, boy I have tried and tried to order these filters, but after about 30 minutes of farting around answering questions, I gave up.
Ha, I thought I was just stupid. I understand, the ordering process online can be maddening. The first time I tried it wiped out my info, twice, as well.
Creating an account didn't help much either. But I did finally get it sorted out, and it is well worth the crappy website ordering process. I think it's the same place where I get my ptfe discs for mason jar lids.
That said, the product is top notch, and their shipping is very fast!
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by Expat »

7 bucks with a stand? seems like it would work well on top of a brute or over a 5 gallon bucket.

https://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Jelly-Str ... g+strainer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by raketemensch »

Anyone else hoping for a video of one of these sawzall/drill equipped strainer baskets? Boy, I am.
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Re: Best method for seperating corn from mash

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

raketemensch wrote:Anyone else hoping for a video of one of these sawzall/drill equipped strainer baskets? Boy, I am.
If I could figger out how to post a video, I'd do it. :thumbup:
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