A different way to clarify yeast

[hoochlover]

I'm not sure if the yeast forum is right for this or the fermentation forum, it's kinda both.

Perhaps it's not new for fermenters but I couldn't find anything on this on the internet related to our hobby. I actually thought maybe I had came up with something new entirely but it seems after much searching and using different terms I found something similar. It's called a lamella clarifier and is used in some water treatment plants. I started with many different designs so it wasn't until I thought about a slanted plate idea that I found this concept already used. But it's not the only way to achieve quicker clarity.

A lamella clarifier (inclined-plate clarifier) is designed to remove particulates from liquids. They are often employed in primary water treatment in place of conventional settling tanks. They are used in industrial water treatment. Unlike conventional clarifiers they use a series of inclined plates

Now they use it slightly different than we would for fermenting, at least I think so.



Basically what we want to do is have these plates in the fermenter unit, slanted at about 60 degrees going all the way to the bottom except for a small gap for the yeast to collect. This facilitates the yeast dropping out quicker. Why do they? Well my day job isn't fluid/particle dynamics but I think it's because the yeast fall and hit the plates and then push on each other so the process is quicker. Or something. Maybe I'm wrong, but at least in my tests it certainly seems to be faster. I uploaded a video showing what happens when you put a tilted heatsink in a finished wash. It has a lot of plates, but I couldn't tilt it to 60 degrees unfortunately. I know the video doesn't show it going all the way clear unfortunately my camera battery died. The heatsink angle also meant a lot of the yeast was caught in the plates in the heatsink which didn't make it as clear as it could be.



Watching it up close it seems like the heatsink draws in yeast cells like a vacuum and spews them out the other side. The angle and gap are important. The new space being available for the other floating yeast means they end up there and then get caught in the vacuum and the process continues.

My other engineering attempts so far suck and even though I have still gotten quicker settling times I'm not as happy as I am with this heatsink yet. Another design I think could work is a series of flat plates, about 10-20mm high and multiple take off points for the final product. So the yeast settles on each plate in NORMAL_TIME divided by PLATE_COUNT . I've tested this and it works quite well, unfortunately my engineering attempts are like a caveman doing nuclear physics so I'm not getting exactly what I want yet, you need precision for the takeoff points or you disturb the yeast. I guess a 3d printer is next on the list.

Any thoughts, suggestions, critiques?

[kiwi Bruce]

I watched this since you first posted and had hoped you would keep us up-dated. So how is the project going?

[hoochlover]

I watched this since you first posted and had hoped you would keep us up-dated. So how is the project going?

Just been on hold while I messed around with tig welding and other garage stuff. I'm about to get back into it though.

Whilst I think using these gravity based methods to clarify yeast do work rather well, the engineering needed to do it well is somewhat difficult. Also bentonite works so well on its own, and is inert, that it's hard to justify the cost for such a thing unless you were a commercial vodka distiller or could find cheap off the shelf parts to do it. Messing around with thin stainless is extremely difficult as a hobbyist.