$300 DIY Grain Separator

[Galveston Distilling Co.]

Now that I'm getting things up and running one of my first issues has been grain separation. My main still is 105 Gal so I'm a bit too small to spend the big bucks on a centrical separator or screw press but too big for just a small pot with a false bottom. Here is what I've put together!

I started out with a 275 Gal IBC tote. I got it for $90 since there was already a small hole in the top. I cut the cage down one level all the way around and then down another two on the side without the drain. I also cut a hole in the top to access the inside.

Once I had that done I went around the tote drilling holes and zip tying the tote to the cage to keep it secure. Once it was secure I took a multitool and cut out the top and side using the rail as a guide. My son cleaned it out and I waited on the mesh to arrive

I ordered 4 ft x 5 ft #6 Stainless Steel Mesh from TWP Inc for about $180 after shipping. I rolled the edge on the drain side around the top bar and zip tied it into place. After rolling it out, I cut tabs every 6 or so inches to help with bending. Once it was bent into place, I secured the other end to the opening and tried to make a nice curve. Everything was secured with zip ties.

Next was testing it out. This was a single malt of Red Wheat so it was an easier starting test. Will be testing it with a corn mash here soon. My son and I pumped everything from the still right onto the mesh and the grain separated great! Used a shovel to flip the grain around as the squeegee wasn't working the best. The system easily held 200 lbs and could do more if someone was scooping out the spent grain as it was going.

After the first run I sadded a few additions. I added an attached discharge hose so I don't have to worry about the hose coming out if unattended. I changed from a hose to some steel pipe for the drain and added an attached washdown hose for afterwards.

The last upgrade I'll need to make is to cut a small hatch on the drain side so that I can get in there with a shop vac. IBC totes have those two wells on either side of the drain and some liquid gets stuck there. Overall it has been a success and only cost me $300. I'll see how it does with some bourbon next week!

 

 

[Pour Decisions]

Love it Tim, its these types of things I feel us small distillers on a small budget do well, taking a little creativity and making something useful that others can put into place. Reminds me of my diy bottle rinser!

 

Thanks for sharing and best of luck with your distillery!

[PeteB]

I love seeing this type of creativity, if any of the forum visit my distillery in Tasmania you will see my place full of this.

I will be interested to see how it works with corn that I assume you will cook. Malted and un-malted barley drain really well, malted rye is OK but much slower. Rye doesn't have much husk to form an open filter bed. Un-malted rye is almost impossible to separate with decent efficiency on a simple screen. I haven't used corn but I suspect it won't drain nearly as efficiently as your malted wheat.

One small technicality, you wrote "single malt of Red Wheat". The word Single as in Single Malt is legislated in many countries as meaning a single distillery produced the malt spirit, not just a mash of a single type of malted grain.

[whiskeytango]

How many pounds of grain are you running through per run?

 

[Pour Decisions]

Tim, do you feel that #6 mesh is adequate or would you change to a smaller mesh if doing over? Reason I ask is that I grind my grinds very small!

[Galveston Distilling Co.]

44 minutes ago, whiskeytango said:

How many pounds of grain are you running through per run?

 

Currently running 200 lb per run

22 minutes ago, Pour Decisions said:

Tim, do you feel that #6 mesh is adequate or would you change to a smaller mesh if doing over? Reason I ask is that I grind my grinds very small!

I went with this size mesh as it is small enough to catch 90% but not too small that it would clog as easy. Most of my grinds are down to 0.05". This size did let a little through but not much. I'm going to collect it and see how much didn't get caught. I'm currently fermenting in my still as my fermenters are about to be shipped to me but when the 100% corn mash is done, I'll try that out and let you know!

On the bright side, it wouldn't be too bad to change the mesh size if I needed to. Hopefully that won't be the case but we will see!

[richard1]

I am about to do something similar but with variation.  I am waiting on arrival of my new pump.  When it does, I will pump at pressure from a fermenter where I have done a heavy loaded 100% corn in fermentation through a screen.  This "de-corned mash" of low wines I will then distil with direct heating.

 

[Pofarmer]

6 hours ago, richard1 said:

I am about to do something similar but with variation.  I am waiting on arrival of my new pump.  When it does, I will pump at pressure from a fermenter where I have done a heavy loaded 100% corn in fermentation through a screen.  This "de-corned mash" of low wines I will then distil with direct heating.

 

I suppose that has a separator built into it somewhere?

[Pofarmer]

What are you using for a pump? 

[richard1]

That picture is of the pump .... Mono pump.  Basically it is a food grade positive displacement pump where I will be able to reach with variable speed control up to 12 bar.g.  Post the pump I will have a stand alone screen setup with restrictor for separating of liquid and hopefully de-watered mash.  Well that's the intent.

[Pour Decisions]

@ricahrd1 might as well get on of these direct from China. I know USD delivered is under 2k

[Pofarmer]

What are you using for a mash pump?

 

[Pofarmer]

8 hours ago, richard1 said:

That picture is of the pump .... Mono pump.  Basically it is a food grade positive displacement pump where I will be able to reach with variable speed control up to 12 bar.g.  Post the pump I will have a stand alone screen setup with restrictor for separating of liquid and hopefully de-watered mash.  Well that's the intent.

I would be really careful about that compacting in the hose and pump body. Those are basically a light duty extruder.  

[richard1]

@Pour Decisions Thanks for that.  Unfortunately the pump is already paid for and am awaiting on delivery.

 

@Pofarmer  Thanks.  The flexible hose I need to watch out for, but the pump is okay for 12 bar.g.  In any case I will be experimenting in the next month odd for the final design to be settled on.

 

The idea of a standalone pump is to me quite important as I intend to use it for a variety of applications ....e.g. for a carbonation project where I need to raise the line pressure to around + 10 bar.g.  I am looking to do some RTD's where I plan to have a packaged CO2 content of around 7 g/l.

[SlickFloss]

19 hours ago, Pour Decisions said:

@ricahrd1 might as well get on of these direct from China. I know USD delivered is under 2k

Can you provide link for this unit? Very interesting

 

 

@ OP this is a great way to do some basic separating on this one particular mash bill of yours but you will likely have issues with other mashbills. Just so you know, the "water" you have piped to your drain post separation is incredibly high in BOD, TSS, and a PH that is unlikely to be manageable by your waste water plant. You'll get away with a few low volume sporadic drops but if theres any consistency  and regular volume to your production and you're on a small municipal etc waste water treatment plant you'll likely hear about the issues downstream. 

 

BOD- Biological oxygen demand. The amount of oxygen required by the bugs at the plant to process the load. They need oxygen to live.

TSS- Total Suspended Solids. You separated big pieces but lots of small pieces make it though. These pieces stress the system and aren't as treatable as other wastes in the system (for instance: shit dissolves and is metabolized eventually, undigested protein, cellulose, and fiber aren't as easily by the bugs etc.)

PH-all bugs die from PH stress just depends where their safe spot is at

 

 

Cheers,

Slick

[Pour Decisions]

@SlickFloss The image below  has my contact persons info and link to product below it. Keep in mind there are a large assortment of sizes, this one just happens to be very affordable and suited to my size of operations. 

 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/hot-sale-screw-press-farm-animal_1600725162367.html?

 

Also, talk to @Silk City Distillers regarding his experience with a unit like this, as his name is on the Kason website which these are basically a copy of so i assume he has one of theirs

[Galveston Distilling Co.]

@SlickFloss  I actually have things set up for that. Since there was a restaurant here once, all of my floor drains go to a multiple stage grease trap system. Using this the first stage catches the smaller solids and allows them to fall out of suspension. Being in Galveston, oyster shells are available by the bag behind any seafood restaurant. I filled the second stage with oyster shells to help balance the PH a bit. The city has given the thumbs up as long as it is cooled down and PH balanced and thankfully this does the trick!

I'll be putting a 100% corn mash through in the next couple of days. Think it was sitting at 42% attenuation this morning. I'll make sure to post an update of how the system handles it!

[Galveston Distilling Co.]

Corn went great!! Just to clarify as I know everyone does everything differently. This is cracked corn sent through a roller mill at 0.05". I know many people use a hammer mill or grind down to a power but I get good results with this. With 200 lbs in 100 gal I got a SG of 1.066 which since cracked corn is 30 PPG (85% efficiency) that puts my conversion at 93.5% efficiency. I'm happy with that!

Same process as before. Just pumped in at the top of the slope and used a shovel to flip it when it piled up. I put a secondary filter under the drain and am going to empty my shop vac before cleaning inside to see how much small bits made it through. I have one more batch of 100% corn while I wait on my fermenters to arrive but once they do I'll be putting it through the real test. I'll be doing a 100% Rye Mash and 100% Rice Vodka! I know rice hulls are great at filtering but I don't know if after milling it if it will just go through the screen. Overall, still happy with it!

[Pour Decisions]

Thanks for the update. I might reach out to TWP to see if they are able to send a few small sample pieces of different mesh that I can test with my ground corn. I do grind pretty fine.

[SlickFloss]

On 6/29/2023 at 4:35 PM, Galveston Distilling Co. said:

@SlickFloss  I actually have things set up for that. Since there was a restaurant here once, all of my floor drains go to a multiple stage grease trap system. Using this the first stage catches the smaller solids and allows them to fall out of suspension. Being in Galveston, oyster shells are available by the bag behind any seafood restaurant. I filled the second stage with oyster shells to help balance the PH a bit. The city has given the thumbs up as long as it is cooled down and PH balanced and thankfully this does the trick!

I'll be putting a 100% corn mash through in the next couple of days. Think it was sitting at 42% attenuation this morning. I'll make sure to post an update of how the system handles it!

Fuck yeah buddy. Very unexpected and appreciated response. What you're doing is very similar to the engineering we're looking at from a huge processor of mash down in Kentucker. Basically that first stage lets it simply separate and you're racking off to next tank which is your buffer. They're taking the stuff separating to lower and drying it for feed and racking off top of tank. If you ever seriously up your volume or start running things with amazingly high oxygen demands, your quick fix is a small ozone generator into either the primary or the buffer tank depending on your plumbings abilities will dictate what you can get away with. Otherwise very complete for current application.

 

Great work. Impressed. I don't say that too much here anymore! Good feeling!

[TFDChris]

Thanks for sharing!!!

[Pour Decisions]

I borrowed your idea and made a few revisions. Since I grind smaller than you do I wanted my mesh to have a tighter weave. The tighter mesh is also thinner material so I wanted to add some structure underneath. I used some leftover cattle panel material and cut it to fit tightly inside the poly bin. I also left a bit of a curve in the slope similar to what you see on an industrial sieve. I also bent the lower end of the mesh leaving the outer edges space to overlap the cut in the poly section adding some more strength. I think this method will make it easier to change out the atainless meah if needed. Not wanting to leave it open all the time, I pop riveted a piano hinge in place allowing the top to open and close. Here's a few pics of it before adding my # 20 stainless mesh.

 

All in all I'm pleased. Thanks again for sharing your idea!