Filtering with DE
This June, my husband Tim and I had the amazing opportunity to work in a brewery for a day. Head brewer Vince at Iron Hill North Wales graciously showed us the ropes, and we were extremely grateful for the chance to come in and live the dream!
So imagine how excited we were when Vince invited us to come in and see how filtering works? A few weeks ago, we did just that.
Vince uses DE, which stands for diatomaceous earth, an off-white, powdery substance consisting of the fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of algae. Using dirt to make something clean… Weird, right?
For all my fellow techies out there, here’s how it works.
First, Vince runs sanitizer through the filter to make sure there are no contaminants. Meanwhile, he mixes up the DE with water. Here’s what the DE looks like:
 |
| Mixing the DE with water |
Vince then runs this water/DE mixture through the filter, recirculating it to set all the filter beds with a layer of DE. Next, he adds pressure to the filter tank to keep the beds compacted, then lets the water run out.
He gets the beer ready by letting the yeast and trub out of the bottom of fermenter.
 |
| You really don’t want this crud jamming your filter |
After passing through the filter, the beer will go into one of the bright tanks. So for fun, Vince put a crap ton of hops in the bright tank for this beer.
 |
| Vince stuffing in a laundry bag full of hops |
Once the fermenter is hooked into the inlet of the filter, and the bright tank is hooked into the outlet, Vince fills the dosing unit of the filter with beer. He then adds even more DE to it, and allows the unit to recirculate until the new DE is set on the filter beds.
 |
| DE beds are in the tank on the left, the tank on the right is for dosing. |
Once the filter beds are set, Vince opens up the inlet and outlet, allowing the beer to run from the fermenter, through the filter, and out to the bright tank.
As you can see below, there are two sight glasses. The one farthest from the camera is the inlet, where cloudy beer from the fermenter enters the filter beds. The sight glass closer to the camera is clear, filtered beer on its way to the bright tank.
 |
| The site tubes |
While the beer runs through the filter, Vince takes samples to check for clarity, adjusting the flow rate or adding more DE if necessary.
Once all the beer has run through, Vince releases the pressure on the tank, disassembles it, and hoses off the DE. Here you can see what the filter beds look like as DE is being washed off of them.
 |
| Cleaning up shop |
Sounds easy, right? Not so. There are about 10 valves on this one tiny piece of equipment, and the process of setting up the filter is definitely not obvious. Knowing which valve to open and when is something that takes a lot of experience and getting used to. Now that I’ve seen filtering in action, I understand the process, but if someone asked me to do it on my own, I’d be screwed.
As always, Vince did a great job of explaining the process to us. (Hopefully I got all the steps right here…) We are super thankful that he keeps inviting us back. Thanks, Vince!
4 Comments to “Filtering with DE”
Leave a Reply
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ratebeer, RateBeer Hop Press. RateBeer Hop Press said: Fresh off the Press Filtering with DE http://bit.ly/boGH1i [...]
[...] Steph Weber » Filtering with DE [...]
[...] at Iron Hill North Wales with head brewer Vince an awful lot lately (see my accounts of brewing and filtering beer with him), during which time we told him all about our massive hop garden, which is yielding [...]
[...] my own brewery in a few years, and while I have seen the brewing process in a couple of real live breweries, my professional brewing experience is minimal at best. This course will give me the confidence [...]