Automated wort clarification separator

01

Decide what the separator does beside the whirlpool

A brewing handbook from Apex Publishers explains that boiled wort carries hot break (coagulated proteins and polyphenol-protein complexes) with hop and grain debris amounting to about 1–1.5 kg of wet solids per hL of wort, depending on wort strength and hopping, and should be clarified hot, before cooling, by sedimentation, whirlpool, centrifuge or a combined kettle-whirlpool; it calls the whirlpool the method of choice where pellets or extracts are used, warns that trub carried into fermentation gives vegetable flavours and can coat the yeast, and says a centrifuge does not guarantee better hot-break removal than a whirlpool but gives a more consistent turbidity, with a strainer ahead of it if the wort is heavily hopped because hop solids are abrasive. [3]

GEA describes its WORTSTAR Whirl system as separating hot wort into liquid and sediment by fluid dynamics and vessel geometry, removing between 95% and 99% of hot trub, with a specially shaped base and an automated trub removal system. [2]

SPX Seital lists two hot-side duties for its brewery clarifiers: hot wort, with inlet solids below 1.5% v/v and outlet below 0.05% v/v, and trub wort, with inlet below 15% v/v and outlet below 0.2% v/v — the second being wort recovered from the trub-rich fraction. [1]

Editorial calculation: at 1–1.5 kg/hL, a 200 hL brew carries about 200–300 kg of wet trub; size the separator's solids space and discharge frequency, or the whirlpool's trub handling, for that load. [3]

Give the supplier the brew length in hL and brews per day, cast-out time, wort gravity and hopping (whole hops, pellets, extract), whether the separator treats full hot wort or trub wort from the whirlpool, expected trub load, target outlet turbidity or solids, wort temperature, oxygen pick-up limit, CIP regime, utilities (water for bowl operation, power, air), and the control system interface.

02

Size capacity, solids discharge and hygiene

Seital's capacity table rates its hermetic clarifiers on hot wort from 15 hl/h (SE101) through 45 (SE111), 50 (SE161), 140 (SE201), 200 (SE301), 250 (SE401), 290 (SE451), 330 (SE501) and 400 (SE601) to 530 hl/h (SE701), and on trub wort from 3 hl/h (SE101) to 120 hl/h (SE601), noting that real capacity depends on the product and the degree of clarification required. [1]

The brochure lists hermetic design with oxygen pick-up below 10 ppb (typ.), soft feeding and discharge, product recirculation to limit outlet turbidity, an electromagnetic flow meter, fast and precise solids discharge on a time basis or by measured turbidity, extra CIP spray nozzles in the bowl cover, bowl main parts in duplex and super-duplex stainless steel, vibration monitoring with pneumatic or electric fast braking for unattended operation, and a bowl comprising product inlet, distributor, disc stack, centrifugal pump, clarified outlet, sludge chamber, ejecting ports and a sliding piston operated by opening and closing water. [1]

Editorial calculation: on a model rated 140 hl/h for hot wort, a 200 hL brew takes about 200 ÷ 140 ≈ 1.4 h at full rating; compare this with the brewhouse cycle and cast-out time, and confirm the achievable rate at your trub load. [1]

03

Whirlpool, hot-wort separator, trub-wort separator or settling tank

The whirlpool and the hot-wort separator are alternatives on the full stream; the trub-wort duty works on the trub-rich fraction, so a separator can run behind a whirlpool. [3] [1]

04

Recover wort from whirlpool trub with a decanter

Seital's trub-wort duty above treats the trub-rich fraction with a disc-stack clarifier at up to 15% v/v inlet solids. Flottweg describes the alternative of a decanter centrifuge on the whirlpool trub. It states that hot trub settled in the whirlpool still contains 70–85% wort, and that its decanter removes up to 99% of the solids so the wort can be returned to the process; elsewhere on the same page it gives recovery of up to 98 percent of the liquid wort from the separated hot trub. The decanter has an adjustable impeller to adapt to varying solid loads and hopping rates, including late- and dry-hopped beers. [4] [1]

Flottweg argues that, compared with disc centrifuges, the decanter handles highly concentrated trub, which leads to lower volume flows, reduced energy consumption and less maintenance, and that removing hops and trub relieves an overloaded whirlpool and shortens residence time. On the cold side it lists the same machine type for dry-hopped beer, removing up to 99% of hop particles and recovering up to 97% of the beer volume, and its Sedicanter for yeast, separating yeast with an efficiency of over 98% without dilution. [4]

Editorial calculation: the handbook's 1–1.5 kg of wet trub per hL gives 200–300 kg on a 200 hL brew; at 70–85% wort that is about 140–255 kg of wort, or roughly 1.3–2.4 hL at an assumed wort density of 1.05 kg/L, before applying the decanter's recovery. Use your own trub load and wort gravity when comparing a decanter on trub with a disc-stack separator on the full hot-wort stream. [3] [4]

05

Bowl, disc stack, sliding piston, discharge pump and CIP nozzles of a hermetic wort clarifier

Every row is taken from the bowl and machine description in Seital's brochure; the sliding piston, moved by opening and closing water, is what releases the trub through the ejection ports. [1]

06

Hot-wort and trub-wort rates, outlet solids, discharge volume and bowl materials

Flow rate and separation efficiency are the rows with published numbers; size the solids discharge against the handbook's 1–1.5 kg of wet trub per hL. [1] [3]

07

Send the brewhouse, trub and clarity data together

Paste it into your enquiry below or into an email to a maker, then replace every bracket.

Brewhouse: [brew length; brews/day; cast-out time]
Wort: [gravity; hopping; temperature]
Duty: [full hot wort; trub wort; with or without whirlpool]
Targets: [outlet solids or turbidity; O2 pick-up]
Cleaning: [CIP regime]
Site: [power; water; air; controls]

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