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PALL Supradisc II - Please, share your knowledge.

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  • PALL Supradisc II - Please, share your knowledge.

    Hi brewers,

    I have been thinking about the filtering issue for quite a long time. I would like to avoid plate filters and diatomite filters due to several reasons. As it seems more and more brewers are using systems like the PALL Supradisc II or other systems like the one from Filtrox which are modules you can backwash several times:

    Filtration solutions for a variety of segments in the food and beverage industry. Explore how we ensure product quality.



    I contacted PALL and an agent came for a visit to present the Supradisc II. Of course they try to convince you that their system is better than the one from Filtrox. I guess it is more or less the same. But the backwashing with the PALL systems seems to be more safe to me. However, the modules cost around 265 USD for the 16" (5 m2) and 135 USD for the 12" (1.8 m2). As I can remeber Filtrox is a bit less expensive here.
    He told me with the 16" I will definitely be able to filter around 120 hl. This would mean around 22 USD for filtering 1000 liter. Compared with other costs 22 USD seem ok to me.

    Now what I find a bit insane the price for the metal housing of the filter. They want 6'000 USD. I could get a brand new CCT for this. The price from a Filtrox company was 1'000 USD for a 10" just for comparison.


    Do you know brewers who are using the PALL system? If yes, are they happy? What do they say? What are their experience?

    Has anyone ever had bad experience with backwashing Filtrox modules?

    The agent said they recommend to just wash the filter with hot water or steam and keep it in a CO2 atmosphere in the housing. I somehow think this is a bit risky. I would definitely put peroxyacid solution in there or another desinfectant.
    What do others do?

    I wil usually filter 10 hl from a 24 hl tank into a 10 hl bright tank. Is a 12" enough for this? The agent did not really know and (of course) proposed the bigger one (16"). Are there brewers who are using a 12" for 10 hl without blocking?

    Does anyone know if it is possible to buy a suitable housing from another company for a more reasonable price?


    Best regards, Daniel

  • #2
    We use a 16" supradisk and over all I am really happy with it. With this batch of filters we have run around 150hl through it with no problems. When we first started though we had a good length of time between filter runs and just using the hot water method to back flush wasn't getting it clean enough for my liking. Really rich smell of dead yeast when I opened it back up. I moved to using back flushing with water and then a very low concentration of caustic recirc. Maybe I wasn't using the hot water back flush long enough but the switch to caustic totally solved the problem. I have never had a problem with sanitizing with the hot water method that they suggest. I store it with CO2 in-between uses. I love their customer service that I have received. We regularly filter highly dry hopped beers with no issue but I am pretty careful about pulling off as much as I can and leaving enough time for the beer to crash. Over all a happy man. Hope that helps.

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    • #3
      The key to back washing is to use a high enough flow rate. For effective backflushing, the cartridge filter suppliers, and I believe the same applies to all, what I shall term composite depth filters (certainly all those I have used) is to use a flow rate typically quoted as 150% of design maximum forward filtration flow rate. I have always used cold backflush first to remove the relatively loose soil such as yeast and large proteins, and then either backflush with hot water or flood with hot caustic, soak and then flush out - the exact specs being specified by the filter supplier. Polyprop supports don't like high pressure / high flow very high temperature hot water / casutic as the temperature tends to soften the polyprop support and then the fitlers either collapse (forward flush) or explode (backflush).
      dick

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by danibier View Post
        Hi brewers,

        I have been thinking about the filtering issue for quite a long time. I would like to avoid plate filters and diatomite filters due to several reasons. As it seems more and more brewers are using systems like the PALL Supradisc II or other systems like the one from Filtrox which are modules you can backwash several times:

        Filtration solutions for a variety of segments in the food and beverage industry. Explore how we ensure product quality.



        I contacted PALL and an agent came for a visit to present the Supradisc II. Of course they try to convince you that their system is better than the one from Filtrox. I guess it is more or less the same. But the backwashing with the PALL systems seems to be more safe to me. However, the modules cost around 265 USD for the 16" (5 m2) and 135 USD for the 12" (1.8 m2). As I can remeber Filtrox is a bit less expensive here.
        He told me with the 16" I will definitely be able to filter around 120 hl. This would mean around 22 USD for filtering 1000 liter. Compared with other costs 22 USD seem ok to me.

        Now what I find a bit insane the price for the metal housing of the filter. They want 6'000 USD. I could get a brand new CCT for this. The price from a Filtrox company was 1'000 USD for a 10" just for comparison.


        Do you know brewers who are using the PALL system? If yes, are they happy? What do they say? What are their experience?

        Has anyone ever had bad experience with backwashing Filtrox modules?

        The agent said they recommend to just wash the filter with hot water or steam and keep it in a CO2 atmosphere in the housing. I somehow think this is a bit risky. I would definitely put peroxyacid solution in there or another desinfectant.
        What do others do?

        I wil usually filter 10 hl from a 24 hl tank into a 10 hl bright tank. Is a 12" enough for this? The agent did not really know and (of course) proposed the bigger one (16"). Are there brewers who are using a 12" for 10 hl without blocking?

        Does anyone know if it is possible to buy a suitable housing from another company for a more reasonable price?


        Best regards, Daniel
        www.danibier.ch

        Hi Daniel,
        I will echo what the other posters have said, as they were spot on with their responses.

        I will add however a few thoughts to your original post:

        1. The filtrox filter and the Pall SUPRAdisc II may operate similarly in the forward direction, but they handle reverse pressure (such as for cleaning) and spikes differently. I do not know the specifics tho, so you may want to double check. Especially for brewing, where the ROI is almost entirely in how many times you can reuse the filter, this is vital.

        2. Although PALL SUPRAdisc II filters will fit in competitive housings, most Brewers prefer a one-stop-shop, so that if there is ever an issue, they can rest assured it will be handled quickly and effectively. By combining a competitive housing with Pall filters, it is a lot more difficult to determine where issues lay if they come up (as they always do - such is life). This is compounded by the fact that all Brewers want to get the most life possible out of the filters, so they are quite aggressive in their cleaning regimes.

        3. Please double check that you are comparing apples to apples. While the cost for the Pall housing sounds about right, 1000 USD for a Lenticular housing sounds VERY cheap. If it is a new housing you are getting, it may be a case of getting what you paid for (good and bad).

        4. While the cost of a Pall housing seems expensive from a Cap-Ex standpoint, the filters themselves are not inexpensive. It doesn't take too many broken filters or bad batches of beer to quickly eat into any savings gained by getting a "deal". What you are paying for in the long run is the assurance and support that your needs will be met.

        5. As to sizing, it is rare that I recommend a 12" filter for a beer application. While they do work well for wine and cider, beer tends to flow more slowly and aggressively, so over sizing a bit will return outsized returns when it comes to speed, cost, and ROI.



        Please feel free to contact me with any questions at Milton.Leland@Pall.com.

        PS> Please note that I am based in the US, so I do not know what the costs are in other countries. Even though I work for Pall Corp, nothing I say here is in any way intended to represent the thoughts or opinions of Pall Corporation as a whole. I am just here trying to help ;-)

        Comment


        • #5
          What I bought in the end...

          Funny. In the end I decided to go with a 500 USD 20 cm x 20 cm filter with 36 pads from www.roverpompe.com . When I filter 1000 l it costs around 22 USD.

          I am quite happy with it. I filter with 1.5 mikron easily 1000 l beer under pressure of 0.8 bar.

          Picture here:
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          13th July 2015:
          I used the filter pads from roverpompe from Italy. It seems every producer of such filters has a different defnition for what the unit Mikron means with a filter. I heard good stuff about this company Filtrox so I thought I try some of heir filter pads. They told me I will never use 1.5 Mikron filters since they are too fine. I said I am using them now. We had a talk and they explained everything to me. It seems these guys really know something about filtering in general. So it seems one has to be careful with what Mikron really means. However, they sent me 50 pads for free of their (real and absolute) 8 Mikron "AF 31 H" (5-12 Mikron) for testing:



          The price incl. shipping is 0.91 USD per pad. I used 36 pads for filtering 3000 l beer and the flow was still high at the end. They worked better than teh Italian flter pads and seemed to absorb more yeast. They are also a bit thicker as it seems. It was absolutely easy. Totally crystal clear beer. So I paid around 10 USD per 1000 l beer for filtering. I am totally happy. This filtering topic really concerend me and pissed me off a bit because I thought I will have to buy expensive, big and complicated equipment. But with this plate filter things are so easy. I just connect it between the fermenter (0.8 bar) and the transport tank (0.6 bar), then I push the button and there it goes. No foaming, no problems, just crystal clear beer. Cleaning is so easy, too. There was a time when I was even thinking of buying a diatomite filter.
          Last edited by danibier; 07-13-2015, 03:08 AM.

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