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  • Carbon Filter Size

    Can anyone from the forum help me determine and or recommend what type carbon filter we need for our 15 BBL brewhouse? While not necessary, we also plan on running the tap room water through it as well.

    Thanks.

    Mike
    mdallas@scorchedearthbrewing.com

  • #2
    Not sure of your volume demand or flow rate, but this is what we use for our 5 and 10 BBL breweries!!http://www.grainger.com/product/3M-B...rchQuery=3P971 Cheers!!

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    • #3
      We've got a 15 BBL system. Still working out the flow requirements for it.

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      • #4
        1 cubic foot per barrel is a good rule of thumb. It might be a bit oversized, but will provide good flow.

        The more city water you require at once, the bigger the filter, to provide adequate carbon contact time.

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        • #5
          Nat

          Do you know what that ROT translates to in gallons per minute?

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          • #6
            Depends on your water pressure...that's why it's a general rule, rather than a calculation of your needs.

            When it comes to carbon filters, I've always just bought the biggest thing available...which is usually about 10 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter. Early in my brewing career I had the unfortunate assignment of changing the carbon in a filter. My experience with that left me with a strong desire to never do it again.

            The 1 ft3 per bbl rule is one I've used a few times when spec'ing startup business plans for new breweries. Everyone I did that for is now up and running, and no one has piped up and said "that was a waste of money," or "doesn't flow enough!"

            (they might pipe in now, though!)

            If we assume that you are going to use regular coal-based granulated activated carbon (GAC) pellets, and your water pressure is 80 psi then the table says you can flow 1.2 gpm per cubic foot. Using coconut based media will up your surface area to a minimum of 11300 ft2/g, which will allow you to flow a faster 3.2 gpm per cubic foot, and still get good chlorine removal.

            Turning that into real world numbers, a 15 ft3 filter for your 15 bbl system will flow 48 gpm, which would fill your kettle in 10 minutes (using coconut based media), assuming no other restrictions or filters. In practice, it might be more like 15 minutes, but that's still pretty good, and plenty for mashing in and sparging.

            Now, if you buy the largest Watts filter at 35 ft3, then you reduce your time to about 6-8 minutes (it's not a linear progression, which is why there's a table instead of a formula)

            I'm not a real expert with this...the tables I have were supplied to me by a friend in the water treatment biz, and I'm sure my use of them is somewhat faulty...but that's what I have to offer :-)

            One other thing...if your water pressure is below about 35 psi, your flow will drop drastically. If it's above 120 psi, you are going to have to regulate it down to something the filter can handle...and that in and of itself will impede flow.

            I found that a 30 ft3 filter on a system running 60 psi was perfectly adequate for running a 20 bbl brewery and cellar. It would fill our cold liq tank (40 bbl) in about 35 minutes. Hope some of that helped :-$

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            • #7
              Natrat

              Thanks for the followup. So far I have a vendor telling me a 4 cubic foot capacity auto backwash tank should work - provides 18 gpm flow rate (peak). I have another water conditioning vendor recommending a dechlorinator, rather than a auto backwash solution. The dechlorinator doesn't need a timer and doesn't backwash. It uses activated carbon, but instead of sending water down through the carbon, it forces it up (upflow filtration). No other filtration like you might get out of a carbon filter with its bed of sand or other media. Putting two of these inline gives me mid-20 gpm and then a prefilter to get anything else I might want to filter.

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              • #8
                Ask him if you can do a quality assay from another unit that is on the same water as you.

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                • #9
                  We have a 5 cubic foot carbon filter (filled w/5cuft of carbonized coconut shell granules). It's a fully automated unit that's self-cleaning, which is very convenient. We only need to have the filter media changed out annually - not a big deal. With our current municipal supply, the output of the filter is approximately 30 gallons per minute, which is plenty fast enough for our 10bbl brewhouse. I suspect it would be adequate for a 15bbl setup as well.
                  Last edited by Beachwood; 04-24-2014, 11:21 AM.

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                  • #10
                    Thanks for the response. We are going with a little smaller system - upflow carbon filtration system. Doesn't need backwashing.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Beachwood View Post
                      We have a 5 cubic foot carbon filter (filled w/5cuft of carbonized coconut shell granules). It's a fully automated unit that's self-cleaning, which is very convenient. We only need to have the filter media changed out annually - not a big deal. With our current municipal supply, the output of the filter is approximately 30 gallons per minute, which is plenty fast enough for our 10bbl brewhouse. I suspect it would be adequate for a 15bbl setup as well.
                      If you have a moment, can you provide a link or make/model for the filter you're using? Thanks!

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                      • #12
                        Here you go

                        (2) 10”x54” Kinetico Dechlorinators (Model 1100) will be installed in parallel flow to remove the chlorine for the makeup water for the brewery with a 1 ½” ported sediment cartridge filter using 50 micron elements installed in the outlet of the dechlorinators.

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                        • #13
                          We size carbon tanks based upon the desired flow in gallons per minute. Any gpm can be treated, but that is the design criteria needed to figure out the sizing. Also we'd need to know if you are treating chlorine or chloramines.

                          Russ
                          Water Treatment Systems & Supplies www.BuckeyeHydro.com
                          Info@buckeyehydro.com 513-312-2343

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