Centrifuge SOP/DO/loss of hop aroma

[Jules]

Hi All,

I'm new to probrewer, hopefully this question hasn't been asked a million times already!

What's everyone's centrifuge SOP like?

We've found that if we don't pre-carbonate in the FV before centrifuging that we get a lot of DO pickup during the centrifuge filtration process. After centrifuging we finish carbonation in our brites.

One of the big concerns is loss of hop aroma through carbonating 2 times (once in the FV and again in the BT) so I'm wondering if we're doing it right?

[dick murton]

It sounds to me as thought you are using carbonation in place of a backpressure control valve after the centrifuge to prevent air ingress.

So, a couple of possibilities

Firstly, your centrifuge may not be strictly appropriate for beer - which I suspect is unlikely if you bought it new and specified it appropriately

Secondly, the various seals may have deteriorated and may be allowing excess air ingress

Thirdly, you do not have a back pressure valve between the c/f outlet and the receiving tank, or have not got it set high enough to ensure sufficient back pressure in the c/f to overcome the suction effect. Unfortunately, I cannot remember what we used to set ours to, but I know we used to centrifuge cask ale with a CO2 content of about 1.2 g/litre without any problem proving all those conditions were OK. I seem to remember we ran bigger centrifuges running beer with CO2 content of circa 1.7g/litre at about 4 bar.

[vinaykumar27]

With our xFlowCO2 system, you can just carbonate once either before or after the centrifuge. it is also possible to adjust the operation in a way that you can also accomplish some reduction in DO. More at https://quantiperm.com/quantiperm-products/carbonation-frementation-brewing/