Why two different shape sides of racks

[Aramis]

Hi, I wonder why racks are diferent each side, whats the reason, i mean, in the picture below we can see the right side is diferent to the other side, what do that difference?
tx a lot

[Michael Murphy]

Hey nice little lauter tun you have there... Is that a spadoni brewhouse?

The differnece to my best guess would be for design.... as you see on one side it has rakes which flip back in to a plow position. where the other sides only function is to cut the grain bed, therefore they are zig zaged for more cutting.

There are lots of studies on lauter tun design including rakes, but a lauter of that size has little effect, just add a few more kgs of malt to make up the difference.... I rather put in 20 kgs extra malt than work 2 hours longer each brew to raise my extraction a few %'s.

[Aramis]

Racks and shape

Tx for your answer, Yes it´s spadoni brew house, I asked about this because i was watching another one, very different, and it can move their rakes, you can give me a little explanation about this device, how can help this when we are brewing. Should I modify my racks to look like picture below? Is that necessary or too important? I´ve got some friends that told me they can weld that device, but I dont know how that works, Hope u can give me a hand with that.

[Michael Murphy]

This is a release handle to free the plow which drops into place, durring lautering the plow is kept above the grain so it doesnt disturb it. The rakes are ment to cut the mash bed to allow uniform filtering (destroys channels).

In the second photo the plow will drop into place when the brewer is ready to push the grain out of the mash tank. As the grain goes out the plow will lower to the false bottom and effectively push most of the the grain out.

The first photo the straight rakes just flip back, which means the motor must have forward and backawards... Its a more simple design.

Neither design should have any affect on the brewing, perhaps one works better and will make less work for the brewer, but a minor detail.

I have seen rakes with no plow as well, you just have to pull it out manually...And I have seen many more lauter tuns with no rakes at all.

[Sulfur]

many plates

It seems from the picture that there's 8 plates. I wonder why so many? The less the better (as long as they're manageable.) Kudos on the cleanliness.

[premierstainless]

Rakes

Actually, the top picture is one of our lauter rake designs from a few years back. It used reversing grain out plows but we now use a drop down plow design like Michael commented on. The second picture looks like the rakes can actually pivot by moving the one handle as they are all tied together. I have seen those on a few systems but have never seen if they are effective for grain removal. I do agree that on smaller later tuns the rakes probably don't make a big difference in extract %, but the plow can really help with the grain removal.

Michael, does Spadoni make brewery vessels?

Cheers,

Rob
Premier Stainless Systems, LLC

[BrewinLou]

That handle IS to pivot the rakes in or out. To drop the plow on our system which looks very close, there is a chain that hoos into the other side.