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Seeking Advice on proper settings on a GEA Westfalia Centrifuge for filtering

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  • Seeking Advice on proper settings on a GEA Westfalia Centrifuge for filtering

    Hello I am new to filtering beer through a GEA Westfalia Centrifuge and any advice on the appropriate settings used to optimize the yield and overall flavor and haze of each style would be greatly appreciated.

  • #2
    A minor point, but centrifuges are not filters. So you will get virtually no difference in my experience of hop aroma, unlike a true filter. irrespective of speed unless you have highly variable yeast / protein levels in the clarified beer.

    Having said that, the supplier is probably the best person to talk to. Surely you asked them to supply a machine that would meet some stated criteria in terms of loading and then they should have come back to you and said this is likely to produce the results you want if you run it this way.

    Part of the problem in telling anyone remotely how to run something like this is that every brewery has different variables in beer supply quality and what they are looking for out of the machine. You will also be able to control it differently depending on what anciliary equipment you have got with the machine - haze meters in and out, yeast dosing systems (or not) for example and how they are linked into the machine.

    If nothing else, run it slowly to start with, monitor haze in and out, temperature pickup, oxygen pickup and then increase speeds gradually if OK.

    Typically out of a CCV, you start slowly until you have got rid of any thicker beer at the bottom, and as the auto discharge (may be known as an EPTE unit) starts to reduce the discharge frequency, you can increase the throughput, and then you may have to slow down as the beer level drops towards / into the cone, and starts to drag a little more yeast / protein that always settles on the cone walls as, normally, a thin layer.
    dick

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    • #3
      GEA Centrifuge

      When using a centrifuge, there are many factors to consider, at the screen you will have to create the following:

      1. Your beer recipe according to the style, generally some dark beers would require a special beer recipe, if not you will end up dumping all the beer.
      2. Check the settings on the attached picture, this controls the back pressure, flow rate and pump curve pressure. VERY IMPORTANT, you will find them at the main screen.
      3. How to CIP the centrifuge before and after
      4. Purging the centrifuge, as well, the filter lines.
      5. Brewing water supply, does it have a booster pump?
      6. Will you have deaerated water (DAW) to push the beer or when it goes into idle for any reason.
      7. Glycol that cools the centrifuge, open valves at beginning when starting filtration and close when CIP finishes at end of filtration.

      Since you are in Virginia, I would suggest to contact my former colleagues at Devils Backbone Brewing Company so you can go and see how it works and all tasks required to filter a fine beer.

      Click image for larger version

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      Last edited by Fausto Yu-Shan; 01-09-2020, 07:47 AM.

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