# Diy: Filter Beer For $30!



## BjornJ (13/12/09)

*DIY: Home made beer filter for $30 *





The filter consists of a pond/aquarium pump forcing liquid through a filter cone housed in a food-container with screw-on lid.

The “In” part of the pump has a piece of plastic tube that fits perfectly in the cube tap.
By opening the cube tap, beer fills the pump, this is necessary for it to function as it is not able to self-prime. The beer enters the food container on the outside of the filter cone, having to travel through the filter before being going up the “Out” hose and into the fermenter for bottling. This filters the beer to produce a brighter beer and still leaves enough yeast to bottle carbonate. 


Here is a picture of the whole thing on the side. After pumping sanitizing liquid for a while, then a bit of boiled, cooled water it filtered beer like a champ!




To my surprise the filter worked beautifully without the pump being turned on.
Gravity alone was enough to force beer through the pump, through the filter and into the fermenter. Having spent quite a while getting the pump converted from being a submerged pump I of course ignored this and turned it on anyway, to speed things along and to feel good about having spent the time in the first place  


Parts list from Bunnings:
Filter cone 5 micron, $6.50 
Food container with screw-on lid $3.60
2 x garden hose barbs 10-13 mm $2.00
Pack of hose clamps $2.00
10-pack of rubber seals for fixing leaking toilets $7.50
3 m of 10 mm silicone hose $5
A couple of pieces of 12 mm hose $2

The filter cone was only $6.50 at Bunnings at Rockdale, a 5 micron sediment-reducing drinking water filter. This is the cheapest filter they have and about 3 times as long as necessary.
This is my third version of the filter, so I had already cut a piece that did not fit perfectly with this food container. This is why I use the rubber seals, throwing in one after the other until I had a good, tight fit where the beer can not go anywhere but through the filter. As the filter is quite solid I think having at least a single rubber seal would be good to make a tight seal, but buying a 10-pack was probably a bit over the top. 

I drilled holes in the lid, and glued the hose barbs in from the underside.




This is the finished filter housing, showing the hose barbs glued in place, and the sawed off piece of filter cone in the box with some rubber seals both underneath and on-top to create a good seal. I was worried I had not cut the filter with perfectly straight sides, allowing beer to pass around the bottom of the filter, hence the rubber seals. The rubber seals are the black round pieces of rubber with a hole in the middle.




Here it is with the silicone hoses attached with hose clamps.
The filter is now ready, and to my disappointment (after screwing around making the pump able to pump without being submerged) it works great without a pump.

So the total cost of this filter is $28.60 not counting glue, so let’s say $30.
Using the pump is optional, it would add another $24.




As I use a pond/aquarium pump for my immersion chiller I figured I should use this pump for the filter as well.

The pump is also from Bunnings, costing $24 from memory.
The problem with the pump is that it only works when submerged.

I fixed this by taking off the front cover and gluing a piece of silicone hose over the water intake hole. It now works out of water, much better than having to drop the entire pump in the beer! 
The pump is not self-priming, it still has to be filled with liquid before it will pump, but this is easily achieved by putting it lower than the cube/fermenter and let gravity fill the pump before turning it on. Before putting the “lid” back on the pump I gave it a round of silicone thread tape to make a watertight seal, otherwise it would draw air in from around the lid.













Test run with water:
The food container leaked water around the lid, the plastic threads were not water-tight. I tried several times with silicon thread tape with no luck. What made it water-tight was a piece of plastic bag cut to size with two holes in it for the barbs, then just screwed the lid on and it was no longer leaking..




Disclaimer:
I know beer filters are available from homebrew shops, but thought it would be more fun trying to make one myself.
I understand not everyone is interested in filtering their beer; this DIY would then not be for them  
I crach-chilled my beer, added isinglass and polyclar before trying the filter. This was a lager with 20 % flaked rice, so it was VERY light and clear even before any finings. Another beer would maybe not have gone so easily through the filter without any help, I don’t know but was impressed how quickly the beer was going through the filter by gravity alone.
I washed off the filter with hot water and sanitizer liquid before air drying it, washing everything else with hot water and soap before sanitizing everything again.
Will I use the filter again or just cut a new part next time?
Not sure at this time, I want to see if it is possible to use it again before throwing it out.
The only difference would be using 1/3 of a $6.50 filter once or twice, so either way filtering beer is not an expensive exercise.

And it was great fun making it!

 

Thanks
BjornJ


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## pokolbinguy (13/12/09)

Great ingenuity there mate. Nice work.


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## MaestroMatt (13/12/09)

A+++++

Beautiful work there mate! I love DIY jobs sothis kind of thing appeals
to me lots.

Well done!


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## DasBier (13/12/09)

the housing's really aren't that expensive (unless you go to craftbrewer). they're essentially just water filter sets you can pick up from a hardware store, they even sell the 1micron membranes for like $15-20 a pop iirc.


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## BjornJ (13/12/09)

Thanks guys!

It was partially because I think $100+ for a beer filter is a bit much just to try it out, and because it would be great fun trying to source parts from BigW and Bunnings, and building it myself.

At Bunnings they sell the filter housings for $66 I think it was, and the 5 micron filters for $6.50 and 1 micron for about $22 as DasBier says so you could easily make a "proper" one.

I just thought it was a fun project.

thanks
Bjorn


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## sumo (14/12/09)

*Home made beer filter for $30 *

Nice work, and at 1/3 the price of buying the real deal it's what home brewing is about!


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## reVoxAHB (14/12/09)

Love your work, mate. Love little projects like this which produce great result at low expense. 

Have you filtered a pale beer bright, like a pils etc. ?

Thanks for sharing.

reVox


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## FNQ Bunyip (14/12/09)

Thats NOT silicone hose .... Its CVT , Clear vinyl tube... 

and thred tape is Teflon NOT silicone ...

cheers


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## Supra-Jim (14/12/09)

Nice little filter project there BjornJ, 

One question though, the pump you've modified as it is designed to be a submersible pump, does this suffer from overheating by non submersing it? My understanding is that these motors are designed to be cooled via the water/liquid they are submersed in.

Just food for thought. 

Cheers SJ


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## BjornJ (14/12/09)

FNQ Bunyip.
you are right, thanks for spotting that.





Supra-Jim,
the pump does not overheat as it is filled with liquid while pumping. To be honest I don't think they can overheat either way as I pulled mine out of the water lots of times while testing and had it running for some time on the kitchen sink. It is basically a small electrical engine with a plastic rotor on it.
The modification I did was to cover the inlet hole with a piece of hose that fits perfectly outside the small plastic "wings" around the hole, then inserted a smaller piece of hose inside this again. After testing this setup I found turbulence was creating air bubbles when going from the small to the large tubing, so I cut the bigger piece down a bit and it worked great.

reVox,
the beer I filtered was a very light-colored, clear beer so guessing a pale ale would be quite similar when it comes to filtering.


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## wynnum1 (14/12/09)

How long does it take to filter .


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## Spoonta (14/12/09)

I like it yet another project


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## BjornJ (14/12/09)

wynnum1 said:


> How long does it take to filter .



I think it would take about 10 mins if not using the pump.
It was surprisingly fast and easy,

thanks
Bjorn


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## benno1973 (14/12/09)

Are aquarium pumps ok for coming into contact with low pH liquids? I assume that they wouldn't transfer any grease or anything, as they are rated for aquariums, just wondering if they'd leach anything in acidic environments. Still, a nice little project!


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## BjornJ (14/12/09)

Kaiser Soze,
I don't know much about this pump other than by picking it apart it seems pretty basic:
An electric motor with a propeller on the end, the motor is in a plastic container filled with some melted plastic kind of component and only the rotor sticks out.
I have picked it apart, filtered a fair amount of water and water/sanitizer through it and it looked very clean (no axel grease, etc) to me.

Guess the bottom line is just that the filter can be easily made for $30 if you want to try filtering your beer, and that -if you want- a pump can be added.

The pump can be an aquarium pump like in my case, or a drill pump (bunnings sells the drill run pumps for about $25) or a hand-pump, one of those rubber balloons on boat gas tanks that act as a one-way valve. THat would also work and they cost about $6.50, you would start out by gravity filtering and if necessary start pumping the balloon..

Can't remember if I saw the "balloon" at BigW or Bunnings, just remember it was $6.50


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## nickel (15/12/09)

Are the water filter cartridges fron bunnings able too cleaned and reused, using them for home brew? And is anything under 1 micron a overkill?


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## ~MikE (15/12/09)

nickel said:


> Are the water filter cartridges fron bunnings able too cleaned and reused, using them for home brew? And is anything under 1 micron a overkill?



i believe they're fine. 1-3ish microns "absolute" or otherwise you will notice no difference. they'll filter large particles and yeast cells very easily. protein haze and yeast buds you'll need .45-.2 micron filters.


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## KGB (15/12/09)

Any pics of the filter while it was dirty?


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## FNQ Bunyip (15/12/09)

I dont think a 5 micron fillter would catch much at all... 1 or 2 micron "absolute" is what you need .. 

DIY projects are good but if the info is not all there it just frustrates ...

Cheers


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## BjornJ (15/12/09)

Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of the filter after use.
But to the naked eye it looked as good as new.
I could not see any parts or stuff on it.

Playing around with this project I read a bit about water filters.
There are "nominal" and "absolute", the one I used is a nominal one which appearantly removes up to 85% of the particals of the spec'd size (in this case 5 micron) . The absolute filters do 99.9%.

I've read posts from people saying they have bottle carbonated beers after filtering through a 1 micron filter, but I have no experience with this as I filtered my first beer on Saturday.

What I did was bottle 4 Coopers PET bottles with unfiltered beer before attaching the filter, and labelled these "A".
I then labelled all the filtered ones "B" so I can compare the result.

I gave it a good wash and rinse before sanitising it and left it to air dry. Will have a look at it at the next bottling time and see if I want to experiment by re-using it or just saw off another part of the filter cone.
Not to save $1 but just to know if they can be reused.
I guess the only issue would be that they could clog up?

I don't think there are anything else that could go wrong?

thanks
Bjorn


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## BjornJ (15/12/09)

FNQ Bunyip said:


> I dont think a 5 micron fillter would catch much at all... 1 or 2 micron "absolute" is what you need ..
> 
> DIY projects are good but if the info is not all there it just frustrates ...
> 
> Cheers



Not sure what information is lacking here about the making of a beer filter, but sure you can expand on that?

I bought the 5 micron filter cone as it was the cheapest cone available at my local bunnings, after reading about 5 micron beer filtering several places.

A quick look now came up with a store selling beer filters: http://www.filterstore.com/kit.asp 
*"The 5.0 micron filter gets rid of any sediment in your beer. The 1.0 micron filter gives you a brilliantly clear beer. And the 0.5 micron filter enables you to eliminate almost all chill haze from your brilliantly clear beer."

*Homebrew digest: http://hbd.org/mtippin/filter.html 
*"The important thing to note in this context is that filtering to 5.0 microns will remove most of the yeast; filtering to 1.0 microns will remove many haze causing particles in your beer; filtering to 0.5 microns will remove nearly all chill haze causing proteins as well. Filtering below 0.5 microns can have detrimental effects on your beer..."*
*

*Don't confuse this with a thread selling the benefits of filtering beer, or demanding anyone buy the same filter cone that I did  

What I wanted was to show a fun project,

thanks
Bjorn


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## ~MikE (15/12/09)

5 micron nominal filter will remove most of your yeast i'd imagine, the smaller cells are around 5micron in diameter. 1micron nominal (will have an effective range of 1-3 micron at worst) would be your best bet. as for cleaning, try to filter clean beer. as it's cells you're mainly filtering, they contain a whole heap of insoluble compounds that when the cells eventually die, will clog your membrane - in my experience you can virtually kiss it goodbye after that. 

EDIT: beaten, like a step-child /EDIT

running water in reverse may help the membrane, otherwise, if you're game, 1M NaOH (which i strongly don't recomend you use) will dissolve most insoluble material from biomass (lipids proteins etc) - followed by 30% isopropanol (which i also don't recommend) to dissolve some of the more PITA lipids. this may revive the membrane, may kill it, might'n't be enough, it's just how i clean chromatography columns in the lab. probably your best bet is to run clean stuff through it to begin with.


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## Ross (15/12/09)

~MikE said:


> ..... as for cleaning, try to filter clean beer. as it's cells you're mainly filtering, they contain a whole heap of insoluble compounds that when the cells eventually die, will clog your membrane - in my experience you can virtually kiss it goodbye after that.




I filter the cloudiest beers & use PBW to clean - My current cartridge (1 micron absolute) is still going strong after well over 50 brews through it - no clogging issues todate.

Cheers Ross


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## BjornJ (15/12/09)

Ross,
I've read that you can bottle carbonate after using a 1 micron filter as well.

Do you know if this actually works?

thanks
Bjorn


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## ~MikE (15/12/09)

Ross said:


> I filter the cloudiest beers & use PBW to clean - My current cartridge (1 micron absolute) is still going strong after well over 50 brews through it - no clogging issues todate.
> 
> Cheers Ross



haha, i just read up on PBW and it describes it as an envirenmentally friendly replacement for caustic soda (NaOH) so it's little wonder why it works so well, although it seems like it's buffered caustic to drop the pH a little bit, with a detergent added. 

i would be concerned with the PET filter membrane and mode of action of this cleaner. i know there's only a certain amount of NaOH one can pass through the membranes i frequently use in the lab before the degradation makes it such that you can no longer trust the filter rating. with PBW having a pH of 12 and the PET filters i use typically having detergent compatibility limited in the 1-5% range (depending on the detergent), i'd be concerned about the long term effects that has on your membrane. may explain why it's flowing so well after 50 'cleans'  

do the cartridges come with a chemical compatibility spec sheet?

edit:


BjornJ said:


> Ross,
> I've read that you can bottle carbonate after using a 1 micron filter as well.
> 
> Do you know if this actually works?
> ...


yes, yeast reproduce by 'budding' - yeast buds can make it through 1micron filters. i imagine the lag phase in the growth cycle would be significantly increased.


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## Ross (15/12/09)

BjornJ said:


> Ross,
> I've read that you can bottle carbonate after using a 1 micron filter as well.
> 
> Do you know if this actually works?
> ...



Yes, it works fine  

Cheers Ross


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## ~MikE (21/12/09)

Ross said:


> I filter the cloudiest beers & use PBW to clean



the chemical compatibility thingy was bugging me, i looked up in the GE osmonics labstore for the chemical compatability of their PET (aka PETE) filters (the molecular structure doesn't change between manufacturers). 

http://www.geosmolabstore.com/OsmoLabPage....325&1215200

seems it's only stable between a pH of 4-8, which puts PBW well outside of it's ph stable range, FYI.


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