BjornJ
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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
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
