Improvements in, or connected with, Grain Steeping Troughs or Cisterns.
Year: 1898

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in, or connected with, Grain Steeping Troughs or
Cisterns.
I, FRIEDRICH KNUETTEL, of No. 6, Franklinstrasse, Charlottenburg, near
Berlin, German Empire, Engineer and Managing Director, do hereby declare
the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
Where grain steeping troughs or cisterns are used, water may be employed, by
a well known method, either during the soaking process, or after its completion,
for simultaneously flushing the grain away into another receiver and washing it.
To this end compressed air is admitted into the lower end of a tube erected within
the steeping trough or cistern, whereby a mixture of air, water and grain is caused
to issue from the upper end of such vertical, or siphon, tube so that the
grain along with the water may be conducted into another receiver. What has
hitherto stood in the way of the more general adoption of this grain washing
process was the great consumption of water which it involved; for it lias been
found in practice that the amount of work yielded by the siphon arrangement
must decrease at a rapid rate and eventually dwindle away to naught, unless
the water in the trough or cistern is maintained at a level representing not less
than about 60 per cent. of the length of the vertical tube, that is of the height
to which the grain is to be lifted. The consequence is, that in order to remove
all the grain remaining in the steeping trough or cistern, a sufficient quantity
of water has to be superadded to raise the water level to at least the height above
mentioned.
The improved arrangement according to this invention admits of a lower
situation of the minimum water level in the trough or cistern, such minimum
becoming in fact reducible almost at will-and of a proportionate saving in the
quantity of water required. This is accomplished by providing the lower end of
the steeping trough or cistern, which is generally of conical form, with a
cylindrical extension of small diameter, and inserting the correspondingly
lengthened siphon tube into such extension.
The lower end of the said extension is provided with the compressed air tube
or nozzle opening into the syphon and there is sufficient play left between the
walls of the extension and the siphon pipe for allowing the grain and water to
sink down from the bottom of the trough or cistern into the said extension.
During the soaking operation the extension is kept closed towards the trough
or cistern by a valve which is preferably rigidly connected with the syphon tube
so that such tube can be made use of as a handle for controlling the valve. The
soaking operation being terminated the syphon tube with the valve connected
therewith is slightly lifted, the grain and water sink into the extension and by
compressed air being now admitted into the syphon pipe, are raised and flushed
away into another receiver.

page_text: The water supply pipe is situated near the apex of the conical bottom of the
trough or cistern.
Dated this 21st day of October 1898.
JOHNSONS & WILLCOX,
47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, W.C., Agents.
Improvements in, or connected with, Grain Steeping Troughs or
Cisterns.
I, FRIEDRICH KNUETTEL, of No. 6, Franklinstrasse, Charlottenburg, near
Berlin, German Empire, Engineer and Managing Director, do hereby declare
the nature of this invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
Where grain steeping troughs or cisterns are used, water may be employed, by
a well known method, either during the soaking process, or after its completion,
for simultaneously flushing the grain away into another receiver and washing it.
To this end compressed air is admitted into the lower end of a tube erected within
the steeping trough or cistern, whereby a mixture of air, water and grain is caused
to issue from the upper end of such vertical, siphon, or ejector tube, so that the
grain along with the water may be conducted into another receiver. What has
hitherto stood in the way of the more general adoption of this grain washing
process was the great consumption of water which it involved; for it has been
found in practice that the amount of work yielded by the siphon arrangement
must decrease at a rapid rate and eventually dwindle away to naught, unless
the water in the trough or cistern is maintained at a level representing not less
than about 60 per cent. of the length of the vertical tube, that is of the height
to which the grain is to be lifted. The consequence is, that in order to remove
all the grain remaining in the steeping trough or cistern, a sufficient quantity
of water has to be superadded to raise the water level to at least the height above
mentioned.
The improved arrangement according to this invention admits of a lower
situation of the minimum water level in the trough or cistern -such minimum
becoming in fact reducible almost at will-and of a proportionate saving in the
quantity of water required. This is accomplished by providing the lower end of
the steeping trough or cistern, which is generally of conical form, with a
cylindrical extension of small diameter, and inserting the correspondingly
lengthened siphon or ejector tube into such extension.
The lower end of the said extension is provided with the compressed air tube
or nozzle opening into the syphon and there is sufficient play left between the
walls of the extension and the siphon or ejector tube for allowing the grain and water
to sink down from the bottom of the trough or cistern into the said extension.
During the soaking operation the extension is kept closed towards the trough
or cistern by a valve which is preferably rigidly connected with the syphon or
ejector tube so that such tube can be made use of as a handle for controlling
the valve. The soaking operation being terminated the tube with the valve
connected therewith is slightly lifted, the grain and water sink into the extension
and by compressed air being now admitted into the syphon or ejector pipe, are
raised and flushed away into another receiver.
The water supply pipe is situated near the apex of the conical bottom of the
trough or cistern.
In the accompanying drawings, Figures 1 and 2 represent vertical sections of:

page_text: one form of a steeping trough or cistern constructed in accordance with this
invention, it being shewn in Figure 1 as it is during the steeping, or soaking,
process, while Figure 2 illustrates its condition at the end of the washing stage.
To the conical bottom of the trough or cistern a, which is provided with an
overflow at a, there is fitted the cylindrical extension b, the lower end of which is
provided with a compressed air tube, or nozzle, c. The water-supply tube a¹
is situated near the apex of the conical bottom of the trough or cistern, at which
point there is also provided a valve d, serving to keep the extension cylinder b
separate from the steeping trough or cistern proper. This valve is preferably
rigidly connected with the syphon-tube e, so that such tube can be made use of as
a handle for controlling the valve. During the soaking process the valve dis
kept closed as shewn in Figure 1; but for the purpose of flushing the grain away
into another receiver the tube e is slightly lifted, as shewn in Figure 2, so that
the grain slides down into the cylinder b; and is carried upward as the compressed
air inlet tube comes into operation. In Figure 2 there is indicated the lowest
water level required to keep up this syphon action, while the point that such
water level should reach, where (as in the arrangement heretofore adopted) the
ejector tube does not extend beyond the apex of the conical bottom, is indicated
by the dotted line. The difference between the two levels represents the minimum
saving of water effected by the arrangement according to this invention, a
saving which may be increased, as will be readily understood, by still further
extending the cylinder 6 and siphon tube e in the downward direction.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is
1. In a grain-steeping trough or cistern, the combination of a trough with
an ejector-tube within the trough, an extension at the lower end of the trough
within which the ejector-tube extends, and compressed air-tube or nozzle, sub-
stantially as and for the purposes herein before set forth.
2. In a grain-steeping trough or cistern, the combination of a trough with an
ejector-tube within the trough, an extension at the lower end of the trough
within which the ejector-tube extends, a valve connected with the ejector-tube
which valve closes the extension against the trough, and compressed-air tube or
nozzle, substantially as and for the purposes hereinbefore set forth.
Dated this 3rd day of May 1899.
JOHNSONS & WILLCOX,
47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, W.C., Agents.