AN IMPROVED PNEUMATIC MALTING APPARATUS
Year: 1883

page_text: .
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Friedrich Hermann Felix Engel at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 17th October 1883.
A communication to him by Magnus Ephraim Meyer of Christiania in the
kingdom of Norway.
"
FRIEDRICH HERMANN FELIX ENGEL Civil Engineer and Patent Agent in the
city of Hamburg Germany "AN IMPROVED PNEUMATIC MALTING APPARATUS
a communication to me by Magnus Ephraim Meyer of Christiania in the Kingdom
of Norway,
This invention has for its object the construction and arrangement of a malting
apparatus in which the process of malting will proceed in continual action and
under application of warmed or cooled and filtered air.
The apparatus allows of observation being fully made of the process of germinating
during all its stages and of changing the temperature of the admitted air at any
time and in accordance to the temperature of the atmosphere and to the process
of germinating. The apparatus can be used in winter time as well as in summer
time and requires a smaller space than is requisite for other malting-apparatus
doing the same amount of work or according to any other mode of malting hitherto
in use.
The apparatus consists of two or more steeping troughs and a set of open tubs
for germinating, all attached in rows one close to the other. The before mentioned
tubs have two bottoms one above the other of which the upper one is made of
perforated sheet copper or other perforated suitable material.
The filtering apparatus consists of a box or vessel containing several
compartments one above the other partly furnished with a layer or layers of
filtering material such as coke or charcoal or similar suitable material for the
filtration of air. The filtering apparatus is by means of a pipe in connection with
a chamber containing heated air and by means of another pipe with the open air
or with a chamber in which air can be cooled or containing cooled air. An
exhauster or ventilator sucks mixed air, either warm or cold or both, through the
filter and forces it into a main channel and from the latter through branches into
the lower parts of the different tubs that are in operation. The air is about twice
within 24 hours, or more or less, forced through the malt or steeped grain
contained in each tub and its temperature as well as duration of admittance will

page_text: be regulated by the operator by means of valves or taps. The air applied to the
tub is damped or moistened by wetting the filtering material it passes through.
The process of malting is as follows. The steeped grain is from one steeping
trough filled into the next tub and under admittance of filtered air germinated to a
certain extent. From this tub the grain is after a time varying from about
12 to 20 hours put into the next tub and again furnished with fresh air of the
desired temperature and degree of moisture.
The grain is then thrown into the third tub and is therein treated in the same
manner and so on until the process of malting is completed.
After one steeping trough is emptied, the second trough is taken in operation
while at same time the first trough is refilled with grain. The process of malting
can in this way be continued without interruption of the operation of the
apparatus.