IMPROVEMENTS IN MALTING HOUSES
Year: 1885

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& com-
I GEORGE FREDERICK REDFERN, of the General Patent Office, No 4 South
Street, Finsbury, in the County of Middlesex Patent Agent do hereby declare the
nature of the said invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MALTING HOUSES
munication from abroad by Carl Völckner, of Vienna, in the Empire of Austria,
Engineer, and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
This invention relates to improvements in the construction of malting houses or
apparatus for making malt by the pneumatic system.
As is well known the process of malting by the pneumatic system when carried
on by hand consists in successively removing the steeped barley from one to
another of a continuous series of flat horizontal tanks having sieve-like bottoms,
and the air is continuously exhausted from a space beneath the said bottoms. The
air surrounding the tanks and which is moistened and cooled as required, is drawn
through the couches of steeped barley and is finally ejected through a passage
provided for this purpose.
The pneumatic malting apparatus constructed according to this invention,
possesses the following advantages, videlicet, it is easy of access on all sides, it can
be cleaned without difficulty and only occupies small space.
In carrying out the invention the series of malt tanks is arranged round a
common central air shaft somewhat after the manner of the steps of a spiral stair-
case or caracole. The steeped barley is introduced into the uppermost tank and
the green malt ready prepared is withdrawn from the lowermost tank.
The removal of the steeped barley or half-prepared malt from a tank to the
following one is effected by hand and the couches are turned at the same time..
Each tank is provided with a double bottom, the hollow space between which
communicates with the said vertical air passage or shaft; the connecting passages
between the air-shaft and the said hollow spaces can be throttled or closed by
means of flap-valves or their equivalents.
The air which is drawn through the couches of the steeped barley or half
prepared malt after having been cooled and moistened by suitable means such as
are hereinafter described enters every floor of the malting house through apertures
provided with luffer-boards.
In order to enable the invention to be fully understood I will proceed to describe
the same by reference to the accompanying drawings in which figure 1. sheet 1.

page_text: and figure 2, sheet 2, represent sectional elevations of a malting-house constructed
according to this invention; figure 3, sheet 2, is a sectional ground plan of the
same. Similar letters of reference in all the figures represent similar parts.
In figure 3, four tanks are shewn; the tank I is the uppermost, II is the next
lower one, III the next, IV the next and so on so that the tank V is placed beneath
the tank I, the tank VI, beneath the tank II, and so on.
The drawings represent a malting-house having twenty tanks superposed upon
each other in a frame formed of uprights a and a¹, but it is obvious that the
number of the tanks can be varied according to requirements. Each tank rests
upon supports fixed to the uprights a and a'. The walls connecting the four
inner uprights a, form the vertical air passage or shaft which communicates by
means of the passages b, having flaps arranged at their ends, with the spaces formed
by the double bottoms of the tanks.
In figure 1, the tanks are shewn in cross section; the uppermost bottom c, of the
tanks is made of perforated plates, woven fabric or the like while the lowermost
bottom d is solid. The malt in process of treatment rests upon the uppermost
bottom c; the air passing through the same in the direction indicated by the
arrows enters the vertical passage whence it is exhausted by means of fans or
blowers e.
The fresh air for replacing that exhausted as hereinbefore described is supplied
from outside the apparatus and is first caused to pass through a cooling and
purifying chamber f. Adjoining the said chamber f, is a shaft of the same
height and divided into two parts k, and k¹, by means of a vertical partition. The
air first enters the passage k, as it is required from above or below according to its
temperature and degree of purity and thence passes beneath the lowermost per-
forated cross-partition of the cooling chamber; it then rises round the front edge
of the said partition and after having passed beneath the second perforated cross-
partition it passes up, round the opposite edge of this latter partition and so on,
crossing in a zigzag direction, a shower of water which falls from each sieve like
partition. Above the uppermost partition the cooled and moistened air passes
through an aperture 1, into the shaft k¹, which communicates by a series of
superposed openings with all the floors of the malting-house. These openings are
provided with moveable luffer-boards g, and by this means the cooled and
moistened air can be conveyed to any floor of the maling-house according to the
stage of the process; h, is the water receiver of the cooling and purifying chamber;
i, i, are steeping-tubs, arranged above the tank I; from the said tubs, the steeped
barley is allowed to drop into the tank I.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is
In a pneumatic malting apparatus in which the malting process is carried on by
hand the combination with a vertical air shaft of a series of double-bottomed tanks
arranged around the same in a similar manner to the steps of a spiral stair case
and of passages leading from the said shaft to the spaces between the double-
bottoms, substantially as and for the purpose hereinbefore described and represented
in the accompanying drawings.