Improvements in Apparatus for Drying Brewers' Grains, Malt, or other Matter.
Year: 1891

page_text: Date of Application. 17th Mar, 1891-Accepted, 2nd May, 1891
COMPLETE STEITTALION.
Improvements in Apparatus for Drying Brewers' Grains, Malt, or
other Matter.
I JAMES YATE JOHNSON of 47 Lincoln's Inn Fields in the County of Middlesex
Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of this invention (which has been com-
municated to me from abroad by Charles Herschel Koyl of Easton in the County
of Northampton and State of Pennsylvania in the United States of America
Engineer) to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement :-
This apparatus is designed for the efficient and economical drying of substances,
such as brewers' grains and malt, containing a very large percentage of moisture.
Brewers' grains are largely used as food for cattle and the like being usually
employed for this purpose in the wet condition in which they come from the brewery
and containing about 75 per cent. of moisture. Thus the buyer, in four tons-or
150 bushels of the wet stuff, gets only 25 per cent., or one ton of solid cattle food.
Manifestly therefore it is desirable to obtain this food product in a dry condition
but to obtain it in that condition rapid drying of the wet grain is indispensable, not
only to prevent deterioration in quality which results if the grain be allowed to
With slow
remain wet for any length of time, but also on the score of economy.
drying the resulting product is so limited, that the cost is too great to permit it to
be produced successfully on a commercial scale. Thus the economical drying of
substances such as brewers' grains distillery waste and the like, is a question of
rapidity of drying-which involves not only the vaporizing of the water by means
of heated air or gas, but the getting rid of, or dispelling, the then saturated air or
gases. And it is the object of this invention to provide apparatus which will
properly effect this. An apparatus constructed according to this invention consists
endless
essentially of a drying chamber; a series of superposed, "staggered
reticulated or foranimous power driven aprons therein composed of wire cloth or the
like which will allow the hot air to freely pass through so as to vapourize, in its
passage,
the water contained in the material spread in a thin layer on the upper or
carrying webs of the aprons; a furnace for supplying heated air or gas; and flues
leading from the furnace and opening into the chamber at various heights from top
to bottom of the latter and preferably under the upper web of each apron, so as to
constantly supply fresh hot air practically at all points throughout the height of
the chamber.
"
The chamber virtually forms the chimney stack or part of the chimney stack of
the furnace; and the heat is furnished by the gaseous products of combustion which
pass from the furnace to the flues and thence into the chamber. The wet grain is
introduced at the top of the apparatus, and is conveyed downward through the
chamber by the successive aprons.
The drying chamber has no obstruction in it of any kind from top to bottom
except the slight obstruction offered by the superposed endless reticulated aprons,
and both through and around these the heated air, and gaseous products of com-
bustion can pass. It has no such obstructions however as solid imperforate floors
or partitions which prevent the free access of the currents of hot air to the lower
side of the grain and up through it.
it
may
In this way the moisture is vapourized. But vapourization having been accom-
plished in any one layer of grain it is necessary to dispel the resulting saturated or
partially saturated air in order that as the following wet grain appears
find
dry hot air ready to receive its moisture. This is effected by the fresh dry heated
air introduced above each carrying (or upper) web which drives before it the
saturated air (the latter passing up and out of the chimney) and at the same time

page_text: furnishes the requisite dry heated air current to pass up through the web above and
to act on the grain thereon carried.
The greatest volume of heated air enters through the upper openings just as in a
dwelling house the furnace registers in the upper stories furnish a greater supply
of heated air than those below. The result is that in the apparatus the general
temperature of the chamber is much higher in the upper part than in the lower
part.
Thus the greatest heat is concentrated and exerted upon the wettest grain, while
as the grain becomes dryer, it is subject to proportionately less heat. Another
advantage of this is, that the high temperature and therefore low specific gravity
of the air in the upper part of the chamber create and maintain a continuous upward
draught through the series of open aprons, which assists in dispelling the vapour
and aids in preventing saturated air from gathering in the lower part of the
chamber.
,
In the accompanying drawings—
J
Figure 1 is a vertical section of an apparatus embodying this invention—the line
of section being crosswise of the length of the endless aprons.
Figure 2 is a vertical section in a plane at right angles to Figure 1.
Figure 3 is a section on line 3-3 Figure 1.
Figure 4 is a section on line 4-4 Figure 2.
Figure 5 is a side elevation of a portion of the apparatus and
Figure 6 is a section similar to the section in Figure 1 of a modification herein-
af er described.
In these drawings A represents a furnace; B, is the drying room or chimney (it
in fact is the chimney of the furnace); C is the jacket into which the products of
combustion from the furnace are discharged; D are the "staggered," power driven,
endless, reticulated or skeleton aprons; E are the ducts or pipes through which the
heated gases from the jacket are discharged into the chamber immediately beneath
each apron.
Indeed the gases are preferably thus discharged not merely
immediately beneath each apron, but immediately below the upper web of each
apron, to which end the ducts or passages pertaining to each apron open into the
chamber or chimney at a point between the upper and lower webs of the apron to
which they belong.
Immediately below the lowermost apron the jacket C is continuous around all
four sides of the chimney or room B. Above that point however it is continued
upon only the broadest sides of the chimney (in the direction of the length of the
aprons) where the ducts E are situated-and, as shewn in section in Figure 4, the
outer walls of the jacket are of less extent than the inner ones, so as to afford a
place for the journals of the rollers on which the endless aprons are mounted, and
for the gearing by which the said rollers are actuated as seen in Figure 5.
The material is supplied to the top-most travelling apron through a hopper Hi
it drops from this apron to the one next below, and so on throughout the series, and
is conducted from the lowermost apron either by extending that apron as in Figure 2,
or in any other suitable way.
In practice good results can be obtained by the use of a chamber or chimney
about 35 feet high, and 30 feet long and 6 feet wide inside measurement. For such
a chamber a furnace having about 60 square feet of grate surface will answer.
With a drying apparatus of this kind in which a supply of fresh hot dry air or
gas is furnished at cach point, the water contained in the substance to be dried is
taken up and carried off as soon as it takes the form of vapour; while vapourization
instead of being retarded is hastened and the capacity of the apparatus for useful
work is about doubled.
It will be noticed that the ducts E are in opposite sides of the chimney or
chamber, facing each other, and opening into the spaces between the webs of the
several aprons.
In some instances it may be desirable to run the air directly
through these spaces from side to side, to prevent the air from the lower aprons
'which air must be more or less saturated) from interfering with the effective action

page_text: of the dry air as it enters the chimney above. And in this case the apparatus can
be modified as indicated in Figure 6, that is to say the direct connection between
the furnace and the right hand portion of the jacket (lettered C' in Figure 6) is cut
off and this portion C₁ at the top is open so that it becomes in effect a flue. The
result of this arrangement is that the openings or ducts E of the jacket C, become
inlet openings for the hot air or gas, while the openings or ducts (lettered in
Figure 6, E) of the part C¹ become outlet passages through which the heated air
escapes. In this way wet air from below will be prevented, to a great extent if
not entirely, from rising in the chamber and mingling with the dry hot air
above.
The same result could be arrived at in the apparatus in Figures 1 to 5 by
furnishing the right hand jacket flue with a damper at the top to open or close it
at that point and also with a damper below to open or close communication between
it and the furnace.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I
claim :-
1. The combination with a drying chamber and of superposed "staggered,"
endless, power driven aprons therein of ducts or inlets opening immediately beneath
each apron, and means for supplying the same with hot dry air or gas, whereby dry
hot fresh air or gas is admitted immediately beneath each apron, substantially as
and for the purposes hereinbefore set forth.
2. The combination with a drying chamber and superposed," staggered," endless,
power-driven aprons therein, of inlets opening into one side of said chamber at
various heights and beneath the several aprons therein, means for supplying dry
air or gas to the said inlets, outlets or exit openings on the other side of the
chamber and a flue for leading off the air or gas thus discharged, substantially as
and for the purposes herein before set forth.
Dated this 17th day of March 1891.
J. H. JOHNSON & Co.,
47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, Agents.