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US 11,477,994 B2Granted
Protein extraction from spent grains
AssigneeCoors Brewing Company
InventorsRoderick Nairn McEwan, Roderick Ian White
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and systems are provided for the extraction of protein rich flour and fiber rich flour from brewer's spent grains (BSG). The extraction of protein from the BSG may include preparing the BSG by controlling the temperature in a hot grain storage system and in some cases dewatering the BSG to acceptable moisture content levels. In extracting the protein rich and fiber rich flour, the BSG is conveyed to a device that dries, mills, and fractionates the BSG into separated protein and fiber extract.
Claims20
A method of extracting protein material from brewer's spent grains, comprising:
- maintaining brewer's spent grains in a hot grain storage unit at a controlled temperature of approximately 76 degrees Celsius for approximately five hours of treatment time;
- receiving, from the hot grain storage unit after the treatment time, the brewer's spent grains;
- introducing, after the treatment time, the brewer's spent grains received from the hot grain storage unit to a cell mill;
- milling, via the cell mill, the brewer's spent grains into a coarse particulate and a fine particulate, wherein a particle size of the coarse particulate is larger than a particle size of the fine particulate;
- directing, automatically via the cell mill, the fine particulate to a first output stream exiting the cell mill, wherein the fine particulate includes protein material;
- directing, automatically via the cell mill, the coarse particulate to a second output stream, wherein the coarse particulate includes fiber material;
- and
- packaging, via a packaging system, the protein material as a protein flour extracted from the brewer's spent grains in a storage or transportation container, the protein flour comprising at least 30% protein by weight.
5 more elements
A system for extracting a protein product from brewer's spent grains, comprising:
- a hot grain storage system configured to store the brewer's spent grains at a controlled temperature of approximately 76 degrees Celsius for approximately five hours of treatment time;
- a foreign object detection and removal unit configured to separate metal, ferrous objects, and/or other debris from the brewer's spent grains received from the hot grain storage system;
- a drying device that dries the brewer's spent grains to a predetermined threshold value;
- a milling device that grinds the dried brewer's spent grains into a coarse particulate and a fine particulate;
- a fractionation device that separates the coarse particulate and the fine particulate into different output streams, a first output stream corresponding to a fiber product output stream comprising a fiber product and a second output stream corresponding to a protein product output stream comprising the protein product comprising at least 30% protein by weight, wherein the separation is based on particle size of the coarse particulate and the fine particulate;
- a cooling system that cools the separated protein product and the fiber product;
- and
- a packaging station for packaging of the separated protein product and the fiber product.
5 more elements
A method of extracting protein from brewer's spent grains, comprising:
- maintaining brewer's spent grains in a hot grain storage unit at a controlled temperature of approximately 76 degrees Celsius for approximately five hours of treatment time;
- introducing, after the treatment time, the brewer's spent grains received from a hot grain storage unit to a cell mill;
- drying, via a cell mill, the introduced brewer's spent grains producing dried brewer's spent grains;
- milling, via the cell mill, the dried brewer's spent grains into a coarse particulate and a fine particulate, wherein a particle size of the coarse particulate is larger than a particle size of the fine particulate;
- directing, automatically via the cell mill, the fine particulate to a first output stream exiting the cell mill, wherein the fine particulate includes protein material;
- directing, automatically via the cell mill, the coarse particulate to a second output stream, wherein the coarse particulate includes fiber material;
- and
- cooling, via a refrigeration unit and at least one cooling chamber, the fine particulate to a temperature below 30 degrees Celsius.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.