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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/23/2017 in all areas

  1. Your 1674.8 lbs of 80 proof will give you 804.1 liters at 73.54°F. AlcoDens and the TTB Tables agree on this. But because 750 ml at 60°F grows to 754 ml at 73.54°F you should expect to get 804.1/0.754 = 1066 bottles. This agrees with PeteB’s mass based calculation. The underfill is 4 ml per bottle so you could expect to have 1066 x 4 / 750 = 5.7 extra bottles. The fact that you had 14 too many means that we still need to find where the extra 8 bottles came from. I agree that your scale is unlikely to be the source of error, but keep it in mind to check once you have eliminated all other possible reasons. If your proofing was out and the 1674.8 lbs actually gave you 810.0 liters ( = 1080 x 0.750) instead of the calculated 804.1 then your density at 73.54°F was 7.8262 lb/WG and this would correspond to a proof of 88.2. It is unlikely that you could be this far out. Another possibility for error would be if your bottling temperature was not the 73.54°F in your storage tank. But the temperature would need to be in the region of 90°F to explain the difference. This should be easy to check. As PeteB has said, it would be better to do your quantity checks during the run based on mass rather than volume. If you have an accurate lab scale you could also use it to calibrate your measuring cylinder. Use AlcoDens to calculate the expected weight of 0 proof (i.e. water) when your cylinder is full, and fill it with RO or well filtered water. If you have a bottling machine that uses a fixed head (pressure) and adjustable timer to control the fill quantity then you can set it to give a target weight rather than volume. The weight filled will vary with the temperature of the spirit and if you make a note of the time required and the temperature each time you adjust it you will soon be able to draw up a calibration curve to speed up the job.
    2 points
  2. As bluefish says, use weight. For your calculation the only volume you should put into alcodens is 750 mL and the only temperature is 60 f (assuming you are TTB) Also, do not bother measuring the temperature of your bulk spirit. With mass that is irrelevant, and it has confused you because you have put that 73.54 f into Alcodens to calculate the 1072 bottles. 1674.8 lbs should have filled only 1066 bottles at 60 f. You have actually filled 14 more bottles than you should. What you have done is filled the bottles with 750 mL of spirit at 73.54 f instead of at 60 f. There will be less than 750 mL in the bottle which is part of the reason you ended up with extra bottles. Also, throw away that measuring cylinder. For one thing it is calibrated at 20c not 60f. (was the 80 proof you measured at 20 c? ) Parallel sided glass cylinders are not sensitive enough to read to fractions of a mL unless they are very skinny. Even so, I still can't see how your measuring cylinder was 11 mL out. Don't do your volume checks with a measuring cylinder, use weight. 750 mL of 80 proof at standard temperature (US) 60f weighs 712.34g. (in air for TTB calculations only) An easy way I use is to stack say 10 cases of empty bottles with caps on your scale. Fill them all then re-weigh. If they are cases of 6 X 750 mL then the lot should weigh 60 X 712.34 = 47.74 Kg (94.226 lbs) more than when they were empty
    2 points
  3. Hi folks, I recently discovered that the ADI forum has a "no badmouthing" policy. This doesn't sound bad, but in practice it allows sponsors of the forum to have any content they don't like removed, even objective reviews. After recently posting a negative experience with one of the forum sponsors, my post was removed and I was threatened by the sponsor with a lawsuit. But in the meantime I was contacted by several other distillers who have had even worse experiences with this particular company. I now know there are numerous lawsuits in the works against this company, which appears to be in the business of taking deposits and providing faulty, late or no equipment to its customers. Because of ADI's forum moderation policy, there are no candid reviews of this company on the forum. Presumably if other people have shared similar experiences they have been taken down. If I had known about other people's experiences, I would not have done business with them. Since this is the primary place where distillers talk to each other, having the ability to share negative experiences is absolutely critical to the industry. I asked Bill Owens to consider changing this policy, and he has not responded, so I thought it wise to post it here. Either the ADI forum needs to change its policy to allow for open dialogue and reviews of its sponsors, or we need to open a new forum that is not censored in this way. Thanks, Joel Vikre
    1 point
  4. Racked my brain the other day about how I could have possibly overfilled by 17ml, or had such a significant proofing error (on a smaller bottling run). Checked bottle weights - spot on. Dumped bottles to check proof, spot on. Nothing wrong. Counted the cases over and over, checked the bottles. Checked the hydrometer. Nothing wrong. Turned out a full case ended up stacked on a pallet of empties, and the total count was 6 bottles short. Racked my brains for a day until my brother comes over and asks why a full case was sitting on top of a pallet of empties. Hallelujah, all of the sudden the math works, all is right in the world. Any chance you over counted by 1 case, or a case of empties made it over to the full pallet side? Just throwing it out there. Everything PeteB and Meerkat say still applies. Dump the graduated cylinder - get a small scale with reasonable accuracy to check bottle fill. I have a small 5kg scale with good sub-gram accuracy.
    1 point
  5. I should add that it is possible to have a policy that allows direct and honest comments and reviews but doesn't allow disrespectful, hateful or slanderous speech. It just requires the moderators to exercise some judgement, and the members to help ensure positive honest and respectful tone.
    1 point
  6. You want exhaust pulling low in fermentation, barrel aging and spirit storage spaces. High and low for around the still, assuming you have spirit sitting near it. Hot vapor leaving the still via a leak or an incident will go up. Otherwise alcohol vapor and CO2 are heavier than air and will sink.
    1 point
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