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I would love to know how a 100 liter setup, costing probably as much as one 10 times its size, can be an economically viable way to produce spirits. Do the math: 100 liters of mash might yield 3 proof gallons of finished whiskey (it can't produce vodka). Assume aging loss of 10%, you'd have like 12, maybe 15 bottles of spirit. That's the yield for like 4 days of your labor. And that is, of course, assuming you are an exceptional at mashing and your ferments are perfect and your cuts are generous. No offense, but this pitch is better suited for homedistiller.org

Here Is an article that was just published on The Spirits Business website. American single malt: what’s the delay?

Nothing's officially changed yet. I expect a final rule in 2024 but there's no guarantee. Till then, old "Malt Whiskey" requirements would generally apply: Whisky produced at not exceeding 80% alcohol by volume (160 proof) from a fermented mash of not less than 51 percent malted barley and stored at not more than 62.5% alcohol by volume (125 proof) in charred new oak containers

Don't worry about needing a gin basket for gin, you can do a boiler charge gin very easily. If you need help with getting a recipe going feel free to reach out. I have helped a number of distilleries develop award-winning gins with their own native botanicals. If you want to add a gin basket later for some more "delicate" botanicals it should be easy to do so.

There are a few different ways including using sanitary tri clamp spools with a cap at one end and a valve at the other that are under vacuum that can be connecting to the still by a ball valve on the still so that a sample can be pulled from a closed system. Alexander Alex_Sor has a design for small stills where a different type of pump is used to pull vacuum on the still through an open system so that condensation occurs outside of vacuum. He gave me the basic design but I have never built one. His design solves the issue of needing a very expensive lab chiller for condensation. In a closed system where high vacuum is pulled so that the boiling point of ethanol is reduced to 80 degrees F the condensing temp is so low that a lab chiller that chills to -30 to -40 C is typically used and this adds a lot of expense and energy usage on the cooling side. I like to pull just enough vacuum to lower the boiling point of ethanol to 155 degrees F so that hot water can be used to heat the still and 35F to 53F coolant can be used in the condenser.

Yeah if you ever need to upgrade out there you should look into a "bagasse-style" or other type of alternative fuel boiler where you could feed in raw materials to generate your steam for production. 100 gallons is the smallest I recommend for commercial clients, but even then it's tough to make things work economically for a setup that small unless making gins with GNS base. You have a special situation being on an island, which is a super cool distillery. Do you have a website? The unit the OP posted looks nice, but with what I imagine the cost would be, puts it in the hobby (with no price limit) category.

Enolmatic if you really want to save space and money. It should fill 400 bottles in a day easily if that's all you're doing.

You become a master distillery by calling yourself a master distiller haha. The title Master Distiller is more or less entirely self proclaimed and means little to nothing about someone's actual understanding of spirits distillation at this point!

There is a solution to spend more instead of a 36 kW heater. Its name is "vacuum distillation". if you need details, I can tell you.

Whiskey Tango has it right. Gin basket, Condenser on hearts collection tank and two compartment tank for heads and tails.

Gin basket - condenser with collection tank below? - tank for collecting heads. Would be my guess anyway

We are in a very different market but and we run 4 stills now 2 from a well known Chinese manufacturer, one euro and one American. I would disagree about the Chinese products we run them flat out 5 days a week and have done for over 3 years and they havent missed a beat and have always been very helpful with parts/ gaskets etc. The best advice I was given before we got in the game was that the still is the least important part of the equation, its what goes into the still thats important.....just my 2 cents:)

🤤DROOOOOOOOL!

we use PBW with our CIP

Some photos of equipment that we have completed in the last few weeks.

He's just purchasing some now so I won't have a report for a while.

Household paraffin wax is food-grade rated, so flavor taint will not happen. The cooper's traditional sealing compound is beeswax, however. First, heat the croze (the groove in the body of the barrel where the head meets) all the way around with a heat gun, then apply molten wax at the intersection of heading and the croze.

I understand Apple Brandy to not require oak vessel aging or an age statement. Time in a non-oak vessel (barrel) will not count towards an age statement and the usage of staves requires a label disclosure. DISCLOSURE “COLORED AND FLAVORED WITH WOOD _________” (insert chips, slabs, extracts, etc., as appropriate) is required on labels to indicate treatment with wood · APPLICATION Applies only to whisky and brandy treated – other than through contact with oak containers – with wood: In any manner or form, either directly or indirectly, e.g., chips, slabs, extracts, etc. nAt any point during the production or storage process, up to and including the time of bottling

Immediately upon macerating wormwood vaudevillian people of the night come out as a cacophony of disjointed instruments to Jazz at me like a shot of Malort betwixt propositions of sexual transactions

1) Set up the board game, and start playing 2) For the next 8-12 hours go clean your house, move 50# sacks around, fix your various broken appliances, and measure the density of various liquids and put them into bottles. Occasionally dick around on the internet. 3) Keep detailed records of everything you do for the Government. If the Government gets angry, it will suspend your game. 4) Occasionally check on the game board. If something goes wrong, it explodes and burns your house down. 5) When the game ends, clean up the gameboard and have a drink.

I would imagine the easiest way to produce gin in a continuous still would be to take your final alcohol as vapor, as close as possible to your intended final proof, and pass that through a carter-head style vapor extraction process before condensing.. That said, I don't know of many people doing this today, if at all. I've experimented with this process myself, and have found that the ratio of water/ethanol in the vapor feed to the carter head is absolutely critical in getting the right flavor profile for extraction. Passing azeotropic ethanol vapor through botanicals will not yield an ideal extraction - meaning one that is comparable to traditional batch distillation - water vapor is CRITICAL. My approach was to vaporize a combination of two liquid streams - one of ethanol and one of ro/di water, and pass that through a reloadable basket. I used metering pumps to control liquid flow rates to be able to dial in exactly the vapor abv concentration desired. Spend enough time running gin on a batch rig and you'll start to get a good sense of flavor profile over time, which is partially *influenced* by the change in vapor abv through the run. It's also not necessarily a "continuous" process, as you will likely need to reload botanicals multiple times through the run, based on the volume of your carter head/basket. All that said, the approach can create very small footprint gin machine capable of an astronomical production rate.

Hi Phil, You only fall victim to barrel contamination if you place your spirits within that cask. Trust your nose, you have some kind of funk in that barrel. Try a strong solution of soda ash in hot water, followed by even stronger citric acid solution, and you may be able to sweeten up that musty barrel. One should be able to smell either toasted oak, the product that once was in that barrel prior to it being emptied, or some of both. Also, avoid filling barrels that smell like acetone, as nail-polish remover will be the striking feature of your aged spirits. Make a planter out of that cask if it cannot be revived! I think all distillers should get handy with a hoop driver and hammer once in awhile, and take a head off of a barrel and inspect what is inside. It will make you appreciate the cooper's trade ever so much more! All the best, Rusty