Jump to content

Squarrel Barrel

Members
  • Posts

    13
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Squarrel Barrel last won the day on June 29 2017

Squarrel Barrel had the most liked content!

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    sales@squarrelbarrel.com

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    California

Recent Profile Visitors

829 profile views

Squarrel Barrel's Achievements

Contributor

Contributor (2/3)

1

Reputation

  1. Excellent question! The only consideration that is an issue currently is whether it is considered a "new oak container" for the designation of bourbon and straight whiskey. We did get to speak with TTB representatives at the ADI conference trade show in Las Vegas this past summer (Aug 2023) and those attending were impressed with the Squarrels, but that is not an official policy statement. What we were told at that time is that "We aren't telling you that it can be used to produce bourbon, but we aren't telling you it can't." That is frustratingly noncommittal, but that is where we are at this point.
  2. Do you use any backset or other adjustments for pH buffering and yeast nutrition, or does the panela have enough of that already?
  3. Yes, excellent citation, JustAndy. "When low alcohol mixture (like fruit-fermented mash) is distilled in simple pot still, methanol will go out following his solubility in water rather than his boiling point. Methanol is highly soluble in water, therefore, methanol will distill more at the end of distillations, when vapours are richer in water. That means that methanol will accumulate more in the tail fraction [7, 32],during distillation in alembic pot still as it showed in Figure 6 When high alcohol mixture distills, methanol will evaporate following his boiling point and will be present in the first fraction of the distillation in higher concentration. It appears mainly in the head fractions when distillation column was used [21]." I was definitely thinking about utilizing bubble plates, when of course the traditional tequila method uses pot stills. I'm glad I bumped this old thread back up.
  4. How did this batch come out? Any luck bringing out more vegetal agave flavor?
  5. That is physically not possible. There is no way the methanol won't come out sooner than the ethanol. Maybe they are confusing some other tails component for methanol?
  6. Ok, thanks for clarifying, I appreciate that.
  7. I don't know, I'm trying to find what exactly your beef might be. I do claim that with yeast present in the pot, copper is a good idea. That is literally the only recommendation I made here, but you seem to take issue with my comment. You tell me what's up.
  8. Um ... I didn't say anything about distilling on the grain being "wrong", I'm not sure how either of you read that. I am fully aware that corn mashes require distilling on the grain, I'm not sure how you leapt to lautering corn mashes from what I said. Yeast will be fully entrained throughout a mash slurry, you aren't going to separate yeast out from a corn mash. It will be part of what is in the pot. That is my point. Off flavors being in the cuts is not the same as all flavors; the grain and yeast boiling in the pot of a bourbon distillation is part of what separates bourbon character from all malt scotch character. Are you really claiming some copper is a worthless feature for a bourbon still? Your reactions are puzzling, I have to admit.
  9. If you distill on the grain, there really is no way to separate the yeast by itself. The additional compounds that do come out contribute to the complexity of the grain. You do want to be sure you have sufficient copper contact in the system, though, dead yeast cells will release some sulfur compounds.
  10. If you are willing to lauter all of your washes, you have to use predominantly malted barley in every mash, which drives your material cost up somewhat, but simplifies a lot of the other steps quite a bit. If mash in with water that is hot enough, you wouldn't have to raise the temperature at all, or just enough to make the lautering flow easier, can use a plate and frame heat exchanger to quickly cool the wort down while transferring to the fermenter, and not have to deal with thick grain slurries in all your downstream processes. And the mash tun is then much closer to what your manufacturer is used to making for brewery use. Also, if you are mashing or distilling almost every day, you can refill the hot water tank with the heat exchanger and condenser cooling water, so you are constantly topping it up with hot water for mashing and cleaning. What batch sizes are you looking for?
  11. Hi Lorenzo, There really is no performance issue with using a still pot as a mash cooker. The possible issue is more about production and scheduling, and whether or not you need to mash and distill in the same day. If that won't be a problem in your first couple of years of operation, you can absolutely start out using the still pot to cook the mash, and add a dedicated mash cooker when the production schedule justifies it.
  12. There is a company called Stellar solutions that makes a citric acid gel specifically for stainless passivation. Citric is a lot safer to work with than nitric, and the gel is great for spot treatments because it stays put for a long time.
  13. If you are using closed and cooling jacketed fermenters, it may be worthwhile agitating a fermentation with lots of solids to keep the temperature more even throughout the fermenter, and speed the yeast activity.
×
×
  • Create New...