miller

I have 1,000 bushel of 6 row spring barley for sale , I can have it malted or not. It is less than 1 ppm vom it is carry over from 2016 crop New York Crop

After dilution

As someone who has bought a lot of Chinese equipment over the years, I can honestly say you can get excellent buys from China BUT, you should plan on something being wrong somewhere. You should NEVER buy equipment from China and plan on installing it and have it run out of the box. Everything needs to be checked carefully and tested before you even consider running. The testing etc applies to all equipment but more so with the Chinese. If you are prepared and undersatnd the short comings you can do very well buying from the Chinese.

From our experience chill carbon filtering does make a difference, however it's not needed to go down to 32 degrees. The Russians recommended we keep the temperature below 15 C, which our well water does nicely.

Corn is cheap without question and you will not have any issues. If you're buying GNS you should try it from different grains or even sugar before you decide which to use. You will find that they all taste different. So try them all then decide.

John McKee hit it pretty much on the head. I think in general it doesn't make sense for most craft distillers to be in the milling business. A mill like ours can provide a grind much more uniform than they could reasonably afford to do themselves. Setting up a mill with the grain storage, cleaning equipment, grinding equipment, finish roduct storage and handling along with lab equipment is a just not needed when you can buy about any type of grain and grind you could want almost anywhere in the country.

In your area you can buy Rye flour of about any sort from Snavelys mill, the closer you get to whole grain the stronger the rye flavor will be, plus the harder to handle the mash will be.

You should bring your cooking temperature up to 180 and probably use ground wheat. What type of wheat are you using? Soft white is best, then soft red. Hard wheats have more protein as such less starch and cost more. If you are in a hard wheat region you should use a protease to break down the proteins. We use malted wheat and novozyme enzymes.

Just talking today with people from Hiram Walker and they are switching all their storage to vertical and handing on pallets for speed and labor savings, but they said they have slightly more loss ( angels share ) than storage horizontal but the labor savings and speed far out weighs the losses. Their tests also show no difference in any aging factors

There is nothing wrong with having the wheat as a flour as long as you don't end up with lumps in your mash. You will get a better conversion and a faster one with a fine grind. Enzymes are the way to go, but with wheat mashes you will need to make sure your nutrients are adaquate. You may need to add some zinc and di ammonium phoshate isn't a bad idea either. It takes very little and it helps with yield. Sprouted or malted wheat will save some cost of enzymes, but that alpha amalysis is much more heat sensitive. Don't try to push for to high of an alcohol content 10%-11% max and a slower fermentation gives you a better spirit with less congeners to deal with. We use enzymes from Novozymes and their enzymes work very well but as stated before pH is important for best results.

Perhaps a breakdown of a kernel of corn would be helpful. An average bushel of yellow dent corn weighs 56 pounds. Approximately 70 percent of the kernel is starch (from the endosperm), about 10 percent is protein (predominantly gluten, yes gluten),four percent is oil (extracted from the germ), and two percent is fiber (from the hull). When you use de-germed corn you increase your starch content and thus increase yield. You also aren’t handing the extra waste product and you use less water. There is the issue of added cost for de-germed corn however. That is a trade off you need to decided if it’s cost effective. I can say it’s much easier to convey, cook and pump without the solids. You will also have much less oil to separate, yes you may lose some flavor profiles but from my experience you haven’t lost much.

The standard for the distilling industry for whiskey contacts is 5 proof gallons per bushel. The 2.85 gallon per bushel is wine gallons used by the fuel plants and that's on dry alcohol but it would never make beverage grade. High quality GNS we make I use 1.7 wg per bushel and sometimes ( often ) that's pushing the yield and the rest goes for vinegar grade alcohol. Also distillers and beverage alcohol is almost always wet ( not 200 proof )

No cuts

We will be doing another run of Rye whiskey base it will be 100 Rye at 135 proof from our first column, we will have it available in 330 gallon totes or bulk. If interested contact me at lake distilling.

You can get all the carbon you need in Buffalo from Carbon Activated Corp.they sell it in 40 # bags

Feel free to give me a call at 315-730-6309

We can help you out on wheat and rye, although rye will have to wait until new crop, we have a 300,000 bu elevator so under normal conditions grain is not a problem We can either provide, grain , flour or spirit

Hammermills save having to sift. Most larger brewers or distillers in Europe in the past used 2 or 3 high roller mills however rollers mills do not work their best without sifting to get a uniform particle size. When you fine grind with a hammer mill it takes a lot of power per ton ground. A 5/16 hole is common in the screen. Those screens need to be fairly thin so they can be perforated so you need to pay attention to tramp metal or stones. Roller mills have a much larger capital cost but grind cooler and to a more uniform particle size and use less horse power per ton ground. More and more feed millers are switching back to 3 high roller mills for those reasons. We have a flour mill so we can adjust the grind to fit the desired yield and particle size.

Low cost is a heat exchanger and well water but your well water should be less than 60 f

we have found both methods work, however the VFD makes automation possible and keeping flows in line......the problem is the cost of the VFD

We can help you out with corn, wheat,rye or barley if you have trouble getting it locally. We have a 300,000 bushel elevator and grow some of our own grain. Upstate NY is probably as close a you will get for most grain email lakedistilling@gmail.com

Thats exactly how we cool our fermentation tanks , I suggest you try and keep your mash below 30 degrees C to avoid off flavors. We have seen off flavors which can be difficult to distill out when temperatures reach 35 degrees C. There is enough CO2 in the fermenter so you need not worry about over oxygenating because of the splash.

Starting in 2013 we will be offering "single malts" plus "grain whiskey" in the Scottish style. For details write lakedistilling@gmail.com

Wanted shift distillers for Lake Distilling LLC. Lake Distilling is seeking candidates to work as shift distillers. We will train if needed. Qualified candidates will work in all aspects of the process of alcohol production from cooking through distillation. This is not a 9-5 job, you will be expected to work sometimes the night shift as well as during the day. If you are willing to learn we will teach you. Lake Distilling is a 5 column continuous distillation plant which can operate in a continuous or batch fermentation mode, located 18 miles north of Ithaca, NY in the finger lakes region of NY. please email you resume to lakedistilling@gmail.com www.lakedistilling.com

Physics is your friend, but it all boils (no puns intended) down to yield and time and energy. Almost no one uses just a simple pot still for making any kind of vodka. Tall columns are more energy efficient but no better than shorter ones. It's all in what you can afford to do and what your customers will pay for the end result.