Silk City Distillers

Solids in a grain mash can plug, we are talking about grain-in mash, not wort.

Coolant on the shell side, the small opening that's perpendicular. The wort or mash to be cooled goes through the large opening. If you chase with water, you'll have very low losses, and cleanup will be much easier. Product goes through the cooler like going up or down a staircase, the cooling sections are only on the straight sections. This type of cooler was made popular by the dairy industry, because it is a highly sanitary design that allows for inspection and breakdown.

I'd replace it with something that looks like this. Or maybe something like this if a display is necessary. My Mash and Fermentation controllers are based on this one though, I'm partial to this brand, it's a great system. You just connect the wires to where they need to go, and it goes. It has a nice little web server HMI built in, so you can access it from anything with a browser. Plenty of SCADA/Failsafe capabilities too, alerting/messaging, etc.

Didn't realize that had gin baskets. Vendome also makes a GNS redistillation rig. Not many people know of it though. It doesn't do much, but allow you to change the label statement... It works slightly differently though, as it does take a bottoms product. I've tried to run the continuous gin still with straight 95% neutral input - it doesn't work well - extractions are very very different. Lower-proof vapor streams extract more full flavored distillate. Continuous rigs setup for neutral spirit redistillation/distillation - likely won't work well for vapor extraction in gin distillation. The proof curve of batch distillation - starting at high proof, transitioning to low proof, is key.

Using GNS, direct immersion heaters are far more efficient than using the same electric to produce steam to then heat the kettle. Unless you have some reason to require a steam-heated kettle, grain mash, etc - why bother? If you want to go grain to glass, keep your gin configuration exactly as-is, and add the capacity to make your neutral separately. Is it going to be expensive with only electric? Heck yes. But, you should be able to find a used Sussman or Chromalox for relatively cheap. We burn dinosaurs in our boiler, heating oil, because we have it, and it's still cheap. Same reason as you, the building has gas, but pulling a 4" gas line for hundreds of feet is incredibly expensive. On another note. We are currently designing and prototyping a continuous carter-head gin still that is incredibly energy efficient. It is fed by GNS and RO water, and vaporizes the input feeds to create a consistent ABV vapor stream. The only thing you need to do is turn it on, and change botanical baskets at set intervals. Runs as carter-head vapor infusion only. Energy recovery on product condenser to preheat the input feed. Believe it's the first of it's kind, I've never heard of anyone doing this, or seen anything similar. The premise is simple, for vapor infused gins - the most important part of the process is passing the vapor through the botanicals. What sense does it make to boil giant pot of liquid to create the vapor stream, when you can generate vapor on demand, at any ABV that you would like? The benefit of the process is you can then recover a sizable amount of energy via the product condensers. There is near-zero bottoms product waste, the entire feed stream is vaporized. I'm playing with it, because I'm interested in knowing how well it might work. But it's the kind of still that will make people really angry. Hook the feed hoses up to a tote of GNS, and your RO water supply, turn it on, and make 3000 bottles of gin, or, just run it for and hour or two, and make a few cases. Footprint is smaller than a skid, doesn't even need much space.

Always inspect the tags of used tanks and verify the mawp and working temps are suitable for steam. While it might work to push the limits - keep in mind boiler and pressure vessel inspectors.

You might be able to get this for $20k. It's a killer deal, this tank easily cost 3x that price. Paul Mueller probably makes some of the best tanks on the market today. If you get the serial number off the tank, I'm sure PM can send you copies of the engineering prints. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Paul-Mueller-600-Gallon-Stainless-Steel-jacketed-triple-agitated-tank/123299361193?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D56111%26meid%3Db240e4d99b8b4a7fbf3c330d52776290%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D123299361193%26itm%3D123299361193&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3Aae72e77f-717c-11e9-b7ce-74dbd180e7ca|parentrq%3A9701192f16a0ab66849c1f59ffe54391|iid%3A1

I was always under the impression that the OFC designation stood for Old Fire Copper when E.H. Taylor founded the distillery in the 1800s, not Old Fashioned Copper, as used today in the marketing materials. Looking at the trade advertisements you posted, this pretty much proves it.

Yeast selection usually isn't the problem, I'd look elsewhere.

Paul has got the Marijuana oil production market locked up. Like the dealer to the dealers!

Actually, we have a comparison case - we had the jacket ball valve fail on a ferment and it ran uncontrolled to about 93f, finished fermentation about a day faster. Looking at the numbers, about 12-15% lower product yield on a proof gallon basis with a noticeably larger heads cut. Distillate quality was nearly indistinguishable from a normal ferment, post cut. Which was pretty surprising. Had I not taken that larger heads/tails cut, it would have been pretty rough.

Friends don't let friends run stills unattended, any questions?

We don’t like pushing grain ferments above 82f, we run actively cooled fermenters. Does it matter? Who knows.

Think @captnKB nailed it, larger heads cut due to both higher yield and greater yeast stress. Also keep in mind, higher starting gravities - in non-temperature controlled fermentations, can result in higher temperature spikes, which would impact heads volume. What's the increase in product yield - the same 10-20%? We saw roughly the same increase in product yield moving from a roller mill to a finer grind hammer mill. Methanol generally results from high pectin fermentations, not cellulose - at least I'm not aware of why cellulose would easily be fermented into methanol. There's lots of work being done on cellulosic fuel creation, most of it - methanol/ethanol - use highly complex processes to break down the cellulose. Pectin contains the precursors to form methanol (methanol esters) - cellulose or hemicellulose doesn't.

Having eaten a mouthful of malt, and a been hit by a wave big enough to leave me with a mouthful of ocean water ... I don’t quite follow. One is delicious, the other leaves you nearly vomiting. So why does the ocean make great whiskey, if it tastes so terrible. But grain, which is god damned delicious, makes the whiskey taste bad?

Why?

The costly items are the hammer mill, displacement pump, and a steam boiler big enough to run the whole shebang. Everything else is incidental. The static mixer might be kind of spendy, but I don't see why you really need it - generally this type of setup doesn't use it. The metal fabrication and welding is going to be expensive if you don't have a guy next door that likes to weld.

For the backwash - read the comment about freeboard (empty space) and check that last curve.

Cabot is a gold standard in the industry. Cabot sells carbon by the bag, not the skid, but it is very expensive (more expensive). 1240plus is around $7.00 a pound, plus freight. While that's expensive, it's not even considered their expensive stuff (Ultra pure Norit ROX at $23.00 a pound - sells for $1,000 for a 40 pound bag). The two vessel approach is to avoid breakthrough, that is, product making its way through the filter untreated. The point of a primary and a secondary is that you can replace/refill the primary when it's exhausted, without risking unfiltered product from making its way through the filter, as the second would catch it. It works because at slow flow rates, the first vessel will become exhausted long before the second vessel would. Cabot would never recommend cleaning carbon, they sell carbon. That said, nobody here would recommend cleaning carbon either. It's not worth the time or energy. The reason for the down flow is explained in the docs they would have sent you on the pilot column design (I'm guessing maybe they didn't)?

Yeah I agree - Out here in the Northeast, I suspect brewery startup costs are going to exceed distillery, just due to the startup scale necessary for a brewery to be competitive. A "minimum viable" distillery seems much easier than a "minimum viable" brewery.

Nominal < 99%, that's the reason for the lower sub-micron sizes. You could probably use a .45 micron absolute rated filter if you had sufficient pre-filtration to not trash the filter cartridges in a single batch. I usually use Millipore Polygard.

You didn't get all of the carbon out. Submicron carbon will make the spirit look cloudy. 1 micron is not sufficient to remove small carbon fines. We use powdered activated carbon for decolorization, and it requires filtration down to .2 or even .1 micron to regain a bright, sparkling, clear appearance. Rinsing carbon is critical to remove sub-micron fines, which are very, very difficult to filter. It will never settle out, so don't bother. If all you have are 1 micron filters, you can try filtering with brand new filters, at a very slow flow rate. However, the better fix is to filter again with smaller pore filters (.2 or .1 micron).

Too bad the alcohol retail and distribution model is prime for disruption and disintermediation. Young consumers have zero desire for brick and mortar retail, especially undifferentiated retail. We know these new generations are heavily motivated by experience, and that plays a major role in the brands they associate with, and buy from. That said, the destination distillery, brewery, winery, cidery, or meadery represent a major threat to both retailers and distributors. This is disintermediation. I live in a major metro, I can buy from Amazon in the morning, and have it on my steps in the afternoon, even on Sunday, yes Sunday. I have to drive to 5 different stores to find the bottle I want? That's just f*cking stupid. I don't have cable TV, I don't watch any of the channels they want to shove down my throat with their packages. I want what I want, when I want it. This applies to everything today, it's not just cord cutting. If you don't have the beer I want, when I want it, I won't ever come back. I don't care that you have 300 cases of Bud and Coors stacked up, or that you have 100 other craft brews. I'll drive two hours, stand in line for two hours, get what I really want, post about it online, and not give a crap about your corner store ever again. This is disruption. Spend 15 minutes on the secondary market forums/communities online. You'll see everything you need to about how passionate consumers can be about products. Bourbon, beer, rum, wine, etc etc. You'll also see everything about why alcohol retail will die. Limited allocation, you need to spend thousands of dollars at a store to even have a chance at getting an allocated bottle, retailers charging absurd markups. If you aren't lucky enough to live in a major metro, with a good retailer, you don't stand a chance at being able to purchase many products. There are dozens of large distilleries that would be immensely more profitable if they could sell direct to consumer. There are probably hundreds of products that would be wildly successful, but can't make it there, because the distribution and retail model will never allow for it. Wineries are making a major push for direct to consumer, I suspect breweries will as well. Recreational pot is passing around the country. Sorry, but the protectionist, prohibitionalist, monopolistic alcohol distribution models are not long for this world.

Yeah it's rare to get such a behind the scenes glimpse into a large commercial operation like that.

Is the filter/system or carbon being rinsed with water prior to filtration? Sounds like there is residual water in the system that isn't drained, or can't be drained. It is customary for carbon to be rinsed with water prior to use, to reduce the level of small carbon particulate (fines). Water logged carbon, even if not obvious, will impact proof. From a filtration loss perspective, you might consider first running RO through the filtration system to purge. Followed by your alcohol at a higher proof - to compensate for the water, run RO again at the end of filtration to ensure alcohol isn't remaining in the system. This will require some trial and error to understand what proof level you'll need to compensate for pre and post-purge. Always target a final filtration proof slightly above bottling proof, and do your final gauge/proof after filtration to ensure hitting target proof with no issues.