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Mash Tun, fermenters, and filtration unit


Curt

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Hello,

Had a lot of success looking for a used still, so thought I would give it a try for the other essentials.

Looking for a smallish mash tun (<200 gallons), some simple fermenters, and a filtration unit. Also open to suggestions on cheap alternatives (i.e., is anyone actually using Brute food grade plastic containers for fermentation?). We are definitely bootstrapping this process, so open to all ideas or items you might have.

Thanks for your creativity and your comments/items if you have them.

Cheers,

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48 minutes ago, Curt said:

Hi Tim,

we currently have a 75 gallon capacity. any ideas

 

We are thinking of a 105 gallon mash combination still for our setup. As far as fermenters we are going to use 275 polyethylene IBC totes and also use the totes for transferring out our condenser water once it gets hot.

The couple locations that we are thinking of all are on city water but why waste water if you can use it? With keeping the warm water, we can then clean our equipment, as well as other uses. Also for storing alcohol and transporting from barrels, fermenters and other areas we most likely will use 55 gallon polyethylene drums on dolleys. 

We too are starting on a small budget. 

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Thanks NJ,

Our plan is also to use a similar scenario to reuse our cooling water and recycle what we can. Our current still wont work for mashing, so we are going to have to come up with a separate piece of equip for that. Appreciate it.

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I have a 500 gallon mash tun with cooling jackets and agitator that I am selling for $5,000 if you are interested. It is in great shape, all stainless, and a bargain! I just need it out of my shop.

Adam

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i would suggest the possibility of getting or modify  a mash tun  that can be heated and cooled  to mash with but can also be fitted with a separate lid that can used as a stripping still . a simple pot still column and ur mash tun is a stripping still and ur 75 gallon still is only for spirit runs . i wish i took a pic of it but i seen a mash tun lid made out of oak planks with a pot still head on it super cheep and usable till the guy could afford to up grade . stumpys 500 gallon would be sweet unit . if u cant secure a agitator dont dismiss the idea of recirculating with a pump  instead of agitating , the pump will not only keep your product from scorching but can be used to empty mash tun in to fermenters and empty fermenters into stripping still and empty stripping still after stripping run . ....it may not be super fly cool but it will save you some start up money , my theory is every 50 bucks you can save is a bottle of product that you get to keep the money from  instead of giving it to the bank .... 

 we toured a vodka distillery in January that had a beautiful hand made german  still how ever they only run it once a week because they dont have the sales to run it every day to me that dont make sense . the bank gets paid weather the still runs that day or not .

where are you located curt depending on your location there are other options to get started and selling top notch product . best advice i was ever told was that when your night shift is run ragged trying to keep up to sales its time to get bigger equiptment lol ...

tim    

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Thanks Tim. We are in Northeast Ohio. Appreciate all your suggestions. Stumpy's tun is a little too big but hopefully someone else will post something. I like your mash tun/ still idea... I'll keep looking

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On 6/7/2017 at 9:05 PM, Curt said:

Thanks Tim. We are in Northeast Ohio. Appreciate all your suggestions. Stumpy's tun is a little too big but hopefully someone else will post something. I like your mash tun/ still idea... I'll keep looking

Check out https://distillery-equipment.com Paul has been awesome with helping us through the entire planning phase. He's on the forum here as @Southernhighlander.

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I've got a tun that will be available soon. Running on steam currently, been doing 150 gallons, could do 200.

2 cents- Those totes are pretty good fermenters and cheap, easy to find. Downside is the small hatch on top for cleaning. But I sort of wish I'd used more of those than what I did do. Plus you can just drill a small hole and use a <$1 stopper with poly tube down to a bucket for blowoff/airlock and it greatly reduces the fruit flies

jake@admiraltydistillers.com

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