richard1

@lowerylisa1 The above does not efficiently work and is a waste of money.  It is still better than nothing and it does help a bit.

Reason is, in a cartridge, you are flowing from outside through the cartridge wall thickness to inside and out.  i.e. your contact time is maybe at best 0.5 seconds.  With ideal and proper carbon filtration set up, you need to flow through a mass of carbon bed say 0.5m to 1m thick and this needs to happen as slowly as possible.  This gives you huge contact time with way better results.

9 hours ago, Kindred Spirits said:

Fill the bag filter with granulated activated carbon, then let your vodka/neutral slowly filter through it.

Personally I would not recommend that as the diameter is way too big.  You need to rather look at height and the liquid taking a very long time to pass down i.e. contact time.

I for one will tell you that it makes a huge difference when you pass neutral through vodka.  Way way smoother.

Going forward all my neutral will be carbon filtered including that for gin production.  A neighbouring distillery whom exports gin to the USA also carbon filters his neutral for gin production.  He reckons that the gin is seriously improved.

This is my carbon column that I build.  The secret to this is an extremely slow flow rate for maximised contact time.

carbon filter assy.pdf

Nice spreadsheet.  Unfortunately, I need to go through and change / convert as I am metric orientated and personally struggle with other units.

My only preliminary comment is your FG where you have indicated 0.98.  Obviously ideal but I would have gone something like 1.002.

My simple spreadsheet looks something like this.

@diamonddistiller Can I please ask a silly question ............. For what do you use a shear pump for ?????   I am presuming it reduces solids as part of the process.

13 hours ago, tenorbrew said:

Have you ever had anything go wrong with the automation? I feel uneasy about leaving the still unattended/sleeping through my alarm...

@tenorbrew  No.  You have to test and challenge the software to feel safe with its operation.  That said, you need to have further safety fall-backs in place should say something went wrong.

Before you go live with the operation, do a water heat up in place of a wash.

@hjubm2 Your gearbox will largely be based around your vessel diameter and size of paddle / blade, this coupled with desired rotational speed.  My 2c, approach a gearbox / agitator company and let them do the maths for you

@jocko Unfortunately with my PLC, I can not load and read Excel Lookup tables where I also have my pressure and temperature tables for % ABV.  So within certain ranges, I use a formula linked with calibration correction.  This is then quite accurate for % ABV values.  As always, is for information only and must be confirmed with other means.

I wouldn't do that for a strip wash.  I run 18KW for a 700L still, direct heat.  Rather do it with automation where your still starts unattended heat up during the early hours of the morning up to a pre determined safe temperature point where condenser cooling is not yet required.  So when you walk in the morning, you are set to go.

Basically with the exception of the 2nd lowest column temp probe I monitor everything.  Though I could, I do not store the data for future use, however I do have it being plotted on the HMI trend graph. .... Excuse the decimal point error in atmospheric pressure.

An example of this is shown below

Purpose is;

... To ensure that the carbon does not dry out.

...  To ensure that the column is always flooded.

... To ensure that you have a controlled slow rate of discharge and maximum carbon contact time.  Flow in = flow out.  If you are receiving from a bulk tank, then control the rate of infeed.

At end if you want to, you can drain the column with the bottom isolation valve.

3 hours ago, Pour Decisions said:

@richard1 can you explain what the siphon tube is connected to and what function it serves? 

Possible better description is anti-siphon tube.  It is open to atmosphere above the entry level.

With this arrangement, the main carbon tube is always flooded up to the exit level and the anti-siphon tube prevents it from being emptied.

To further clarify, the product exit point is from the marked HOSE BARB

@Pour Decisions Thanks for that.  Unfortunately the pump is already paid for and am awaiting on delivery.

@Pofarmer  Thanks.  The flexible hose I need to watch out for, but the pump is okay for 12 bar.g.  In any case I will be experimenting in the next month odd for the final design to be settled on.

The idea of a standalone pump is to me quite important as I intend to use it for a variety of applications ....e.g. for a carbonation project where I need to raise the line pressure to around + 10 bar.g.  I am looking to do some RTD's where I plan to have a packaged CO2 content of around 7 g/l.

That picture is of the pump .... Mono pump.  Basically it is a food grade positive displacement pump where I will be able to reach with variable speed control up to 12 bar.g.  Post the pump I will have a stand alone screen setup with restrictor for separating of liquid and hopefully de-watered mash.  Well that's the intent.

I am about to do something similar but with variation.  I am waiting on arrival of my new pump.  When it does, I will pump at pressure from a fermenter where I have done a heavy loaded 100% corn in fermentation through a screen.  This "de-corned mash" of low wines I will then distil with direct heating.

Can I ask whom above, filters their base spirit through Activated Carbon in preparation for the final gin run.

In the above definition, corn, barley, wheat, rice, sorghum would be acceptable as the base spirit ??  Cane, would this still be a mash ??

It's all about correct design and cooling surface area.  I designed mine for grain in mash cooling and when using municipal tap water and I cool down to pitching temp within 30 minutes.  The difference between mine and the one above is that I have an extremely high product surface area for increased efficiency.

16 hours ago, TwentySevenBrewing said:

I assume you are feeding spirit into the top and collecting from the bottom. How are feeding the unfiltered spirit into the column? Do you have a reservoir on top or are you pumping from tank into the column? If you are willing to share any photos, I would be very grateful.

Cheers,

Chris

For info, this was the build.

carbon filter assy.pdf

@jocko Good to hear that other points are being measured.  I have a fully automated LM still and also have numerous measuring points.  In my program, all points are monitored / interlocked with the exception of the column's 2'nd lowest point which I inserted for interest.

Ultimately via an inlet needle valve for fine metering control.  The slower the better for max contact time.

Inlet is at the top and from the bottom of the column you rise back to just below the inlet point.  Here you exit and have an anti-siphon tube.  In this manner you are always flooded.

Curious why other than being basic informative you would want to measure liquid temp.  Other vapour parts of the still are way more important.

I built a carbon tower about 3 weeks back.  The vertical tower is 1,700mm tall and has a packed carbon section of diameter 100mm x 1,500 long.  Only gripe I have is having to lift the product container +2m above floor.  But this I will overcome.

Important is to extensively flush the carbon with water prior to use so as to get the carbon dust out.

Never use filter bags ..... You drive buses through them.  Generally filter bags have an efficiency of 60% and you get what you pay for..... Cheap crap.  Stick to filter cartridges or plate and frame filters.

I run a grain in mash through a multi tube that we designed and built .... shell and tube HE.  Absolutely no problem.  But do not stop production and leave overnight to dry.  I did this once and i had to strip to clean out.

Basically a very efficient system and a dream to work with.