MGL

There's an inaccurate one for about $500 Anton Par handheld for about $2500 but it still aint ttb approved. Spend about $10,000 on a basic bench top anton par and you begin to get into the range of a TTB approved meter.

I am sure it made for good television.

I started off doing open top fermentation for whiskey and switched to closed years ago. I will never do open ever again because it's a complete pain. I don't notice much difference in fermentation temp with open vs closed. I think the difference is marginal. With open you can't direct the co2 or the smells and you'll die of old age before you ever get the fruit flies under control. I don't agree with southerns last statement of all fermentation areas should have proper venting with open top. The reason I disagree is that if the blowoff isn't vented outside that you'll have the exact same amount of co2 present in your facility if the tanks are open or closed. It's just tens of thousands of dollars cheaper to vent closed tanks outside the building than to turn over the air to create a safe workplace with open fermentation. If you are unfortunate enuf to be in the northern states you'll have to pay for all the heat you lose in the winter because you'll need to turn over the air in your distillery multiple times per day. Just because some places do a dirty ferment and think it's cool to stick their hands in the mash doesn't mean it's right. You'll also make a more consistant and probably better product by having a closed and clean fermentation which will also help your sales in the long run. but its yer business, if you want to stick various body parts into your mash then go right ahead. Disclose your practice on the label and I bet nobody will want to buy it!

No. No. No. You can't just take a scoop of carbon and throw it in a tank and expect results. Do you think the water treatment company takes a huge tank of water and chucks a handful of filters in there? No. Carbon is a filter just like any filter cartrige for your house, just a lot smaller. You need to pump your vodka THROUGH your carbon. 1/4 cup of carbon spinning around in 300 litrers of vodka aint gunna do anything either. Maybe if you used 20 cups it might filter somebut you are doing it all wrong and using not enough carbon.

Today I learned how I should be filling my CIP system with ketchup instead of citric. What brand do you recomend for a 300 gallon hybrid still? PBW and citric are quite different cleaners. For starters one has a pH of about 2 and the other has a pH of about 12. You can't clean a still with just acid and you cant get copper shiny with PBW.

You have a lot of questions on basic distilling. You need to hire a consultant.

I'm surprised you haven't pitched (spammed) your company to him in this thread. Maybe he could use a new still?! I kid. Why don't you just stick to reselling equipment and let the distillers handle these responses so that the original poster arent wasting theie time?

15 gallons of raw ethanol leaking would be quite a serious and obvious leak. Your building would probably be on fire if that much was leaking out during one run.

You would probably need to drill about 10,000 holes for it to drain.

You're customer already solved his problem and has distilled a successful batch since last night? You're dang good! (Note to self: never reach out to Southernhighlander for any sort of distillery consulting)

Why? According to you there is no contamination going on.

Ok, if you want to believe that much bacteria magically got in there then you go ahead and just believe that. Basic science says otherwise. I've had one of my assistants forget to pitch yeast for two days and there wasn't a hint of detectable growth. Your customer has a massive infection after only a couple days. Ther are more problems than just the initial mash. But what do I know? I only make asnd sell a few hundred full size barrels a year. You're the expert because your great great great granpappy made a little shine.

No. Not until he gets the basics down. Right now the customer is way over his head and needs to hire a consultant or go to a school. If he starts doing stuff like adding backset he's going to screw this up even more.

Silk City is 100% right. I can not believe that is the amount of bacteria that grew in 5 days! Either their cleaning is way substandard, their enviornment is filthy or the corn is covered in mold, or everything combined. That looks like a sour beer after a month of festering in a barrel, not a 5 day ferment. I've said I have had some infections before, but it's never been so bad that I've been able to see the cultures. That is naaaasty! 19 brix to 4 brix is a complete fermentation. Southern, do you understand how a brix refractometer works? The alcohol distorts the readin and you need to use a calculator to convert it from brix to SG. That FG is under 1.0 Also, heating the vapor temp to 200 is way too high. He's surely smearing. And I know all this is wrong despite my great grandfather building cars and not distilling.

Good point. I didn't see the aluminuim til now. You want stainless.

Should work fine. Make sure you have a vacuum breaker on the tanks cus the AODD will be strong enough to collapse one.

Yeah, you chime in every single thread with your business pitch. I ain't gunna sit here and argue with you. I've taken note that your attitude towards others in this industry has grown increasingly negative.

You seem to have quite an attitude to your customers. You always say your grandfather did this and that. This is not your grandfathers moonshine industry. How much do you actually distill in a year? I bet I make more in a month than your grandfather made in his lifetime. You made a snyde remark to my question about their cleanin regimin, but you'll ask them about mold in the corrn? Corn is cheap. Why would any professional use moldy ingredients? If you are going to come lookin for advise don't dismiss the experts giving it to you. I would never think to ask you about welding metals together just to tell you off because my grandpa did things a different way 50 years ago.

Sounds like infection to me. I have had a few runs where the mash smelled bad and it resulted in 3 times the fores than usual and the distillate just had an off smell. I want to know more bout what their process is especially the cleaning. Customer says they clean everything very well means absolute jack squat because to some people cleanin means nothing more than hosing it off. Why do they want to open top ferment? Do they love fruit flies?

Because in order for it to be straight whiskey, it must be aged no less than two years. Why is this still an argument? ONLY corn whiskey is unaged. Age means it must be in an oak container (not a container containing oak). Anyone doing otherwise is operating illegally and I welcome a TTB auditor to give them a "friendly" visit.

NO! READ THE DANG REGS!!!! https://www.ttb.gov/spirits/bam/chapter8.pdf Whisky - "A specific statement of age is REQUIRED if the whiskey is aged less than 4 years" Note the BOLD AND CAPITALIZED word. The TTB has it that way in the chapter. Why? Because whiskey MUST BE AGED.

Greatly increases your odds of starting a rather nasty fire in your distillery. Good luck extinguishing 100s of gallons of boiling hot, burning ethanol.

How much do they cost?

i am not attempting to be rude but you need to "get" these regulations, comply, and, understand them completely if you want to stay in business.