Silk City Distillers

There is a new Enolmaster vacuum unit on eBay for $2800 - a couple hundred bucks off retail price - maybe the seller will even deal. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bottling-Machine-For-Wine-or-Olive-Oil-bottles-Four-nozzle-vacuum-filling-/272558433385?hash=item3f75bfa469:g:AK0AAOSwTuJYpQDt

The curious part is that they seem to operate like a continuous stripping still, no cuts.

Ideal I think is something more along the lines of a decanter centrifuge. I went down this path before, as the prices have come down dramatically with them being manufactured in the east. When you scroll through Alibaba, the keyword you want to search for is "pig feces".

Wax sans drips is OK, presumably?

The holding tanks (they are not kettles)?

Thanks for sharing, it took a lot of guts to try to do it - and to write that.

Vendome recommends 500kbtu minimum on a 250g still, 750kbtu if mashing and distilling simultaneously. These numbers are in line with my actual experience.

Condensate... 500 pounds of steam per hour is equal to 500 pounds of water. 8.3 pounds per gallon is 60.2 gallons of condensate returned to the boiler per hour - which is a gallon a minute - a trickle really. It's actually rated a bit higher - 521 pounds per hour. My boiler uses a power burner with a motor driven fan - not open flame style like in a home boiler.

Weil Mclain Commercial

Wouldn't imagine it would be applicable in this scenario as accumulators are generally only used in processes that have sporadic/intermittent high-volume demands - not steady state heating. I've actually only ever seen one once, and it was in a plant that used high pressure steam which kept accumulators at something like 150psi before they were regulated down to process pressure. We run a 4" header which adds some additional (albeit minor) steam capacity. But, at 10-15psi, an accumulator would need to be absolutely massive given the still jacket volume.

I run a 265 gallon still and a 15.6 hp boiler (522kbtu). There is no cycling during heatup, as the burner fires continuously for nearly the entire heat-up cycle. The still can easily consume 100% of the steam produced by the boiler - as evidenced by not being able to build full pressure during heat up. It's not until the still nears boiling that the boiler will "catch up", build to full pressure, and cycle. At that point the pressure in the still is dialed back to 1psi or so, and the boiler cycles on a few times every hour. I run 2" steam lines and the both steam and condensate lines are shorter than 10 feet, traps are appropriately sized. My suggestion to be nearer to 600k than 400k is based on my actual operating experience using similar sized equipment. I have absolutely zero doubt I would be able to easily consume another 5hp. The line between having additional steam capability available to accommodate a still upgrade, additional still, or some additional steam equipment (heat exchangers for hot water, etc) and inefficiently oversizing your steam system isn't narrow, and the cost differential to give yourself additional headroom is peanuts compared to tearing out a relatively young boiler. Do with my anecdote whatever you wish.

Putting the boiler and associated utility equipment in a utility room is good practice. There are numerous safety benefits, and it's not generally very expensive. We built our boiler room out of cinderblock, and the masons had it done in a day. Personally, I would lean closer to 600kbtu than 400kbtu, the cost differential is minor, and the time savings in heatup is going to be significant.

Did some impromptu sniff tests of the GNS samples at the ADI show. Across most vendors, Wheat had the most neutral aroma, followed by corn, followed by cane. Most of the cane samples had very distinct sugar/molasses notes, very obvious.

Pall Advanta ALT13 or ALTD13 if you go eBay. Find the model codes here: http://www.collyfiltreringsteknik.se/static/media/attachments/colly_product/38/153_AdvantaALTHousing.pdf

Hunker down and get absolutely everything you can done before hand. We ran into a similar situation on the state approvals side, and it was a serious burden. The capital we burned would have easily paid for a significant amount of inventory build or additional equipment. C'est la vie. In retrospect we could have, and should have, gotten more done in the interim period. Make the best of the situation by ensuring you have absolutely everything buttoned up so that when you get your paperwork, you are in production and out selling that day.

That bottle is something special, nice work.

Split column that isn't returning reflux from the final column to the top of the preceding column will have lower distillation efficiency than an equivalent single column.

Common SA/V Ratios - From John Jeffery's Thesis - Aging of Whiskey Spirits in Barrels of Non-traditional Volumes Traditionally, this is analyzed as a function of surface area to volume, not weight to volume. 2g - 280 cm2/l 3g - 246 cm2/l 5g - 198 cm2/l 10g - 163 cm2/l 53g - 90cm2/l

Not to hijack - since it's roughly related - Michael - the Graver cartridges - the AM style - will these fit a standard filter housing like you might find on a RO setup, or are your poly housings different?

Depends on liquid volume being processed and the expected particulate load. For 5, 1, or .5 micron at bottling time - you aren't talking about a high solids load, especially if you filtered well in processing (barrel char, etc). You might not necessarily need a deep stack of filters - something that a high volume of liquid with a high particulate load would (filtering yeast out of beer, for example). Really though, you should work closely with the manufacturer to provide you a recommended setup, it's a big upfront investment and you are going to want assurances it's sized and spec'ed appropriately. We aren't a big operation, and our batch sizes are small enough that I doubt they would barely even wet the filter pads in a big plate and frame, the losses would be astronomical.

You talking wooden kettle pot still?

I've been refused trademarks for sillier reasons. Latest one, a bottled water has a (not even remotely) similar trademark. Really, it shares one word out of three, and it's not even the most distinctive word. Hot Rod? Don't even bother unless you have a good lawyer.

What's the basis for this? Even 30%, once even slightly warmed (45c/113f) will flash and even sustain fire. There might be plenty of other reasons for doing it, but IMHO - the 30% is safe meme is an internet myth.

Assuming you don't have filtration equipment, coffee filters and cheesecloth in a strainer, just ladle in a little bit at a time and let it slowly drip through. Depending on the level of fines, you may need to repeat this a few times. That said, that's awfully dark, and large char easily settles. It seems like a significant amount of very fine particulate carbon.

Regarding Pedio, many of the new wave sour beer producers (and some old wave lambics), are purposely using P. Damnosis in mixed fermentations with very good results. Heck, White Labs even sells homebrew sized vials of the kinds of bugs we would have shrieked in horror to find before (including P. Damnosis). Now, I agree, there are big differences between beer and distillate, but those sour and mixed fermentation folks sure seem to be turning what used to be plain ol' common sense on it's head.