BRAND NEW STATE OF THE ART VENDOME STILL FOR SALE, NO WAITING !

[aa1405]

BRAND NEW STATE OF THE ART VENDOME STILL FOR SALE, NO WAITING !

All materials still wrapped and on original pallets

 

Complete Vendome Still System:

1 - 14” Vendome Copper Continuous Still System w/Doubler and Tank

1 - 2500gal Vendome Stainless Steel Mash Cooker

Fermentation System:

3 – 25gal Stainless Steel Fermenters

1 – 3750gal Stainless Steel Beer Well w/Agitator

Complete Grain Milling:

1 – Hammer Mill

1 – Chain Disk-Mill to Cooker

1 – Custom Mild Steel Batch Hopper

1 – Flex Auger-Hopper to Mill

1 – Motor Control Center

 

 

Price: $450,000

Contact Guillermo Rodriguez at gtr@sw-spirits.com for more details.

[navenjohnson]

How tall is the column?

[DrDistillation]

Might be helpful to tell how many plates so they know what type of spirits it's designed for.

[aa1405]

@navenjohnson  The still is 29'2" in height, it has 20 plates and was designed for brown spirits.

[Stumpy's]

interested for a pending project. Have any drawing/spec sheets you can send to adam.stumpf@stumpysspirits.com ?

Thanks!

[captnKB]

If the person who buys this needs a hand with setup or operation of the still let me know. 

[Kerks28]

I assume this has sold?

[Mucker44]

This has sold?

 

[SlickFloss]

On 4/2/2020 at 9:59 PM, Stumpy's said:

interested for a pending project. Have any drawing/spec sheets you can send to adam.stumpf@stumpysspirits.com ?

Thanks!

Did you get this one? Come up if you wanna run mine other wise you'll see me later this summer when I'm heading back down to my wife's reservation! we're commissioning ours next week end!

[Bolverk]

Old thread I know... sorry.

 

I've been studying the design of this still and I cannot for the life of me figure out how heads are "cut". I know in other designs a dephlag is used as a vapor gate to take heads off the top but I just don't understand this design... can anyone explain it?

Thanks in advance 

B

[Stumpy's]

1 minute ago, Bolverk said:

Old thread I know... sorry.

 

I've been studying the design of this still and I cannot for the life of me figure out how heads are "cut". I know in other designs a dephlag is used as a vapor gate to take heads off the top but I just don't understand this design... can anyone explain it?

Thanks in advance 

B

Some continuous stills don't specifically pull the "heads" off. Rougher cut, longer time in deeper charred barrel to rely on char of the barrel to remove impurities. Keep in mind that the char is inert...it's charcoal. A barrel "charcoal filters" whiskey as it moves in and out of the wood. All of the flavor and aroma come from the toasted layer that is behind the char.

Some have a vented low wines condenser. Heads/Hearts/Tails all come off the beer column. LW condenser is cooled just enough that the hearts and tails condense and flow to the doubler. The heads are kept in vapor form in the condenser and pulled off on a vent that is usually about 1/3 up the condenser. Now you have hearts and tails in the doubler. Doubler is heated enough to boil the hearts off. Hearts come off as your high wines. Tails accumulate in the doubler and can be recycled back into the system or beer well. It's a pretty slick, but simple design.

[Georgeous]

any photos?

[Georgeous]

does mash cooker have a false bottom?

[Bolverk]

On 8/10/2023 at 8:32 PM, Stumpy's said:

Some continuous stills don't specifically pull the "heads" off. Rougher cut, longer time in deeper charred barrel to rely on char of the barrel to remove impurities. Keep in mind that the char is inert...it's charcoal. A barrel "charcoal filters" whiskey as it moves in and out of the wood. All of the flavor and aroma come from the toasted layer that is behind the char.

Some have a vented low wines condenser. Heads/Hearts/Tails all come off the beer column. LW condenser is cooled just enough that the hearts and tails condense and flow to the doubler. The heads are kept in vapor form in the condenser and pulled off on a vent that is usually about 1/3 up the condenser. Now you have hearts and tails in the doubler. Doubler is heated enough to boil the hearts off. Hearts come off as your high wines. Tails accumulate in the doubler and can be recycled back into the system or beer well. It's a pretty slick, but simple design.

Thanks Adam,  I'm actually glad you replied because your still shown on YouTube is what I was thinking when I referenced the vapor gate.

Ok the barrel aging actually make sense to clean up the spirit. 

So in this vendom I assume tails (or most of them) fall out as bottoms, and heads/hearts move onto the doubler. What the purpose of the doubler in this specific design? I can imagine how heads are kept a vapor but hearts are condensed.

 

Thanks,

 

 

[Stumpy's]

@Bolverk, close. The SD design in the youtube video operates a bit differently than the vendome and what I described above. The SD design sends all alcohol to the doubler, heads/hearts/tails, and then reboils so with that temp gradient being hottest on bottom, tails accumulate in the doubler, hearts come off the side draw, and heads come off above the top dephleg.

The vented low wines condenser design, like vendome uses in some cases never allows the heads to make it to the doubler. The heads (components with the lowest boiling/condensing point) are never condensed when they come off the stripping column. Instead they are vented out of the low wines condenser in vapor form...out of the system. Now all you're left with are hearts and tails that go to the doubler. The doubler is temp controlled so that only the lowest boiling compounds in it (hearts) convert to vapor and move to the high wines condenser. The tails will remain in the doubler in liquid form. You end up with a bit of tails accumulation in the doubler as the run progresses. As these tails build up, they can be pumped out to a number of places....low wines receiver, into the beer feed, into the beer well, etc. It takes careful control if you introduce those accumulated low wines back into the stripping column. 

You are correct about tails leaving the base of the col. Eventually, in that case, the undesirable tails products will either push out of the base of the stripping column when recycled or dumped to drain, back to the beer well, etc. If running them back into the stripping column, you may need to drop your base temperature to prevent choking and hydraulic loading of particular plates where certain compounds separate. The doubler ends up being the mechanism to separate the hearts from the tails and raises the proof to an acceptable level for high wines.

Cheers!

 

[Bolverk]

I came across the cad drawing of this still and was confused by how it didn't seem to address the heads but with this explanation the "reflux" line coming from the condenser at the top of the column could only be the heads, while hearts and  what tails make it up the column would condense in the low wine PC and dump into the doubler to have the tails stripped out.... makes perfect sense now. Thanks man!

[SlickFloss]

Unless you're getting a specific custom rig you're bringing to them or requesting them to design Vendome really only sells what I refer to as an American Bourbon Column. Stump hit it on head, it is a very simple but very clever and efficient system.

-Column is used to separate all alcohols some water aldehydes......etc...... from grain slurry.

-Stillage to come out as bottoms

-Alcohol vapor enters beer heater which is a precondenser used to heat beer and partially cool vapor stream. There is a reflux loop here that addressees a majority of tails from the wash.

-Alcohol that runs through condenser is condensed in a manner that allows operator to control flavor/cut by controlling vent temp, the remainder of ethanol is condensed completely to be sent to doubler.

-Doubler is ran in a manner that it slowly gains level until it needs to be doubled back, these are your tails your not sending through to collection. Doubler should be ran to spec so final product is ready for long term aging and heavy tails reflux back into doubler for doubling back into beer well

-there is also a vent on High wines condensers that can be used for split cutting heads (really advanced operating) or more commonly just another place to vent select low boiling compounds incase you pushed them through on accident. Much less effective than the first vent so don't push them through.

-There isn't a head cut, the column is tuned based on how you run the vents the temperature will change because of what the vents and other reflux loops are doing.

-Collected Distillate off of these systems have considerably more "heads" than your run of the mill craft distillers heart cut on a pot still. these distillates are designed and ran for highly fluctuating aging plans that use the heads in final collection to protect yield and assist with nuance in flavor for large ky commodity brands.

[Bolverk]

Thanks fellas,

 

These are the plans I have seen and I don't see a vent persay, unless the heads are collected in the horizontal condenser at the top and are either dropped back into the column or pulled off as refux... or hell maybe these plans don't include the vent and I'm searching for something thats not there...

 

[SlickFloss]

On the cut sheet you provided to the Internet that the manufacturer is probably really going to resent there is two small TC ferrules for vents on HxC1 and HxC2

[SlickFloss]

18 hours ago, Bolverk said:

Thanks fellas,

 

These are the plans I have seen and I don't see a vent persay, unless the heads are collected in the horizontal condenser at the top and are either dropped back into the column or pulled off as refux... or hell maybe these plans don't include the vent and I'm searching for something thats not there...

 

The horizontal condenser at the top you referred to is a beer heater, I mentioned it in my original post about dropping tails back down and refluxing into the column. There are two valves on the spirit trays of the column that allow you to control the reentry point of that reflux. Heads would reflux last right? [lowest boiling point.] This is not a condenser it is a partial precondenser. Increases efficiency by heating beer and drops heavy tails and water out of vapor suspension and back into column. If you're running you're column right you tune to your desired tails cut. 

 

Anyone who wants to learn how to run one of these, I'll come to you or you can come to me. And if you use us for consulting, that 240 gallon collections tank won't be close to enough for your daily yield ; )

Edited August 18, 2023 by SlickFloss
edited for hubris

[Bolverk]

14 minutes ago, SlickFloss said:

On the cut sheet you provided to the Internet that the manufacturer is probably really going to resent there is two small TC ferrules for vents on HxC1 and HxC2

I found it on the internet, but I see your point and I've deleted the picture.

So you're saying there are (or could be) vents in the tops of the low wines and high wines condensers?

[SlickFloss]

Just now, Bolverk said:

I found it on the internet, but I see your point and I've deleted the picture.

So you're saying there are vent in the tops of the low wines and high wines condensers?

Thank you for deleting the picture! I appreciate that and for your show of good character I will elaborate. Look low and inside on the condensers, you will see two small ports unlabeled that look like thermowell or TC fitting (impossible to tell difference without annotation on most VCB drawings). Thats where vent at equipment install would go. 

[Bolverk]

Thank you

That's interesting... I wouldn't have expected a heads vent to be located so low in a condenser... im not doubting you, I just don't understand. it's just that a heads vent is typically seen higher in the design because the boiling point is so low that it would condense before the hearts... if I'm not mistaken? 

[SlickFloss]

Of course!

Operator tunes column to allow lowest boiling points to volatilize with assistance of other dissolved gasses holding heat in suspension that will pop out of that vent. Per my other post, this isn't designed to completely remove heads and if you want a great well aged product that shouldn't be your goal either. It's designed to provide an opportunity for certain compounds to volatilize if ran correctly. BBN aged in a rick house subjected to heat cycles (either natural or synthetic) are going to volatilize heads outta barrel. The only people obsessed with incredibly plain boring wicked tight head cuts are craft distillers on pot stills and people running absolutely wonkadoodle ferments for wild flavor goals. When we load a bunch of bourbon into our ricks on a warm day you can come back next few days and smell low boiling points already volatilizing in the air around the ricks it's really magical.

 

Can I ask for a reference to a heads vent being higher? On any condenser? They're usually lower closer to collection points right? At least on my CARL and SM pots they both are. You are thinking with correct logic but not seeing it all the way through. Heads has a lower boiling point than ethanol. Ethanol will condense first. Going backwards through the system why would heads condense closer to the heat source (Or earlier in the condenser? Which is hotter in the system flow) than ethanol which has a higher boiling point? Closer to system they're immiscible in the vapor stream too much heat. It can't. It would have to be later in system to allow ethanol to condense without the compounds being targeted condensing as well. 

 

Operator. Tunes. System.

[Bolverk]

I gotcha,  thanks that makes sense.

I think I was saying the same thing in a stupider way... We're on the same page.

I appreciate the clarification!