Leaderboard

It was much the same experience when we signed on to DistillX5. After a couple of very frustrating months we threw in the towel. The software is probably just fine, but it is extremely difficult to maintain accuracy, especially if more than one person is interacting with it. But what really bugs me is the subscription model. I'm sorry but the math of alcohol doesn't change. Why do we have to keep paying for the same thing over and over? All you are really paying for is database management - that you have to manage yourself anyway! Diabolically clever. At this point I'm back to my excel spreadsheets. Perhaps not the best solution but a hell of a lot cheaper when you consider how much alcohol you'll have to sell to meet the monthly subscription fees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi5WzVGBkuw Interesting watch with some info regarding what you are interested in

Thank you Mountain Brewer your post is very helpful. Just what I needed.

Wow, where to start. Milling is absolutely necessary, everyone mills their rye (not sure where you got the idea it wasn't required). Grain is grain, there is nothing wrong with the grain. 158f is not hot enough for unmalted rye. Try holding above 200f for maximal conversion. Total time will be based on your mill, coarse or fine. Alpha Amylase alone will not yield a fermentable wash when mashing 100% unmalted grain, that's only half the conversion. Do not add enzyme to water, it's added to mash. You need to mash in, get your pH, adjust pH, and then dose your enzyme. While your pH could be a bit lower, but that's not your problem. You need to also use glucoamylase, and that will have a pH and temperature range that is very different from alpha. Not surprised about your 2 brix, probably an optimistic guess since your recipe basically just makes dirty water. Suspect your other brew store batches were made with malted rye (having all the necessary enzyme, and far easier to mash than unmalted rye). Why are you adding rice hulls? There is no way you are lautering a 100% raw rye mash, not without a far more complex step mash method and additional enzymes (beta-glucanase and xylanase), and even then it'll still be miserable.

Hugo, if you want a more accurate answer from me, then you need to provide me with more information. Thermal Engineering and Thermodynamics is a complex science with many non-linear relationships. You can't just take one thing and multiply it by two It doesn't matter how many plates you have in the column. The important thing is that you have a dephlegmator. This means that you will have an adjustable reflux ratio in your moonshine still. I do not know the area of the heat transfer surfaces in your dephlegmator and your condenser-cooler. In my calculations, I have taken a reflux ratio of 1.8. If you have a different reflux ratio, the calculations will change. So, for example, if the reflux ratio is = 1.1 this will give an alcohol release rate of 16.1 liters per hour. F, (square centimeters) = 1197.0 (increase). With the same water flow rate (600 liters per hour from 20 degrees inlet), the condenser outlet temperature will be 47.9 degrees Celsius. The dephlegmator will enter +47.9 degrees water, and it should not boil. Calculations (rough calculation) tell us that with reflux ratio = 1.8 and alcohol yield = 12.1 liters per hour, the surface area of the reflux condenser F, (square centimeters) should be = 1642.9. This is more than the heat transfer area of the condenser. In this case, at the exit from the reflux condenser, we get = 76.5 degrees Celsius. This is very hot water! And it will be 600 liters per hour! I would recommend doing air cooling. For example, how people who have little money do it: What is stand-alone cooling and how is it used? The autonomous cooling system works according to the following principle: water (that is, coolant) is pumped from the tank to the refrigerator (2) so that alcohol vapors condense. In this case, the liquid heats up and flows to the lower inlet of the radiator (3). The fan (3) and radiator from the car, cools the water to the ambient temperature. After that, the water returns through the upper pipe to the container (4). (5 = pump)

^ this is the answer. You can safely pull their system enough to strip with a hydronic boiler those boilers will 100000% be enough

Like all answers that pertain to brewing and distilling, I have to couch my response in "it depends". In my experience, wheat isn't very aggressive in the pot. We use it for our vodka. We've found that of all the things that we've distilled over the years, Anise and Corn are the two things that are most likely to give you carryover in flavor if you do not clean. This is where the "it depends" comes in. It depends on what you are distilling. You could give it a go by following, say, your whiskey with you gin and see what it gets you. Maybe you'll like it. Maybe you won't have any perceptible carryover. Cleaning the interior of your still is by no means mandatory. Many distilleries around the world prefer to 'season' their stills, and simply brush off excess soil with a good brush. This obviously reduces heat transfer, and also the contribution that the copper makes to the spirit. This can be a good thing. I will say, though, that most distilleries only make one type of spirit.... they'll only make rum, or they'll only make whisky. I take the opposite tack. I want clean, repeatable flavors, and I also want intensive copper contact. If I do not clean that anise or the corn out, I can taste a bit of carryover. So I clean the still with Potassium Hydroxide followed by Food Grade Citric Acid. I have also designed the pipework on our stills for easy CIP....including the condenser and lyne arm. The easiest way to clean the pipework from the parrot back to the swan's neck is to have your still manufacturer weld a triclamp fitting to hold the parrot on. That way, when you're ready to clean, or even just to do a quick backflush rinse, you can pop the parrot off and away you go. Everyone handles these things differently. The soil gets heavier the closer you get to the heat source. So while if you want a spotless clean pot that's used for mash, caustic is pretty much essential. While your condenser, especially as you get closer to the parrot, will likely just need citric or even just water to get it clean. Check with your still manufacture before you use live steam on your still. Live steam is/can be much hotter than alcohol vapor, and can ruin gaskets etc. if they're not the correct type. KBFreeRange, if you don't mind a suggestion, I'd distill a few batches of your wheated whiskey, and then buy a drum of bulk GNS to distill right after several of those whiskey runs. If you're not happy with the taste of the GNS as it comes off the still, give R. Sherman a call about retrofitting CIP sprayheads in your still, or try Classick's steam method. If the GNS comes out smelling and tasting fine, well, you're all set to carefully do some production runs of your Gin. Hope this helps.