Lenny

I lauter as well, but really... on-grain single malt would be no different in process and equipment than what most use to produce a bourbon or rye, right? I mean, you won't be getting the temp as high with an all barley scarification rest so you can get away with a single infusion. Chilling would either be handled by a tube in tube chiller, or an immersion chiller (like a big ass plate or coil), or dumping a crap ton of ice into your hot mash.

As far as flavor goes... that's all you. Gotta say though, I really dig the idea of shaking up what most know a malt whiskey to be and going grain-in is one way to do that.

Telluride - we're heading down to see you as soon as it starts dumping.

If you're not down to upgrade, than just keep practicing. Before getting a more appropriate tool from st.pats, we used a cheapo harbor freight heat gun. It took a good 30 or so bottles to get the technique down (involved spinning and carful distance/angle), but it's totally doable to get clean heat shrinks with a regular heat gun.

My opinion... your setting yourself up for total ass kicking with the bottleneck between your mash/wash and your still. I had a setup for a while that yielded 600 gallons of wash which had to be stripped though a 140 gallons still, and it suuuuucked.

Some options to make life easier:

• Forget about the gigantic mash and scale down to a more manageable size (200-300 max).
• Acquire an appropriately sized mashtun or cooker (depending on if you want to lauter or not) and mash smaller amounts more often into more than one fermenter.
• Acquire a second larger stripping still that can accommodate your full amount wash/mash.

Congrats on getting on your way. Good location you've set up in... right around the corner from Dairy Engineering, Grudge MMA training center (not sure how useful that'll be), and a couple miles from Rocky Mountain Barrel.

Best of luck on the rest of the journey.

Thanks again for the info. I'm going to go through everything that comes into contact with our gin and make sure it's thoroughly rinsed of any non-ro'ed water and/or deposits. I guess I've fallen into a bit of complacence in regards to contamination issues since most distilling processes are so much more immune to the issues than that of beer production.

Thanks, Todd.

It was clear upon bottling, and it also does appear that only a few cases out of the larger batch are effected. Leads me to wonder if one of our various bottling tanks (sanke kegs) might have a contaminate of some sort. I'm proofing down with RO water for our gin and whiskey, but never had any of these issues with spirits other than the gin. I did just find the dissolved solids coming out of my RO filter to be up to 32 (time for a new membrane I guess). Either way... thanks for the lead on the issue potentially being rooted in dissolved salts. I'm definitely going to look into that further.

Anyone ever experience a red/orange precipitate forming after 2+ months in the bottle? If so, any ideas on what could be the culprit and how it can be avoided?

I've had this happen randomly with a couple batches and it's driving me nuts. I'm considering sending it off to a lab if no one has an easy answer/fix. We use both a maceration and gin basket for botanical additions.

Thanks

Vinyl works pretty well.

Wondering if anyone on team square has tried any of the other solutions out there? We use POS Lavu and are very happy with it. Haven't tried square for anything other than off site use but in reviewing various options, POS Lavu seemed much more robust and appropriate for our needs.

I was listening to whiskeycast this morning and caught mention of a pretty bad still malfunction that led to an explosion yesterday at Twister Distillery. I believe there was mention of Jeff Thermond (I think he's posted on this forum in the past?) having been airlifted to a hospital in critical condition!

Can't confirm anything beyond what I heard and what I came across online: http://newsok.com/blast-rocks-moore-distillery/article/4907972

If this info is indeed accurate, hopefully all involved are back on their feet soon. Terrible news.

Your ferm temp is going to have an outcome on your final distillate. I ferment 500+ gallons of wash in single wall open top tanks without temp control. I pitch yeast at 83f and the ferment rips up into the high 90's during the first couple days (regardless of seasonal ambient temps). Works for me -- might or might not work for you. If you want to save a few bucks by skipping the jacket for now, but decide later that you'd prefer a bit more control, you could always run a big copper coil inside your fermenters.

What should installation typically cost ? I know it varies but is there a going rate the installation of a boiler about that size?

I just had a 1mil btu boiler installed with associated piping to a mashtun, hot liquor tank, and pot still. It ended up costing me a bit over 25k. I got quotes as high as 100k! The boiler guy that I used seemed to really know his stuff, and was able to cut some corners when appropriate. Also, I'm having digital controls installed on each tank next week. I want to say they were an additional 1k each.

Also, I ended up going with a new smith boiler with all the stuff (power burner, blowdown, water softener, condensate pump, bunch of other junk) which ran 24k. That all amounts to some pricey hot air!

If you are looking to buy a new boiler, I'd very confidently recommend (am I allowed to do that?) working with Chuck Woodruff with Steam System Solutions - 303.439.0565. He's worked with numerous breweries and at least one distillery. He gave us a few options on appropriate boilers with the various pros/cons of each, and also assisted with engineered drawings.

Hope that helps.

Bashing is not the same as reviewing. I would hope that users of the ADI forums can continue reviewing their experiences with various suppliers/manufacturers with both positive and negative sentiments, without posts being removed. I could understand a case where outright bashing would warrant post-removal (and an opportunity for the op to re-word their posting). Much beyond that and this forum risks castration.

I provided a sample of my stillage to our sanitation district for analysis. They weren't thrilled about the high level of BOD but didn't tell me the exact level. They had asked that I try and discharge it during the evening hours.

Luckily I was able to convince our fire inspector that closed barrels are exempt. So my plans are not completely squashed yet. But I'm curious how someone would drain and proof a 30gal barrel without exceeding the 30 gal limit. Could it be done in two steps using an intermediate closed vessel?

I'm in the same boat with my fire inspector. I drain my 30g barrels into 15 gallon tanks (old sanke kegs) which can be closed off with 2" triclamp caps to stay within MAQ's. The key is to bottle immediately.

A bargaining chip you might want to consider throwing out there to your inspector to allow for some leeway... installing an ethanol vapor detector.

If you're going to the ADI conference, there is a session on Dealing with City and County codes to Build a Distillery with Scott Moore and Brad Emerick of Dalkita Architecture.

Scott is extremely well versed in code compliance within F1 usage - He's the man you'll want to consult with.

Looks like the Dstill folks have a boulder distillery tour organized: http://www.dstill.co/foothills-distillery-tour-boulder/

There are probably a good 10 or so distilleries within 30+ minutes of Denver. Not sure how available they'll be during the whole ACDA/Dstill week though.

We're 2 hrs from Denver, but if you're up for a road trip after ACDA wraps up, you/anyone is welcome to swing by.

We just got some fun new stuff online...

I use a fresh pitch of fermentis safspirit yeast for my malt whiskey, but i've used other yeast with similar results. I don't feel like that sort of attenuation is all that miraculous for a malt barley wash. I've experienced longer ferments with cooler pitching temps but on the high side of normal... 3 days is very typical in my production.

Lenny, what's your OG yield like? I'd expect to see something like 1.077 on that, maybe as high as 1.090 if using aggressive enzymes...like convertase. Typically, I like to use smaller mash bills and lower gravs so that my wash ferments overnight. With a 1.075 or a 1.080 I'd be happy to see it finish in 3 days, but I'd expect 4. And where do you finish? The yeast I used would take a low grav wash down to .997, but high gravs would finish 1.007 or 1.010.

Typically I'd use about 420 lbs of grain to get 240 gallons of wash...I lautered and used an extended sparge to hit that liquid number.

My OG ends up at around 1.070 and attenuates down to 1.008-1.010 in 3 days (I usually let it continue on for 3.5-4 days)

I've changed up my equipment and practices a good bit over the past few years and haven't really measured the resulting wash very accurately -- For me, 250g is more of a conservative estimate on the wash that's results.

For the whiskeys present here, is this figuring 2x grain? 250g = 500 lb of "grain".

That is a massive variable based on your mash efficiency, how/if you are lautering, etc.

I don't mind sharing that I use 650lbs of malt to yield 250g of wash. If you crushed to flour and fermented on your grain, I suspect that 500# (or maybe less) would give you that same 250g.

I'm not necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed, and might very well be misunderstanding your questions, but for basic potstill distillation, I'd submit that you'll (conservatively) get about 5% of what you start with.

Ferment 250g of 8% abv wash

stripping run = 50g of 40%abv low wines

spirit run = 12 proof gallons of final product (hearts)

I use the Deluxe Hand-Held PVC Heat Shrink Applicator from St.Pats - http://www.stpats.com/HeatshrinkersRollers.htm

It's better than a regular heat gun in that in that it's more consistency due to the even heating. It's not amazing though. The gun is kinda heavy and I'd say 10% of the pvc sleeves that I use require do-overs.

_{I am really interested in this topic, and it has been very eye opening thus far...}

_{I have one question though, is it a must to use a malt chocolate as opposed to, lets say, store bought chocolate. I mean what are the faults with just melting down a chocolate bar and adding it to your mash? You can buy a 5 gallon bucket worth of chocolate icing like bakeries use and it would have fermentable sugars. I imagine you could buy it fairly cheap by the 5 gallon.}

_{Just curious...}

I just spit out my coffee reading this!

First off, for clarification sake, the malt in question is nothing more than a form of dark roasted malted barley. http://www.midwestsupplies.com/maillard-malts-briess-chocolate-malt.html. You might have known that, but I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

I guess you're not really asking that crazy of a question though. There's a book out there called Radical Brewing. You might want to pick up a copy. Lots of off the wall stuff in there about brewing beer to provide inspiration.

The reason not to pitch a chocolate bar or cacao nibs or other flavoring agents that *could* be used is that, 1. it would not allow the mash to continue on to become a true "malt whiskey" (if that's what one was after), and 2. there are likely better places to introduce flavors into your spirit if one was to go nuts with flavor additions. Most brewers will opt to introduce flavors (beyond specialty malt or adjuncts) either at the end of their boil or post-fermentation during conditioning in order to avoid subtle flavors volatilizing during the boil or ferment. In a spirit, there are quite a few opportunities to add flavor that might be more effective than a mash addition. Maceration, ginbasket, etc. Then again, maybe you throw a box of reces peanutbutter cups into your mash and bring to market one of the most interesting spirits of the year... (as well as one of the best posts of the year)

I don't know anyone making a full flavored spirit with a single distillation on anything but a column still (if it has bubble plates, it's not a potstill). Not saying it's not done, just saying that it seems that the standard on a potstill is double distillation - even with a thumper or some other form of extra reflux (I can think of two distilleries off the top of my head that double distill though either a thumper or a copper packed potstill)

I'd be hard pressed to not recommend anyone with whatever configuration of potstill to plan on a double distillation, and make adjustments from there.