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clwestphal

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  1. Can anyone recommend a tankless hot water heater for preheating my mash water? Looking for something that will heat up to 175 degrees. Thanks for any input.
  2. I use 315 gallon of water in the tank. The ending SG is 146. I heat the water to 205 or so and add the corn and rye. Wait two hours. Lower the temp. to 150 and add barley and barley malt. I use a triple scale beer and wine hydrometer to arrive at the 6% potential alcohol. Hope that helps.
  3. I'm a very small distillery and use a 330 gallon SS tote sitting on its side for a mash tank. I cut a rectangular hole in what is the top now and put in a slow agitator for mash mixing and a fast agitator for mixing the mash as I put it in. It all works out good. I have screens on the bottom and take the liquid off of the grain for fermentation. (can't distill on grain as I use a steam heat exchanger.) I'm routinely getting between 6 and 7 percent potential alcohol when I'm done. I use the appropriate enzymes at the right temperatures. I use 400 lbs. cracked corn, 100 lbs. barley, 50 lbs. rye and 60 lbs. barley malt in my bill. I'm wondering if that is the best that I will be able to obtain using this set up. I would love to use a store bought mash tun but really can't afford to spend 18K or so on a 350 gallon tun. Would appreciate any and all feed back.
  4. I found that online and wanted to be sure it was okay to use. Thank you.
  5. Can someone recommend a caulk to use inside a mash tun? Need to seal a couple of places around the screen at the bottom.
  6. Thanks everyone for their input. I'm heating up corn, letting sit for 2 hours, adding rye, barley and barley malt, letting sit a couple of hours, cooling down with a cooling coil and adding yeast, then draining out to finish fermenting. Not possible for me to use steam jacketed equipment. I started operation at 65 years of age, am 68 now, would never get a return on the money it would cost to do that. Special situation. I have drilled some larger holes in my screen randomly and if that improves the draining, will put in more. I double screen/filter before it goes into the still. I get some decent returns so will just keep plugging (no pun intended) along.
  7. Can anyone recommend the size of screen for the bottom of a mash tank in which is use ground corn, rye and barley? The one I have seems to be too small and gets clogged up. I tried using rice hulls and it really plugged everything up. Any help would be appreciated.
  8. Thanks for the help. I contacted Crown and they told me to use a different Honeywell pressure controller so that's what I'm doing hoping that it will help. It is a tube in shell heat exchanger. I'm using it to heat a 300 gallon mash tank and a 200 gallon still. That's the problem going with a local contractor. I should have called one of the national dealers that specialize in distilling. Live and learn.
  9. I contracted with a local boiler guy for a heat exchanger and steam boiler. They recommended a Crown. They put in a 227K btu boiler and a 250K btu heat exchanger. The problem is the pressure goes up to 9 psi and down to 7psi the way it should, then it goes down to zero. Had engineer in to see what the problem is. He stated that the boiler is undersized. Great. Anyway, the contractor wants to put in a buffer tank to expand capacity of the boiler tank. Reasonable one would think. He wants 4500.00 to do it, which is half the cost of the boiler. Does anyone have any suggestions? The boiler going down to zero is no big deal other than wasted time when mashing, but when distilling it causes a problem by taking the heat off the still, thus stopping the output. Any help would be appreciated.
  10. Thanks for the info. I'm going to get my building sprayed with insulation so I will have them do the pipes at the same time.
  11. Thanks for the input. I see there is a Buffer compound that you can add to adjust the ph. Does anyone use that?
  12. Does anyone have any experience with insulating their condensate tank on the boiler? Also insulating the mash tank, I take it there aren't any downsides with doing that.
  13. Can anyone tell me what to expect out of the following: 320 gallons of mash, using enzymes end up with 220 gallons of liquid to distill. How many gallons should I be getting off a stripping run taken down to 25% ABV? I start with a 10% conversion after mashing. All grain bill. Corn, rye, barley and barley mash. Use a 1.7 ratio or grain to water for the mash.
  14. Can anyone suggest a ph tester under $100.00?
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