jeffw

Thanks. Indeed that was the problem. Sometimes it is the little things that get you.

Just got an email from TCW, there tanks are on sale. Though it looks like the price doesn't include the stand or valve. Still probably cheaper or about the same as St. Pats. Happy hunting.

GW kent sells the same tanks but they do cost a bit more. I have seen on the negative feedback on St. Pats, but I have bought stuff from them with no problems so far. I was debating buying some fermenters from them but that negative feedback I have seen gives me pause. Natrat, what trouble did you have with them?

Thanks. I sent it that way. Didn't give me an error but also didn't indicate in any way that it went through. Time will tell.

Does anyone know where the botanicals should be listed in formulas online? I would guess under "Other Ingredients", but when I try to submit it gives me an error stating that I need something under "flavors" for my class/type. I would guess that flavors are not botanicals, but perhaps I am wrong. Should botanicals be listed under flavors and classified as either natural or non-flavor? Any help or advice would be appreciated. Cheers, Jeff

You can also get modulation and go bigger with the boiler. In the short run you still lose some energy efficiency from greater evaporation and so forth, but that can offset some of the natural gas waste. Modulation from most of the manufacturers I got quotes from added about $3500 to the cost of the boiler.

Blackheart, Wasn't trying to bust your balls, just trying to make sense of your numbers. Are you running 2:1 grain to water by volume or you meant 2 lbs per gallon? I immediately assumed you were referring to the latter, which made the SG seem too high. I thought I remember from the ADI show you said you were running 4 lbs per gallon though..was just looking for clarity. I have no doubt that you know what you are doing and I greatly enjoyed your wheat shine. Cheers.

Your starting gravity and your grain to water ratio doesn't really make sense to me Blackheart. Seems like you should be around 4:1 to hit 1.2 SG.

Or get fewer and ferment twice as much in one as your still capacity.

Don't think you should register yourself. Talk to Phyllis St. Clair at the TTB, she is in charge of pay.gov stuff and can fix things faster than you can. Sorry, don't know where I put her phone number.

Enolmatic cheap fix at least for now to get you started. You can get from St. Pats among others.

Artisan Still Design. A 60 gallon electric bain marie heat and a 500 L steam jacketed (on the way, can't wait Steven!) Artisan Still. My guess is Vendome and the German's don't have UL ratings either, but I believe Vendome is ASME rated shop...They want a UL rating on the steam jacket? You could probably get a UL test done on-site or maybe just test that it can handle 15 psi with no UL rating, but it all sounds kind of crazy and unnecessary. Nothing is under pressure other than the steam jacket if that is what you are running. The still is not a pressure vessel and it might help to point this out. I understand your pain though, I had plenty of trouble with my sprinkler system thanks to the fire department. State licensed fire sprinkler engineering company was saying they are rated H2 occupancy (and I am only F2), but the fire department wanted to see all the calculations, a code study, etc. Huge pain and a waste of 6 months. After getting my business license though, I haven't see the fire department again. What size is your still?

None. Is someone asking for one?

50k seems high, at least without installation costs. I have gotten pricing for this size also and can say I have seen pricing range from about 15k for a similar cast iron system that you linked to, to around 63k for a Clayton steam generator with various pricing in between. It seems to me that plenty of breweries have gotten by just fine with these cheap cast iron boilers but I don't know what kind of life span you will get out of them since I don't think they are usually considered good for process steam. Realize that in addition to the boiler you need a feed system, blowdown separator, and ideally a chemical treatment and pretreatment system which some quote with their boiler and some don't. Install is expensive too. You can try to do this yourself as I believe many municipalities don't require a licensed person to do this work, but I am not sure I would recommend this. For 250 gallon system though 500k BTUs should be fine. Use water for instance to figure your heatup. 250 gallons x 8.34 pounds/per gallon*delta temperature change (say 125) which is only about 260k btu's to heat in 1 hour or about 350,000 in 45 minutes. From that point you can figure your running BTUs roughly from manufacturer's specs. Say they say a strip takes 3 hours. 10 percent beer says you have 25 gallons pure ethanol in a full load. This gives you about 71 gallons of 70 proof low wines (latent heat maybe 2/3s water, 1/3 ethanol, maybe a chemist can say if this basic idea makes sense). Take a heat of vaporization necessary to vaporize this much and divide by 3 hours and you have your running BTUs (this all assumes no loses which of course isn't the case). Do the math though and you can see that worst case you stagger your startup time by at most 45 minutes and you can heatup one vessel and run spirit on the other with no problems. I have no idea what a 500k BTU boiler costs but I'd say a nice 1 million btu is around 30k, and going up in down in size usually isn't a huge or proportional difference from what I have seen. Good luck.

Excuse, most cheap boilers aren't designed to do 12 psi steam. Not all 15 psi rated boilers are really meant to operate towards the upper end of their pressure rating.

You want to run just a mashing system or a still too on that boiler? I agree with Sherman on quick look that doesn't look ideal for your needs I would guess though. If you are trying to go cheap then direct fire is probably better. If that boiler can't do steam and pressure which I doubt it can, then you are going to have a real challenge doing a stripping run with it. To Sherman's point, you probably want 12 PSI steam (which most boilers I believe aren't designed for), which would put a little over 240 degree steam into a jacket. Good luck.

Why do you need a formulator? If you are just mixing stuff, can't you do this yourself in your home? If nothing is being fermented or distilled finding a local micro near you who can mix and bottle for you should be pretty easy.

What do you use the DMA 35 for? I debated that one but didn't see the point since it is only accurate to about 1 proof.

I don't know how high you can push it, but with some viscosity enzymes getting 3 pounds per gallon shouldn't be too big a problem (my last run was that but with malted rye). I have heard (not sure with rye) of getting up to 4 pounds per gallon. Think that was blackheart...?

Relatively cheap impeller pumps from St. Pats and GW Kent. I have the Euro 30 from St. Pats and it works ok. I did managed to blow the start capacitor within the first 3 months of using it. You can always look at air diaphragm pumps too. Here is one http://www.ebay.com/itm/290900200161?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 that should certainly be able to move solids. Cheers

Depending on your climate, proof may go up over time.

I did have a handle pop off one of those olive oil containers. Just saying...

I don't remember where I saw it on the TTB site, but somewhere on there it states that only 62% of distilled spirits labels are in compliance which I imagine was a reference purely to proofing.

Reach out to Scott but a quick look and they appear to be Konipacs. Kothe sells them and I believe there is a distributor out of New Jersey too but I think Kothe was cheaper when I looked.

You can use a centrifugal pump, which is what Bluestar is using.