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DistillateurQc

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Posts posted by DistillateurQc

  1. Thank you Southern.

    Yes we use our well water to clean and make mash. But our well flowrate is too low. We have water tank that slowly fill up with well water that we use as reserve. Because if we use well water to cool our condensers, well will dry up before the end of the run.

    So we need a closed loop for our condensers.....

     

     

  2. Hello, our tap water is around 50 F. We cant use it for cooling because we are on a well that has a low debit. We must conserve water as much as possible. This is why we need closed loop system for cooling.

    For our still, coolant input temp is about 60 F and the flowrate is about 10 GPM. Dont know about the coolant output temp...... Our condenser ( for 635 gallons stripping still) will be a tube exchanger, with thoses caractéristics:

    1.Material: Stainless steel 304;
    2.Structure: tube type heat exchanger
    3.Inner diameter:Ø1'2";height of body=6';
    4.Thickness: 1/8"

    The condenser of our vodka still is similar. The condenser of our gin still is smaller, let say 1' diameter x 5' height.

    For the fermenter, it will about 3 feet diameter by 8 feet high, no agitator. The jacket coverage area are about 80 sq.ft. Will be producing whiskey, gin, vodka. Will be producing spirit from barley, wheat.

    We mash at +/- 145F for an hour, ferment at +/- 82F for 3-4 days. Still run time doing vodka is about 8-9 hours.

     

    Thank you Souther.

     

    Mat

     

  3. Hello fellows distillers,

    We are a small craft distillery and now we have an expansion project.

    We need advice on the best cooling system to install after expansion.

    The planned setup after expansion is the following:

    1x 160 gallons vodka still with 21 plates columns

    1x 80 gallons gin still

    1x 635 gallons stripping still.

    1x 635 gallons mash/lauter tun

    3x 635 gallons fermenters

     

     

    We currently own a Kreyer Chilly max 90 chiller (https://www.gwkent.com/media/pdf/product/3942/Chilly_Max_90_eng.pdf) connected to a plate exchanger (https://www.gwkent.com/heat-exchanger.html   6 square meter) that is connected to a 660 gallons cold water tank.

    Obviously,  with our new setup, we will need more cooling capacity.

    We were thinking about keeping our Chilly max 90 to cool down our mash (will be cooling one at the time, with the fermenter jacket). Will it be enough powerful?

    We were thinking about buying a new chiller for the stills operation (condenser & dephleg).

    What chiller size do we need (HP, tons or KW of cooling capacity), considering that we would like to run the three stills at the same time? Is it possible to eliminate the cold water tank (to save space) and run glycol directly from our chiller to our condensers/dephleg?

    Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

     

    Regards,

    Mat

  4. Hi fellows,

     

    I have a simple question I was not able to find an answer on google.

    We run a 600L vodka still. The water flowrate to the condenser of the still is about 8 gallons/minute.

    Usually, we use water that is around 50 F for the condenser.

    I want to know what is the hottest water temperature we can use in our condenser before we start to lose alcohol vapor that will not condensate?

     

    Thank you.

  5. Hi fellow distillers,

    We have a vodka still with a whisky column (5 plates)and a vodka column (21 plates).

    When we make our low wines, we use the whisky column and bypass the vodka column.

    Should we bypass the whisky column also? So the run will be shorter. Will it affect the yield or final product?

    We usually make our low wine run with no cuts, and run it down until it reach 10 abv. Final low wines are at 45 abv.

     

    Any thought? Any advice?

     

    Thanks to all.

     

  6. 37 minutes ago, MGL said:

    No. No. No.

    You can't just take a scoop of carbon and throw it in a tank and expect results. Do you think the water treatment company takes a huge tank of water and chucks a handful of filters in there? No. Carbon is a filter just like any filter cartrige for your house, just a lot smaller. You need to pump your vodka THROUGH your carbon.

    1/4 cup of carbon spinning around in 300 litrers of vodka aint gunna do anything either. Maybe if you used 20 cups it might filter somebut you are doing it all wrong and using not enough carbon.

    Thank you MGL.

    Our ativated carbon is in bulk. How should we proceed? Make a pocket of carbon and proceed our spirit through it?

    Merci.

  7. Thank you Bluefish.

    We filtered our vodka with activated carbon.

    This carbon:

    https://envirosupply.net/shop/activated-carbon/ac/12x40-ultra-pure-prewashed-coconut-shell-activated-carbon-55-lb-bag.html

    We throwed carbon directly into our 40% abv vodka. We throwed about 1/4 cup in 300L of vodka and waited for two hours.

    Then we filtered through a .2 micron paper filter.

    The filtering didnt changed much the taste, maybe the texture of the spirit a bit.

    Are we doing things right?

    Regards,

  8. Silk city distillers,

    We use 660 pounds of grain in about 215 gallons of water. Then we sparge and add some dextrose.

    We mash at 62-64 for an hour.

    Grain out.

    Another question, when you make your vodka run, at what abv (+/-) do you make your tails cut?

     

    Thank you.

  9. Hello fellow distillers,

    Anyone use a manual pump to empty barrels? If yes, what type of pump do you use?

    We are looking for a more simple (and cheaper) way to empty barrels for bottling than the barrel gun with co2 injection.

     

    Thank you

  10. Hi fellow distillers,

    We made a low-wines run.

    We have a vodka still with a 5 plate column and a 21 plates column. Both columns have defleghmentor.

    We did the low-wines run using only the 5 plates column, and we did'nt used the dephlegmentor.

    We distilled 1200 liter of mash which was about 10% abv.

    The run started, the distillate was about 85% ABV and we distilled until the ABV of the distillate was around 20%.

    The final yield was at 50% ABV. We were hoping to yield about 200 liters. 

    The total volume of the distillate at 50% is about 125 liters.

    Anyone have an idea where the missing 75 liters went?

     

    Thank you :-)

     

     

  11. Hello fellow distillers,

    We have been told that our vodka should be at 40% abv before filtering with activated carbon.

    If we want to use our vodka to produce a gin, can we filter it at a higher abv?

    We were considering doing a gin run with 65% abv alcool to be more efficient.

    Can we filter a vodka at 65% abv?

     

    Thanks all

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