Coriolis

Not sure dropping PH post ferment it will affect yield in any significant way but acid is a catalyst for fisher esterficiation so if you have significant volatile acidity and can run low and slow or with reflux, you increase the likelihood of producing esters in the still. 

No agitation in the fermenter itself. I actually mix the molasses with as little hot water as i can and mix in a seperate vessel prior to pumping into the active fermentation.

Yeah, I use a batch feed system but it's not every 2 hours. Instead it breaks it up into four steps at roughly 8-10 hr intervals so a bit more user friendly for smaller set ups with limited man power. The guys at Lallemand gave me a protocol they recommend for ethanol production but it is equally valid for Rum. It's not really my place to post the document here but I'd recommend getting in touch with them and asking for it. I've had to modify it a bit to suit the way i handle my molasses but the principle is pretty much the same.

45 minutes ago, FijiSpirits said:

It’s sounds kinda normal to me actually.  I run 16 plates but turn off the reflux during stripping and my low wines average around 40 abv, with takeoffs ranging from 80% at beginning to 10% at end.

 

I think what may be happening is the small amount of reflux works for a bit then the still just overpowers it and sends everything thru.  In these situations it may be helpful to watch your boiler temp to see where you are rather than your output ABV or column temps

 

my $.02.

Copy that...it's a bit different to my smaller set up which is a bit more linear. Every day is a school day in this game!

5 minutes ago, Coriolis said:

I am recycling the distillate for these test runs for sure. Paying for the power is another story!

 

One would hope that someone did their home work when designing the column. It's not particularly tall at 1m. Attached is a photo for reference.

3 hours ago, glisade said:

I'm guessing you can't bypass the plates but not running the deph will basically give you about one theoretical distillation. Based on a 13% wash ABV I would expect the hearts to come out at about 60% ABV. So I'm not sure I see anything wrong with your distillation. And as others have pointed out, if it's thee stripping run then you'll collect everything. There's no way to go from foreshots to tails and not collect all the main ethanol.

I guess when you think about it like that it make sense. The analogy of skipping the hearts was more to describe the phenomenon rather than anything else.

10 hours ago, PeteB said:

I am no expert on stills with column and plates but I would think a 12 inch diameter on a 1,000 litre pot is out of balance, too wide, but I could be wrong. Just putting it out there for comment by others.

When you say "getting expensive running 700 litres of wash" are you talking about the cost of the wash or cost of running the boiler. If it is the wash you are concerned about just pour the condensate back into the pot to run for your next test. I can't help on the cost of running the boiler unless you could convert it to run on used motor oil or fryer oil (as I do)

I am recycling the distillate for these test runs for sure. Paying for the power is another story!

15 hours ago, Patio29Dadio said:

Might be a dumb question, but if a stripping run, why do you care?  

Are you sure 13% ABV?  It sounds like you are starting the run with reflux building in the plates and eventually breaking through thus concentrating the heads and then ABV falls and your boil temp goes up pushing more water vapor and lowering your proof.   Why use any plates in a stripping run?  

Try no plates and a slower boil.

Just a guess.

 

It's more about figuring out what i can and can't do with the different configurations rather than a true stripping run. I wanted to see how it worked in pot still mode with just a bit of reflux from the plates. I get your point though - if I am using plates then it probably needs the dephleg as well. 

Next thing -  I'll do what I should of done in the first place....take all the plates out, run as pure pot and then start adding complexity/plates/dephleg into the mix.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Hi all,

I'm in the middle of an install and set up  on 1000l Hoga still with a hybrid column that i bought second hand. To be honest, it's proving difficult to get results and after a few test runs I'm starting to get frustrated and could really do with some input from more experienced peers!

Basically, I'm having a lot of trouble with the ABV of the product. Running in pretty much pot still mode (just 2 plates, no dephleg) the distillate starts coming out around 84 ABV with a pot temp of 80 degrees C and  drops dramatically in about 10 minutes to 60 ABV. From there it settles down and proceeds pretty much as you'd expect a stripping run to with the ABV dropping gradually over a period of 6 hours or so. In other words, I go straight from foreshots to tails seemingly skipping the heads and  hearts phase entirely!

Here's some details that might help with the diagnosis:

Pot size - 1000l

Wash size - 700l (aprox 13% ABV)

Heat source - Steam coil (admittedly the boiler is a bit undersized so keeping steady heat is a bit of a challenge)

Column width 300mm (aprox 12in)

Pot has agitator and is insulated.

Plates aren't really plates like seive or bubble caps. They are more of a series of inverted copper dishes. To be honest I have my doubts about the design.

There is a spike in still head temp as the product abv drops. It is at 73 C when fores start appearing and shoots up to 90 within 10 minutes as the ABV plummets.

My next step is to remove all plates entirely to see if those plates are contributing to the problem but it's getting expensive running 700l of wash everytime just to test it.

Any ideas or thoughts are very welcome!

So, here's an idea I've been toying with to help increase efficiencies and decrease the load on the chiller:

Currently I run the hot water output from the condenser through water tank with a coil before going into a header tank to cool further before circulating back to the chiller. This way it takes the heat out and gives me hot water for cleaning etc... nothing particularly special about that. Then it struck me that i could be using this warm water to raise the temperature of the wash to be distilled the next day using the jacket/pad I have on the fermenter. I'm set up with a 2100l fermenter that charges the still three times. If i use the hot water from the first run to warm up the remainder in the fermenter it should theoretically reduce my heat up time the next day. It's not dissimilar in concept to a Charentais brandy still but using the condenser water rather than the lyne arm.

Anyone tried this? Thoughts?

On 8/29/2018 at 9:24 AM, stillwagon said:

We have a rural location so we treat the spent wash ouselves by aerobic digestion, raise the pH, dilute, then use it to water our forested area.

Stillwagon - care to elaborate a little on this?

What kind of aerobic digester are you using?

@Ironton thanks for your thoughts.

At this stage its more of a professional curiosity than a serious endeavor. To my mind, it's one of the great things about the relatively unregulated world of Rum - so many avenues to explore. One of the reasons I was asking is that Arroyo specifically mentions it in his texts as being preferable to S.Cervisiae and I thought it strange that it wasn't in wider use if someone as respected as Arroyo believed in it. From my limited research, it would seem that it has similar alcohol yield properties but greater   Maybe as you say, it's purely a function of the improvement in the S.Cervisiae strains available to us today.

With respect to the point on Dunder - I do use it but not sure whether it has significant affect on the production of the rum oils we're all so  keen on. Now, if your talking about using dunder in a proper muck pit....that's a whole other discussion!

On 3/16/2016 at 8:54 AM, hertzbier said:

Suppose it depends on your setup. I've never spec'd out a barrel roller/conveyor, but they look* expensive and like they take up some space, so I don't imagine they'd scale well. Our devices are designed as a drop-in for wherever your barrels are currently located, so logistically speaking nothing has to be moved/handled to enable the effects.

@hertzbier have you got any further with your efforts? Nothing heard for a while and i don't see any updates on your website. Are you still pursuing the idea?

Have these guys now changed their name to DirtCheapBarrels.com?

I found them online a while ago and requested some pricing. Got a reply email that I have just realised is exactly the same (format, pricing etc...) as the one posted above by @fending

Bullet dodged I think!

On 7/3/2017 at 10:38 PM, Silk City Distillers said:

Very difficult to source.

Thanks for the info fellas. Interesting stuff. I'm not quite sure I'm at a stage where i can get into this as a project just yet but it's definitely on the 'must try" list.

To my mind, one of the big problems is just like S.Cerivisiae different strains have different characteristics and are suitable for different types of fermentation. With little to no public information (that I can find) on strains used in Rum ferments I'd imagine I'd have to take developing a decent performing strain on myself - that's definitely outside of my pay grade!!

11 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said:

Very difficult to source.

And from what I can see, not many strains dedicated to distillers fermentation needs. Might have to go in the "too hard" basket for the meantime unless anyone on here has any better ideas!

Anyone had any experience using Schizosaccharomyces pombe? Anyone know where to source it?

I'm curious to try a few experiments!

Foaming on a molasses wash is pretty bad. I use a silicon anti foam which really seems to help. I'm assured that none of it passes through to the distillate. My understanding is that it's pretty common practice in larger distilleries even if they don't admit to it.

If you do use it as animal fodder - don't feed it to sheep! They're sensitive to copper and you could poison them.

So here's a question...do you add the dunder (or whatever you want to call it) at the start of the fermentation or towards the end after the yeast have done their thing in terms of alcohol production but still leaving time for esterification? 

I would of thought that this might of reduced the risk of poor yield but still give the funky flavours we're after.

Pretty sure that adding enzymes to a rum ferment is a waste of time. The sugars in molasses (mainly sucrose with some glucose) are readily convertible by the yeast and don't need to be broken down. As Lassiter said, molasses has a high percentage if unfermentables that are not sugars. A example of typical blackstrap might be:

Sucrose 35%

Glucose plus fructose 15%

Water 20%

Plant material 20%

Inorganic salts (ash) 10%