Castaway Fiji

Absolutely, the support on operation out of China is zip, and we flew up there twice to inspect the machines before they were shipped- I still think I know nothing and always learning:)

We are in a very different market but and we run 4 stills now 2 from a well known Chinese manufacturer, one euro and one American. I would disagree about the Chinese products we run them flat out 5 days a week and have done for over 3 years and they havent missed a beat and have always been very helpful with parts/ gaskets etc. The best advice I was given before we got in the game was that the still is the least important part of the equation, its what goes into the still thats important.....just my 2 cents:)

Cheers Silk I will drop them a note

yeah thats what we are doing via a gravity fed system- with additional carbon on the interior of the feed tank, produces great vodka just super slow- it may be that we just need multiple/ bigger units

They just dont seem to do the job, we have a few here already and the data on them is so scant. If you buy the Pall units it is a serious investment- or you go Chinese but it would seem granulated activated charcoal is still the most effective

Hey Five thanks for the reply, yes I found the same monograph, interesting that they prescribe such low levels in hand sanitiser but arent so concerned about what you ingest! One thing I did come across which really surprised me is that Tequila must contain a minimum amount of methanol by law in Mexcico to be Tequila......that explains an awful lot! Mexican standard The amounts of methanol in distillates are of utmost importance for the alcoholic industry, because this compound can be dangerous for its consumers if its ratio indices are not adequate. For this reason, there are established standards for controlling the levels of methanol that a distilled beverage can contain. In Mexico, there is the standard “NOM-142-SSA1 / SCFI-2014, Alcoholic beverages. Sanitary specifications. Sanitary and commercial labeling. ” (2), issued by the Ministry of Health, which establishes the permissible limits of methanol content for different distilled beverages. The standard establishes a maximum methanol content of 300 mg per 100 ml of anhydrous alcohol. It only presents an exception for whiskey and cognac drinks where the maximum allowable limit is 1000 mg of methanol per 100 ml of anhydrous alcohol. It is important to note that the Tequila Standard recognizes that Methanol is an unavoidable constituent, setting a lower limit of 30 mg of Methanol per 100 ml of Anhydrous Alcohol; that is, an alcoholic beverage that does not contain Methanol can not be tequila since, as explained above, Methanol is generated from pectins that are in the agave.

HI guys Does anyone no of any commercially produced vodka filtration units that use activated carbon as the medium capable of processing 5000L + per week? Any thoughts would be much appreciated

Yep we run molasses washes and without a silicone based defoamer they are a nightmare, it s cheap as chips , we use about 100ml per 2000L strip...very effective

what was your abv going in? You loaded 750l? What was the take off?

Further to my query above I went to the USP Harmonization and found this one https://www.usp.org/sites/default/files/usp/document/harmonization/excipients/alcohol-08-01-2014.pdf whihc is the current alcohol monograph and outlines the testing but not limits,

Hi everyone, I have had a good browse through the FDA and TTB publications but cant locate the mandated levels for ethanol and or acetaldehyde in liquor, could anyone point me in the right direction, much appreciated!

Sorry been working away thanks for al the replies...we got it sorted!

Hey guys can someone shed some light on the best way to stack 53 gallon barrels in a 40ft HC to fit as many as possible? Thanks in advance

Hey guys We are about to ship a load of barrels out of Washington to Fiji and are sitting at an awkward number- ideally we are looking for another 80 or 90 ex bourbon or whiskey- I know its a long shot but just putting it out there- we would need them by the 10th September Cheers Paul

This is also a very interesting read https://openaccess.blucher.com.br/download-pdf/267/19259

We had a similar problem a while back, eventually we worked out it was fatty esters that became apparent at lower abv but I am surprised it occurred with a grain based spirit- filtering to 1 micron and carbon sorted it out

Fertigation with stillage from sugar cane based washes is very common in Brazil , we are also using it here, there is a lot of information out there, you do need to raise the PH of your stillage to make it bio available to plants- this is worth a read https://biotechnologyforbiofuels.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13068-016-0532-z

These are gorgeous:)

yes that the only method we use to date but it would be nice to have some data to base it on, we have built up a rough data set based on our runs over the last 2 years but this is also dependent on the type of charcoal you are using, pressure, time on etc etc. We are currently putting some new columns into play and once we have some useful data I will share it

Hi guys I know these are thin on the ground, we are in Fiji so a long way from anywhere and are looking for fresh dumped preferably 1st use ex Whiskey or Bourbon. We have 110 on Portland ready to ship and are looking to add another 100 if possible, will look at broken down barrels as well. Any leads would be much appreciated Cheers Paul

We have been through a number of processes and have a very Frankenstein setup with PAL filter in line with a carbon filled column, works for us but still takes time. Has anyone ever come across data on how long carbon is good for when filtering white spirits?

We use unleashed, not specifically distillery focussed but manages the complex stock well and integrates with multiple accounting software programs

We use unleashed, the time it saves us and the assimilation with our accounting make it worth the dollars

We have a come across a slightly similar issue, not cloudy but we had some proofed down spirit that had unidentified floaties in it that were not evident in the ethanol. Best advice pointed to some sort of fatty acids that were less soluble in water, the ethanol had been tested and was fine, we simply filtered it down to one micron and it cleared up- we make everything in house and never had the issue again but it did perplex us for a while

Hey Velten, We are in Fiji, probably similar conditions:) Best of luck with the venture, love to come visit someday