Blackheart

Hey Jeff: Not knowing our grain bill, our mash process, and going by descriptive words like 'nearly' that we used, perhaps you might reconsider your assumption. We have daily tours here, call ahead and we can let you know our mash days -- and you can see for yourself. Again, there's a bunch of ways to skin the cat, and ours is ours. Cheers!

Thanks for this guys. Im going to talk to the farmer about it today. Makes perfect sense.

Man, I love to read everyone's feedback on such basic (elemental) parts of the process. It's awesome how many ways there are to skin the cat. Perhaps I missed it here, but there's some direction in other threads that cover the PPG formula to determine water and (different) grain combos based on gravity targets. The grain, water, malt and enzyme (if you use them) contents will vary, so everyone's ratios will differ, as you can read here. Our grain bill gives us nearly a 2:1 ratio of total grain volume to water. Using enzymes and a carefully worked/tested mashing protocol gets us starting gravities between 1.19 and 1.22. That might be high for some, but it works great for us. As for checking gravities during the cook process I am sure there are smarter peeps here that can expand on its possibility. A simple iodine test can check for unconverted starch is one solution, but we get great conversion even if our test shows we havent converted completely. Certainly, the presence of fine grains in your test sample will effect the tests, so we've found that results will vary.

Just a funny follow up and (stupid) anecdote: had one of our farmers pick up spent grain today. He hadn't picked up in a few weeks and was anxious to get his allotment. I was wondering why he was so anxious to get it. His reply: the hogs and goats preferred it so much, they slowed down their sweetfeed intake and lost 15% of body mass since. I am absolutely sure someone smarter than me can explain what happened, but I just thought it might be germane to the thread here.

We did our own alarm install, and it was freaking easy and a hell of a lot cheaper than commercial. We have the luxury of a friend that does alarms for a living, and he convinced me we could do it as good or better than the regular services. Buy the set up from homesecuritystore.com, you can do GSM (cellular) connection to the monitoring service, or regular hard line, or internet. We do all three. Monthly monitoring is $20 at alarmco, or some such. You can get it as cheap as $7 a month if you buy a few years at a go. Service? They've been awesome. All in for a pretty hi-tech wireless system with smoke, panic (im being robbed/out of toilet paper!), motion sensors, door control, on battery backup was like $750-ish. Install was one day. Alarm company took 10 minutes on the phone to sync.

And just another .02 cents here: get several estimates if you are able. And get references. We had two radically different installers/fitters price our job. You would not believe the difference if I told you. On location, remember venting, power, water, (possible) walling-off requirements for the unit. Every state (and municipality) has different regs on steam boiler stuff, so the earlier advice to "'go local" is probably the best tidbit here.

Just a hat tip to anyone considering the course; we're down to three slots left. We'd love to make sure anyone wanting to participate in the experience has the opportunity, so please let us know if you have any questions or thoughts. If you are considering running a column or column hybrid still, are considering a grain-in mash, or have some unclear spots in creating your systems and processes, this course is for you. Cheers! DR at sixandtwentydistillery dot com

Thanks for your question, John. The classes were brought about by our experience in being a sales representative for ASD here in the southeast. We saw customers purchasing equipment were jumping into the industry without experience and basic skill sets needed to succeed. We saw that need and assembled a team to provide a service. For our course of instruction, we'll have the Six and Twenty staff, Sherman Owens, and the team from Artisan Still Design participating. As for our credentials, we're putting on the class as a team. I think folks in the industry will know Sherman (he's been an ADI presenter, lecturer and distillery consultant for a good long time) and the guys from ASD, and I am a 2011 Seibel Institute graduate and worked for 4 years for South African Breweries prior to that. Thanks again for your question!

We will cover them, though they are a 3-day class unto themselves. We'll cover records keeping from a practical standpoint and show what info you'll need to collect to be able to satisfy TTB reporting requirements, (possible) audits, and inventory control.

Are you about to open your commercial distillery? Need some hands-on experience? Do you know the basics and need a more specialized course in the how-to of hands-on? If yes, the Six and Twenty Distillery Operations and Management Course is must-have for you. Who: Six and Twenty Distillery, along with our friends from Artisan Still Design and Distillery Consultant Sherman Owens What: A 3-day, Intermediate-level and hands-on course on how to get your distillery, equipment and process running smoothly. When: October 16, 17 and 18, 2013 Where: Six and Twenty Distillery, 3109 Hwy 153, Piedmont South Carolina How much: $1200 per participant. Hotel and transport not included. Contact: David Raad at DR@sixandtwentydistillery.com for questions. Six and Twenty Distillery has teamed up with Artisan Still Designs and Distillery Consultant Sherman Owens to create the course that folks intent on getting in the distilling business need. This isn’t a basic course on fundamentals of distilling; this is a hands-on, commercial-grade course in our working distillery to show how to make your distillery work from day-one. Six and Twenty Distillery will be the workplace for the course. Participants will receive not just classroom instruction, but hands-on practical application of every step of the operations process they will need to hit the ground running. Our class size will be small and limited to 12 students, so this is a first-come, first-served opportunity. We will provide a detailed syllabus, lunch, coffee, drinks, snacks and a post-course BBQ supper on the 18th. Cheap and mid-range hotels are in walking distance to the stillhouse, and the nearest airports are GSP (20 miles) or ATL (90 miles). This course will cover: Basic distilling overview; the elements of a grain-to-glass distillery Defining your brand, what kind of distillery are you? Pricing your product Safety, what’s required and what’s necessary Choosing your location, what, where and why Power, plumbing and physical layout Mashing: Inputs, yield, calculations, grains, process, gravities Mashing: PRACTICAL APPLICATION on distillery floor Fermenting: Inputs, yeast, process Distilling: overview and theory, process, safety and dealing with problems Walk around: The parts of a still and what they do Distilling: PRACTICAL APPLICATION on distillery floor Measuring distillate, gauging and diluting Equipment: Collecting vessels, blending vessels, pumps and hoses, fillers, filters, and ancillary Cleaning regimen (observed): Mash tank, still, equipment

Mike: Can you send some info on the air-cooled mash pre-cooler? DR at sixandtwentydistillery dot com. Thanks!

Look at Neil. Cheesing it up as usual.

Hi Pete: RE your thought on calculators, you can just do a simple PPG calculation with your grain weights as Sherman was alluding to and get ball-parkish. .

Pete: you win the green-est of the green-ies award forever! Jeeze, glad you're all the way over there or we'd be f-ed trying to keep up.

Just finished experimenting with a dairy operation and a laying operation (that's eggs to you and me). Dairy guys were loving it mixed with cut grass (watch that protein, too much and they gets the bloat). The laying operation, on the other hand, loved it even more. Birds went from laying 1 egg every other day (cageless free-roamers) to one a day. Dat's where all the protein goes for them. Amazing. We've been getting more eggs than our crew can eat. Oh, and they're making bread with what's left over. It's freaking good, but dense as hell. Had to be lightened with baking soda, but it made great loaves, pancakes and now french toast! We're in the breakfast business, as it seems.

Most enzymes, unless they are commercial high temp ones, get denatured above 165f and dont do squat. Dont know what you tried in your experiments, but if they weren't high temp ones, they denatured as soon as they hit the high temp mash. Also, check that pH. Too high and your enzymes wont work, either. The G i was referring to is liquid GlucoAmalyse. It's a lower temp enzyme and it is responsible (please forgive me if someone out there is straighter on this than me) for less conversion than the A Amalyase, but still important in my opinion. Any questions on enzymes, while it's in my head, should be fired at Jason McCammon at Specialty Enzymes. He's a wiz, great customer service, and they provide a great product right on time. he's at jason@specialtyenzymes.com

We'd love to have ya, man! We'll have a big time! Come with Steve and we'll turn it into a barn-burner!

Please be gentle with this suggestion, folks, if you have a different method: I'd try enzymes in the pre gel phase, even if it's just a bit, just to spur your gel sooner. Then add more (presumably, if it's your cook plan) at the hold temp, then G-amalyase on the way down/pre lauter. It might be getting close to being too hot post gel phase, but that's just a cheap-seat observation. I've seen those bits too in the starch test. Gonna get a microscope on them someday. For roller-milled rye, the black flecks could be the bitter ends of the kernal, or something. Then again, the late temp gel issue could be because it's rolled and not milled. Could you try milling and lautering with rice hulls and see what happens?

Coop is right on, re the gotta-watch-the-process-closely, regardless of automation. Gotta watch that process like a hawk, or you're gonna regret it. We have and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Swede's automation. it's our speed; simple, easy, repeatable, pretty bomb-proof. The remote system is cooler than hell, and I wish I could run one, but it's expert/master-level stuff for a different operation than we run. I guess I'd compare the two tech types to a car that will automatically parallel park itself versus one with 'just' a backup camera. If you parallel park all the time, they're both an improvement over the traditional way to do things, but they're different.

Using any enzymes or malt on the heat up process? We do a minimum 1 hour hold at temp (155-ish), but gel should have started at around 140-145f (for us).

We made ours. Went to the local scrapyard, found grate about the right width, busted out the mig welder, went crazy. Saved an assload, i am sure. Works great (grate?).

+1 on Sherman. He's awesome.

Jedd's right. Go local; box manufacturers come in our stillhouse every GD day wanting to sell us shit. if you go local, there's no shipping fees and whatnot. Jedd's also right on the price point. And dont forget to size for yer cap/closure!

I think there's a lot of 'depends' in the answer. If you're talking about a shaft/coupling/paddles combo, go to a local metal fab shop and sketch it out with them. Might need to consider torque issues too. dunno what you've got in mind for bracing/seal/etc, but if it's just a 3in TC fitting, clamped, etc., any robust motor would make short work of it. Gotta keep it sealed (assuming it's a still, not a mash tank) and keep it from spinning.

We'll be with the rest of the herd in Denver, talking much smack and drinking too much of everyone else's craft. We'l have to circle back after if that's cool.