Jump to content

Eud

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    46

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Eud

    1 Liter Lab distillation set up

    in Wanted To Buy

    Posted

    On 4/25/2020 at 6:33 PM, Foreshot said:

    https://www.amazon.com/HMC012507-Liebig-Condenser-Jacket-Length/dp/B010B9VFCQ

    Thanks.  I'd seen that one, but the kit you linked above in the kit is the one I ended up getting (pellet labs was out of stock, but this looks exactly like theirs).  That kit has a 14/23 ground glass joint for the graham condenser connection.  The Liebig you linked is 24/40.  Did you connect it with a bushing?

    Titan Barrels?

    in Equipment

    Posted

    https://www.titanbarrels.com/

    Just read about these on Whiskey Wash, I think.  They're interesting in that they'd, in theory, maintain the ratio of wood to spirits contact surface area of a full sized barrel, but in a smaller size with what looks like a sanitary fitting on top for taking samples.  Might be a way to age smaller volumes for long periods without over-oaking them or also could be a way to cheaply try out different wood species and get creative with different barrel ends and inserts.

    I assume they wouldn't count for TTB designations like "straight" or "bonded" or terms like that which rely on time spent in charred oak barrels.

    what exactly is original distillation

    in Gin

    Posted

    I'm not that experienced myself, but I find all of your posts to use terms where I have no idea what you're talking about. 

    Is there a language barrier and you're coming from a language where you're translating things into english to ask these questions which is why they seem to make no sense (at least to me)?

    Fermentation Assistance with Questions

    in Technique

    Posted

    Home distillers just use oyster shells (designed as chicken feed) from the feed store as a calcium carbonate source to raise pH during the ferment.  Calcium carbonate doesn't dissolve much in water until the pH drops, so just adding chalk will keep it from bottoming out during the ferment.  More tweaks and measuring and multiple batches of experience will let you keep it stable.

    Usually enzymes are picky about pH.  You might consult the data sheets on your enzyme and then check pH when you add the alpha enzyme and also when you add the gluco enzyme.  You might need a little citric acid or backset to lower it for the gluco enzyme in particular and to start off the ferment at below 5pH.  Then you might need some calcium carbonate to keep it from crashing during the ferment. 

    By the way, I'm more familiar with the enzymes from Ferm-Solutions, and those quantities are really high for a 30 pound mash using the liquid enzymes they sell.  I don't know those brand names, though, so maybe that's a reasonable amount.

    Not sure 5% malted barley would be enough buffer for a pH crash.  Not saying it won't.  I just don't know.

    Fermentation Assistance with Questions

    in Technique

    Posted

    I'm not sure if those questions can be answered right away without more info.  A ferment at 75F is a little lower than most seem to run their distiller's yeast at, but 1058 isn't bad conversion at 2 pounds per gallon especially if it's one of your first and you're still getting the process down.  2 grams per gallon doesn't seem unreasonably small amount of yeast assuming it is  viable.

    Here are a few more questions:

    How finely ground is the corn?

    What temp did you cook to and for how long? 

    What enzymes did you add at what points in the cook and mash and at what temperatures and what pH?

    Did you check the pH of the ferment?  Did it crash low enough to stop the yeast activity with the 100% corn and no added buffers?

     

    How Much Does Bulk Grain Cost - Canada

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Not sure about Canada, but to get you in the ballpark I've seen heirloom (Bloody Butcher) clean shelled corn in bags at $500/ton.  This might be high compared to more mainstream corn, but I don't have that cost comparison since I'm not in the business yet.  I just talked to a guy I was interested in buying from to get a plan together.  From the same farmer Danko Rye was $15 per 60 pound bushel.

    Restaurant supply stores in US sell cornmeal at $13 per 50 pound bag which also comes out to $520/ton, so maybe it's not a bad estimate.

    Considering starting small, what am I too naive about?

    in Beginners

    Posted

    Thanks for continuing to contribute to this thread. 

    I've had a lot of time to read and a lot of time to visit local distillers and even some time to provide free labor.  I asked for the unpleasant parts so I could get a realistic idea.  One day I was moving, weighing, lifting, and carefully pouring (to avoid dough ball creation) 50 pound bags of crushed rye into their 400g combo mash tun/stripping still while trying to ignore the uncomfortably warm steam coming out the hole.  Then later in the week I got inside to powerwash, scrape, and clean it all out after stripping.  

    They're a small and very lean shop, very focused on using labor to overcome lack of capital.  They're making nice stuff though, and I really hope they do well in the long term.  They're still in the phase where they're waiting on things to age to be really good, but even the "shortcut" stuff is turning out good, so I think they're on the right track.

    Point of that story is that now I know better the full range of things I'd need to add in to a plan to get set up.  Just some things I hadn't figured on was: water filtration, grain crushers and augers, crash cooling, lifting equipment (for gravity siphons and just moving stuff around), scales, pumps for alcohol, pumps for solids, liquid removal for spent grain (assuming you can find someone to take it as feed), and lots of other random stuff that would definitely add up.

    Having seen it, I think I wouldn't go smaller than a mash tun and stripping still that can fill a standard 53 gallon barrel, which would probably be around 600g mash tun/fermenter/stripper combo and maybe a couple of 100g spirit stills.  That gets me a barrel a week of product, then I'd up production later by adding fermenters and a dedicated stripping still, so I'd want to make sure that I had a the ability to heat and cool that extra equipment from the start.

    Cane Sugar Fermentation

    in Technique

    Posted

    The OP says that he's not going to distill this, just brewing it to drink.  

    I've never had a pure sugar fermentation that I really wanted to drink.  If it ferments out dry it is unpleasant and acidic, even with carbonate additions to keep the pH from crashing so low that the yeast stop working.  It also often has a lot of apple character which the OP says is acetaldehyde.  Probably correctly.

    I'm not sure that any amount of DAP or Fermaid or yeast strain or crushed B vitamin or calcium carbonate or oyster shells or whatever will make a pure sugar wash pleasant to drink out of the fermenter.   

    Just my 2c.

    • Thumbs up 1

    Would appreciate some help with the logistics of a unique idea for a micro-distillery

    in Beginners

    Posted

    I've asked a local small distiller if a group of friends and I could come in and make a batch and end up with four 5 gallon barrels we could age at home for as long as we wanted.  His stripping still which he uses to mash and ferment as well will produce 20 gallons of barrel strength from a single batch after cuts in a strip/spirit run.

    I had guessed the price per barrel about right, and he'd be open to it, but his read of the TTB rules didn't lead him to believe that he could send out the whiskey in anything other than the bottles that he has gotten label approval for.  We'd be willing to pay the full price of the output, including duty and local taxes, but he said he'd have to send us out with the liquid in his bottles and with an empty barrel that we could always refill from the bottles once we got it home...

    Short answer was, we were ok to leave the barrel in his bonded warehouse aging to be bottled by him in the future, or we were welcome to take the output home in legal bottles to dump in a barrel of our own at home, but we couldn't leave with a barrel full of new make to age at home.

×
×
  • Create New...