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colonel2jays

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  1. Thanks for the reply, that's really helpful. Can I ask what size cooker you're using? What is your target grain throughput per hour?
  2. Hi all, I've installed an 8500 gallon Vendome mash cooker at my distillery in Tasmania, Australia and we began commissioning it in December 2023. The main challenge during that process was that the grain meal tended to pile up on the cooling coils, which are directly underneath the grain inlet nozzle. I reached out to Rabbit Hole in Louisville and they mentioned they had a similar problem, so relocated their grain inlet closer to the middle of the cooker to direct the meal closer to the vortices created by the agitator. Vendome confirmed that most of the cookers of this size they supply have the grain inlet nozzle in the same place. Has anyone out there with this cooker configuration found a process to prevent the grain from piling up on the coils and creating dough balls? Cheers, John
  3. We've initially invested in a Vendome continuous system, with the plan being to install a dedicated lauter tun and pot stills around two years later. The Vendome kit is not due to arrive until later this year so we haven't begun R&D just yet. Finding farmers prepared to take whole stillage in the volumes we'll be producing is proving to be a challenge, so I'm planning to install a centrifuge to separate the wet spent grain solids - which local farmers are more used to receiving as cattle feed - from thin stillage. The idea being that I could also use the centrifuge to separate solids prior to distillation if necessary. Your comment regarding yeast is the bit I'm interested in: "The inclusion of yeast or not might be some part of the difference in flavor I get between grain-in and off-grain but I don't feel it's the main difference." I guess I'll just have to run a few batches during commissioning: 1. Fully on grain, 2. Separate grain solids prior to distillation and, 3. Separate grain solids prior to fermentation. Flavour trumps yield in the end.
  4. As a backup plan I've thought about centrifuging off the grain solids between the fermenters and beer well. Do you think this might clean it up?
  5. Following this thread with interest. Like yours in England, Australia's legal definitions around whisky leave plenty of scope for innovation. Would be great if you come back and update this thread with your R&D results!
  6. Thanks guys. Now to take steps to improving my fermentation performance...
  7. Bluefish, thanks for your reply. I certainly can't rule out stratification, but after 5 days in the tank I'd have thought all of the distribution of wort that was going to happen would have happened already! It's also important to note the gravity didn't change from 1.011 in the days after, so it's safe to assume the batch was no longer actively fermenting on day 6. Does anyone have any thoughts on my 'secondary conversion' hypothesis?
  8. Tom, thanks for your reply. The temperature difference between the two readings was only 0.9C so that's not it. The samples were taken from a sample port about 18" from the base of the tank. I'd like to think that can be called a 'representative' sample. I even took a second sample of the 1.011 product as a sanity check.
  9. Hey all, has anyone ever experienced an increase in SG on their ferments? Yesterday (day 5) I had 1.009 and today I have 1.011! I've never seen this before. The product is a wheated bourbon-style mash with the grains separated from the wort prior to fermentation. The total volume in the tank is ~6000 litres, with 1480L of that having begun wild yeast fermentation two days before 4.5kg dry yeast was pitched. Is it possible that fermentation has stopped and somehow we're still getting secondary starch conversion? Thanks in advance!
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