Denver Distiller

All fermentations produce varying levels of sulphur. For brandy, you're reacting with sulphur and ethyl carbamate. (and for stone fruits, cyanide) For Gin, the GNS you use should already have reduced levels of sulphur. For Vodka, the distillation process, if designed properly, should separate out the sulphur compounds. Those congeners leave with the stillage.

St. Pats has some cheap models. http://www.voran.at/en/voranr-portal/ has the nicest fruit processing equipment designed for small winemakers and distillers in the world, IMHO.

looking to do it on the cheap, or higher performance?

We had a winery, brewery, and distillery all under one roof. It can be done. Talk to the TTB.

probrewer.com classifieds. Or aaronequipment. You're looking for a SS Plate and Frame heat exchanger. The only two I have ever worked with are APV and Mueller, both high end exchangers.

What are you cooling?

An addition, or rather a clarification, regarding yeast performance---- having the pH well below 5 is one key to making sure you get full attenuation of your mash by that yeast. There's a reason that most of us bourbon producers use the sour mash process.

IMHO, that's a pretty good pH to be at for a corn fermentation after a day. Why do you want to be all the way up to 5.5? If you want that higher pH, you want to add salts in the mash water so that it has a chance to buffer the incoming acid (the liquified corn and malt). In other words, you want to arrest the acidification of water by that incoming corn. You need to know the buffering capacity of the water in order to know do the molar calculations to know how much calcium carbonate you need to add. Or you can just go trial and error.... but IMHO, you want to add it to the water before you add the corn, so your buffering power holds that pH where you want it.

What do you mean by 1 day old? That it's been fermenting for 1 day?

You're quite welcome, Nick. I'd like to add that there's a material difference between helping an actual current or future distiller who has done some work to educate himself/herself, and some guy who shows up at your door unannounced who expects you to do all the work for him/her. You can smell those who have no real interest in actual fermentation & distilling--- but just want the quickest path to making money. I'm sorry, but I have no time for those people. They're just going to wind up bottling bulk spirits (when they learn about that option) anyway, so why bother? As for the dozens of emails and phone calls and ADI posts I get every year---- for over ten years on the calls and emails, mind you--- from those who want to learn or need a little help, I have never refused request for assistance. Never will. Happy to help those who help themselves and put in some work.

Not always true, Nick. Particularly now that so many have no interest in distilling, and just want to build a business and sell it to Diageo. Cynicism cuts both ways.

Jack Teeling was the managing director at Cooley before it was sold. Nice to see you here, Mr. Chasko..... if you ever want to finish the project we started a couple of years ago, let me know. Cheers, Todd Leopold Leopold Bros. Distillery distiller@leopoldbros.com

Charbay's been doing it for years.... almost a decided ago. This is nothing new.

Centrifugal pump, Lenny. Call the boys at Dairy Engineering in Denver. Great prices for refurbished pumps and they have sale engineers that will help you size it correctly so it works well, and doesn't need much trimming (unnecessarily burn electricity). Cheers

Respectfully, you're misunderstanding what Mr. Erenzo is saying (so did I). Here's an example of what a Scotch which is made with 100% malted barley and aged in used oak barrels can label itself as "Oban Single Malt Scotch Whiskey". Now take that same label, and apply it to an English distillery's whiskey made with 100% malted barley and aged in used oak barrels. Can you label it "Brand X Single Malt English Whiskey"?? No, you can't. Because the Standards of Identity tell you that Malt Whiskey can only be aged in new char. So the TTB is effectively not only protecting Scotch (which is fine), they are protecting the Scottish Distiller's production method of fermenting and distilling malted barley and aging it in used oak barrels. So if you are an American or English distiller and you wish to go after the consumer who has a preference for single malt whiskey, you can't go after them directly with a clear and easy to understand labeling. You have to label that distillate simply "Whiskey" (which we all know means nothing at all since any type of grain can be used to make it), and are prohibited from calling it what it is..... namely, single malt whiskey. This is nonsense.

Ah, gotcha, Mr. Erenzo. Makes sense. Seems like you don't want them to have protected spirits processes.... in other words, the issue is why should the Scots and Irish be the only cats who can use used bourbon barrels and call their work "whisk(e)y". Your argument makes complete sense... why would we allow them an unfair advantage in the US (or EU, for that matter) marketplace?

Good stuff, Mr. Erenzo. Although I'm not sure about this statement: "The US law inappropriately prevents any whisky but those made by Scotch and Irish whisky makers from being sold as "whisky" or "whiskey" in the US thereby giving those country's producers an exclusive right to sell foreign whisky in the US and keepting such as Welsh and English whisky makers out" I know of no such CFR that keeps non-Irish/Welsh distillers out of the US market.

I went out and got the experience that was needed. Then we applied for the loan. Best of luck to you.

It's a shortcut. It's a way to give soulless white sugarjack ferments a corn note to imitate a true corn fermentation. It doesn't ferment, so you can think of it like dropping juniper berries into your still when distilling gin. Some of the corn (notice it's creamed corn not whole corn, and is therefore processed) aroma and flavor will carry over. Not much, but likely enough to fool customers into thinking it's something it's not. Edit. to add: I thought you were referring to Cowdery's recipe, not Mash's. But the same thing goes for Mash's recipe in the sense that your yield will be horrible unless you add a whole lot of malt dust or enzymes of some sort. Most of the corn flavor in the whiskey will come from distilling that unfermented corn mash, and all of the alcohol will come from the cane sugar.

Unless you have a pretty big detached rick house, you have nothing to worry about. By this I mean that if your stills and fermenters are in the same building as your barrels and your ventilation is so poor that you're accumulating ethanol in the air, you'll die from too much co2 coming off your fermenters long before ethanol vapor accumulation will be a concern. Ventilate for co2 levels and your ethanol worries will disappear. And OSHA will look at your CO2 levels long before they mess with your ethanol vapor.... for the exact reason I just mentioned.

That thread is really something, Max. Pot stills aren't pressure vessels?? What happens when your lyne arm or parrot gets clogged with mash or botanicals, folks? Or when a careless worker doesn't vent the still for hot CIP fluids followed by a cold rinse? Pot stills need to guard against pressure and vacuum. Fellow distillers, if you're running a still that does not have both pressure and vacuum relief on both the pot AND the jackets, you're putting everyone in the plant in danger. It costs a couple hundred bucks to protect a still against vacuum and pressure. Buy these fittings, install them correctly, and above all... keep these fittings clean and test them regularly. A spec of mash can be enough to make those fittings stick and eventually fail.

Siebel Institute does a full work up on a .5 kg sample for <$400, if I recall (it's been a while). It is VERY important to do your best to get a representative sample. State Ag. Departments can help with those procedures.

We steep only, John.

I suppose it depends on how much of it is in your samples. The washing action is limited when you're malting, but since you aren't, that's zero help. DON levels have been on the rise of late, apparently, but my experience is on the brewing side, where DON (vomitoxin) leads to gushing in packaged beer... something you and I don't have to worry about. The concern isn't the toxin getting over in the distillate (it won't). The concern is any off flavors/aromas you might get from the wheat, which, since diseased, is vulnerable to all sorts of stuff. DON in very high amounts can lead to problems with attenuation, but that's unlikely. Two suggestions: one, stay away from this wheat if you can help it. If you can't, then tread lightly, doing a test mash/distillation if it's possible. Keep a close eye on all your "normal" readings in your measurements of the mash/fermenation, and if anything looks funny, you should be concerned. Edit to add... you have to be careful about using this stillage as animal feed. It's called vomitoxin for a reason, as I'd imagine you know.

Are you using this wheat raw, or having it malted? Vomitoxin can get washed away during the malting process.