Kindred Spirits

31 minutes ago, CowboyWay said:

Want to come up and try a sample? Give your opinion? I changed the process and looking for some testing now.

Sure thing, switching over to PM.

14 hours ago, SlickFloss said:

I am not gonna start chasing obscure codes and a lot of it is going to depend on where you are and if they blindly accept IBC/IFC or a hybridized version of them or something else completely but I think ultimately this is going to come down to 1) where you are in the country and 2) the individual spaces rating and overhead clearance. For instance I believe you could stack 6 high in the right place with the right racks (h3 room with XP fixtures) but I think you could probably do 5 or maybe even 6 high in the right room as well, for instance if you had enough clearance to be more than 5/6 feet from a non XP light fixture in an s1 or similar space. 

 

End of day the cheapest answer (if you don't get caught) is to do what you want but the best answer which is often cheapest down the line and actually legal is to get a variance to accommodate the storage that you want that best fits the reality of the limitations of the physical space you're in. Very few people on here have dotted their iOS and crossed their ts on ETOH storage compliance, and ultimately they're fine as long as no one ever comes knowing to check, with growth of industry in last few years we are bound to see some failures in facilities pretty soon that will lead to more scrutiny for compliance. I recommend to anyone who will listen, there's only one way to do things and thats the right way the first time.

This is probably the best worded response that will ever come to this question.  I have seen some amazingly sketchy things when it comes to barrels and while I hope nothing bad happens at those places, the probability is that in time something will.

If you want to build ricks make sure to account for all of the variables. Have them designed by someone who has done it before and make sure they are built to handle the loads on them. Before even starting, check with your fire marshal, no reason to spend money on a system without knowing it would be approved.

If you try to sneak something past your AHJ, be prepared to deal with the backlash and strained relationship going forward. Otherwise just do it the right way like @SlickFloss said.

It depends on your location and fire code. Especially your fire inspector. Some clients of mine have them 15-20' up others have limits at 10'.

If you get a variance for a rickhouse, you can build higher than that.

Welcome to the forums! I am based out of Wilmington NC so if you ever need any help with consulting I'm a car ride away.

Tube in shell works great, if you need additional cooling.

I also like to to have clients mash in "thicker" if their equipment can handle it and then add cool water to help crash down the temp to where you want to pitch at. 

4 minutes ago, José Echeverría said:

Thanks Kindred, I will try and compare !
I'm planning to also test "deatomacea" sand, we use it here for pool cleaning. 🤔

When testing make sure to use the "food grade" Diatomaceous earth. The filter grade can have trace minerals and other things that would be dangerous to have in alcohol for consumption.

13 hours ago, José Echeverría said:

Thanks Kindred Spirits , I can't use charcoal because it will remove the spirits flavor .

I'm thinking about a type of conical tank for resting and the sucking the residues with a quick controlled aspiration.

A quick pass through the charcoal won't strip flavor, I have a number of clients use it as a primary step with gins and whiskeys. It just helps filter some of the oils and minerals. 

Have you tried a quick pass through some activated charcoal and then pass through a 1 micron or smaller cartridge filter?

You can use gravity so its a "set-it and forget-it" kind of thing. 

The main difference is that you will be leaving the grain in for the duration of the ferment so it ends up being a simpler process. It can result in some different chemistry due to the fact that the hulls are left in the fermenter. 

You can use your nutrient as you had before, along with any other stabilizers. Main thing is to watch the pH as the hulls of highly modified grains can tend to be acidic.

Hey Nuddy, welcome to the forums.

So since you would be keeping the output the same, you would be increasing he amount of reflux in the column which should give you a higher output ABV and a cleaner spirit. 

Typically the slower the takeoff with refluxing occurring on all plates the cleaner the spirit and higher the ABV as the "heavier" components are pushed back lower in the column.

Are you sure they are flakes of glass? What type of water are you using to proof with? Sometimes minerals can come out of solution and bind with some gin oils creating "flakes" in the bottles.

Technically the fruit is not fermenting, its just dissolving into the substrate. Even if it does ferment It's a few pieces of fruit in hundreds of gallons of dunder, which equates to a few thin slices of fruit in a fermenter.

That's like saying a single malt isn't a single malt if its got a few kernels of corn in it. Or a bourbon isn't a bourbon if you use the same paddle to stir a bourbon mash and a rum wash. 

Ground coffee has an allowable amount of rat feces and cockroaches in it, it still is classified as coffee. The TTB has been around for a while now and they know not everything is 100% absolute.

TTB has never given clients any issues, there are rums throughout the Caribbean that use dunder and muck pits in addition to the traditional rum washes.

The amount used, percentage-wise, is so miniscule in the grand scheme of things they don't seem to care.  It is based upon 90+% of rum backset so even if you used a bunch and the dunder made up 5% of the total ferment/pot charge, the dissolved fruit would only be .5% at most of the overall wash/distillation.

Its like adding another ingredient like oyster shells for pH control or nutrient for yeast health. A small enough addition that doesn't change the classification of the spirit.

Yes you typically get a full pelicose layer, usually I like to see a thin one. The main goal is to dissolve the fruits into the liquid without getting overwhelmed with a bacterial infection.

You are correct in saying that the input from the fruits don't necessarily impart their specific flavor, but for instance apples have a multitude of phenolic compounds which can be imparted. Bananas, mangoes, pineapple, pears, peaches, have all been used.

I enjoy the experience of seeing how each one imparts different "notes" to the final product. That particular profile sounds like guava might play a nice role. Never hurts to try.

2 hours ago, Al The Chemist said:

If you’re open to share, I’d love to hear more about the “flavored dunder”. The backset I store is essentially sterile, do you rely on natural bacteria and yeast for the fruit itself to kick up the process?

Yup you got it, I use the backset from the runs, its full of dead yeast and other nutrients leftover from the distilling process and then pretty much just smash up the desired fruits without washing them, to add some fresh wild yeasts, or inoculate it with some fresh yeast.

It all depends on what profile the client is going for.

I always opt for closed fermentation, and recommend it for clients.  It just better allows for you to control the variables that are involved with the process of fermenting.

You have a super interesting thread going on the synthetic acidification, but have you also experimented with cultivated dunder? I am not talking about a pit just sitting there putrefying but rather dunder that is "fed" specific fruits to enhance the specific phenolic compounds which can be fed into your wash at time of distillation, or into ferments.

Over the years I have cultivated a number of these "sweet dunder" pits as I like to call them. They work amazing for imparting some amazing fruity characteristics to the final product.

I can help design a custom rick system for your space. I have a number of clients using a custom design, and they all love the accessibility of the barrels vs standard stacking methods.

Typically the cost of the ricks is less than what you would pay for those stacking racks too.

8 hours ago, Al The Chemist said:

@Kindred Spirits, I'm looking into commissioning a single vertical thumper for a small scale test. I am worried about the stability of a double retort stack on a small scale. Curious what you guys think about a plate, then thumper? So essentially a plate to strip and a thumper to redistill and infuse. Footprint is exactly the issue I'm trying to resolve. 

What's cool about the manufacturer I work with is can fully customize the stills I get for clients. I draw up the design on CAD, their engineers verify fabrication plans and then they build it up. Its been great to be able to hot rod stills with larger heating ports for better heat up times, different shaped helmets, and have more flexibility in connection types.

15 hours ago, whiskeytango said:

If it ain't a vendome is it even a still???  

  Sounds like someone is on the "do you know how to make a million dollars opening a distillery"?   Yeah start with two!  

Yeah exactly, for all of those people that say you need more than a million dollars to start a distillery, they typically spend nearly half of that on just the still.

Like I always tell my clients "you can put a chef in a basic kitchen and get a great meal, but even if you put a bad cook in the best kitchen you won't be thrilled with the results"

I have always been interested rum and also in "non-standard" still designs, and rum is one of the perfect examples of a spirit that benefits from the extras like, double retorts and thumper setups. 

One of the issues that I always run into when designing a distillery for clients is the amount of floor space required for double retort setups. I haven't personally seen a vertical version of a double retort setup but I imagine that would be really cool to see. Has anyone seen anything like this?

I've helped a number of DSPs open up in NC and up the Appalachians and also have a few more in the working along that mountain range, I would be happy to assess your product and see if any of my clients would like to collaborate on a barrel blend. 

If you need any help designing a distillery to make your own be sure to reach out too.

With distribution being a goal, a lot of my clients start out with 6-pack cases. It is much easier to get new stores/states to buy a sixer, vs paying twice as much for the 12.

That being said, once established they switch over to a 12pk option to keep up with demand.

I personally have "The Alcohol Textbook" and "Batch Distillation". Both are great books, The alcohol textbook is more focused on industrial fuel alcohol and plants focusing on that. Batch distillation is a great general overview of the processes, but you might have gotten a lot of the information from other books you have read.

I am an engineer by formal training, so I have quite a few books on the engineering side of the process, not sure if you would be interested in them as they can be a bit overwhelming at times without dedicated study. Definitely not casual "plane" reading.

I gotcha, its always interesting to see those non-standard pieces of equipment out there. I'm always eager to learn more.

3 minutes ago, SlickFloss said:

 I would fly anywhere in the country to run one of these and pay for the OH and labor of prep and clean up and source materials of the runs to try one out but I haven't gotten a response back to that. Would meet you there to do it brother we could make a vid!

If you ever get a chance to do it let me know for sure, I would love to join you. 

49 minutes ago, SlickFloss said:

Are you familiar with the design of the still they're running? It is other unique.... I haven't run one yet but I would really like to, essentially running one column off two kettles.... allegedly the kettles end up pulsing in a way, reciprocating vapor flow from one to the other into the base of the column. It makes sense, one kettle has vapor flow into base of column, eventually dropping subtly in steam pressure, kettle that want pushing through build up a little pressure and overtakes flowing into the column etc. etc. What I'm getting at here is not a very efficient still to run in terms of speed, and especially poor in terms of single pass off grain. IMO it would make so much more sense to run both of the kettles concurrently directly into the condenser as a stripping run with no reciprocating slow down and no fraction pulling or attempt to stack a very inconsistent stressed vapor stream, then run a finishing run. I think that the best way to run any still is variable based on inputs and product goals. For instance, the way you mentioned to run the still isn't how I would do it, especially given the mechanics of this specific system. I would make this assertion about any single pass run on grain so its nothing personal, but especially on this system. While I am playing devils advocate to a point here as I do understand the value of single passes in very limited instances, it would seem to me that running with no depgh for a stripping run would be a shorter run (no fractionation, no stacking of heads, no stacking of tails) requiring less steam (less time), less water (no variation of depgh flow) and less physical man hours on the overhead of the liquid produced. There are a bunch of reactions driven in the kettle that I believe point to better whiskey being made in shorter distillation runs. Especially on grain. Thats just me though.

Running like this would they perhaps able to run two strips (actually literally four kettles) in a single day? Overhead way down on that liquid. 

Obviously you can poke holes in this, more runs more OH costs come back more energy costs but I believe it is a more efficient faster way to process a bunch of cooks (production runs) and provides more consistency. If you stripped twice, charged with low wines, and then did a second finishing run, you can get more PGs through the run, you can operate with more precision on your cuts, and harvest larger fractions which can help when operators have problems managing smearing. As well, the end result of those two runs is much much much much more consistent for barrel maturation.

 

Millions of ways to skin a cat, and in terms of operating a single pass I don't disagree with your advice, but systemically I believe stripping and finishing is better for business, especially with the realities of this stills construction.

I was under the impression this was a standard single pot still with a 6-plate column. I totally missed the two kettles part. Now I see its a Figgins style.

I 100% agree on there not being a best way to run all equipment, however there seems to be a number of people in the industry who were taught one way to run a still and they never change or question it.

I have never run a two-kettle system either, but the way you described the process makes sense. Do they have check valves in line coming from the kettles? or is it just based on the vapor flowing from each kettle?

I also like the "strip and finish" method for most grain spirits and this definitely seems like they could save time by switching to that method, not using the delph for the strips and tweaking its use for the finish runs. Having the better ablility to compress and make cuts on a finishing run typically results in a higher quality finished product. Single pass whiskeys have their place in the industry but a lot of times they suffer from excessive smearing into tails if not run correctly and can be oily.