Bolverk

I went to take a tour about a month ago, sadly they only did tours on Fridays and i was leaving Indiana on Thursday. I can say the facility was gorgeous! I'm hoping I can manage a tour next time I'm in town.

Yeah, I understand. I think I'm getting the gist, sounds cool.

Any chance you have a pic of this? I'm curious what it looks like...

Rumfire at 500 is definitely at the upper limit of what I can do straight, 200 ain't so bad

@Silk City Distillers I'd definitely like to try this when it's ready

@Kena1979 I gotcha, so your goal isn't a heavy heavy rum. In that case yeah, I have no clue how much to add. Its going to be a lot just to get a small influence. In 200l of low wines id guess it going to be an the neighborhood of 1000ml of butyric and 200ml sulfuric. I'd run your low wines off however you normally do, then pull out enough to run a small test batch and add the butyric and sulfuric and run that in a basic pot stil configuration and adjust the amounts to taste, then extrapolate up to full size.

Kana, do you have a way to bypass the plates? Per design the plates are meant to help you fraction out as much etoh as possible, and thats a good thing in some products but in rum that is going to make it very one dimensional (compared to rum made in double pot or double retort) . When you start playing with the carboxylic acids you really want more alcohol diversity. Ethyl butyrate (also known as ethyl butanoate) is going to be this generic kinda fruitiness, the good stuff is going to be isobutyl butyrate which is going to be fruity and pineapple (in the right concentrations). You want that alcohol diversity to get the best esters, this is the reason high ester rum is made with a double retort. For instance when manufacturers are setting up with a double retort they are front loading high tails and low tails in the retorts to get a higher concentration of diverse heavier alcohols to push those acids through to get those "better" long chain fatty acid esters. Additionally the boiling point of butyric acid is really high (350-380f or something like that), it's only going to come over from the pot when bonded with something else that lowers it's BP, pushing it through plates is going to strip out those heavier molecules and it's never going to pass. You might be able to get some to come over through 1 or 2 plates, id venture virtually nothing through 7. On top of that you need to acidify the environment to with a mineral acid like sulfuric to act as a catalyst for esterification. By putting in it a pot of beer or low wines your going to have to add a ton of your carboxylic and mineral acid to get just the faintest traces of it to come over. Where as in a double retort the last retort full of high wines (high tails) is going to be 10% of the beer charge, carboxylic acids would be 10% of the retort charge (butyric acid would be about 3% of that 10%), and the sulfuric would be about 20% of that 10%. So just for round numbers: Beer charge is 100l First retort is 10l Second retort is 10l total volume In the second retort 9l high tails 1l total carboxylic acids 93ml aceditc acid 3ml butyric acid 4ml other acids like propionic, etc... Then 200ml of sulfuric acid is added to the high tails and carboxylic acid mix and is let to esterify for 24 hours before making the run. All that to say, a plated column is just the wrong tool for the job.

Sorry Kena, I don't know, my experience is using it in more of a cousins prosses with retorts. I've never had good results getting it to shine through when using a plated column.

This is my understanding

Me too

Very steam punky

Nice thanks! Definitely an option

Thanks, Alex, I understand 1. I don't have this problem yet... I'm just trying to get in front of it in case I do... you know what they say, failing to plan, is planning to fail. 2. I do see what you're saying, and i appreciate your advice, but vacuum just isn't where I want to go.... it's not my style, not part of my story, and historically, it wasn't used to create the product I want to make. I guess I'll be just another shiny tank distillery.

Thanks all. Vacuum distillation doesn't really fit they style I'm going for, but I appreciate the comments.

Thanks for that, it makes a lot of sense I'm working on a new place, and I'll reach out when I'm closer to getting it nailed down. The perfect spot I working on was leased as I'm still trying to secure funds. I see what you're saying about dont skimp on the still. But man, if I were to go with the big well known Kentucky still builder, my equipment costs would be 5 times higher. As it is getting funding for the $400k I think I need using SD gear is already challenging enough, if I bump that up to $650k I'll never get the distillery off the ground. In the back of my head it was always to plan to get up and going with good affordable gear, then upgrade once the business could pay for the expansion.