Southernhighlander

We have them in stock in several sizes up to 50L. Just email paul@distillery-equipment.com We also have lab chillers and vacuum pumps in all sizes to fit the rotovaps. We have short path stills in stock as well.

A guy called me yesterday from Canada. He owns a distillery up there. He went from making whiskey to only making hand sanitizer a few weeks ago. A few days ago a customer called him wanting hand sanitizer. He told them that he was sold out and that he had contracts for everything he could produce for several weeks. They said they needed it really badly. He told them that he had no more mashing and fermenting capacity but that he did have distilling capacity however he told them that his only source for wash was from his local wineries and that if he produced hand sanitizer from that, the price would be $50,000.00 Canadian per 1000 liter tote. The customer placed an order for several totes. So this guy is buying wine from all of the wineries in his area for $4.00 per liter and making hand sanitizer from it to fill his big order. He wanted to order an 800 gallon and a 500 gallon still, but I have sold all of the bigger stills that I have in stock so he said he wants quotes on all of the 200 gallon and 300 gallon stills that I have left in stock. One of my customers here in MO is buying beer from craft breweries from several counties to make hand sanitizer in his 500 gallon still and they say he is running multiple shifts just to meet demand. I don't know what he is selling his hand sanitizer for but I think that it would have to be more than $50.00 per gallon since the craft beer is probably not cheap. I'm not sure if one could say these guys are price gouging or not since they have to use such expensive inputs to keep up with demand, however I have not done the math. Oconsider though is that the guy buying the wine owns another business that has completely collapsed because of COVID and so he is just selling hand sanitizer to keep his distillery and the other business afloat, so I'm not sure if one could call him immoral or not. It's not like he is simply trying to get rich. He is trying to keep his businesses afloat until this is over. Also we must consider that these guys are keeping wineries and brew pubs in business that might otherwise fail. I have 100 gallons of GNS that purchased for processing hemp into CBD several weeks ago and my markets have disappeared for that business since Covid started so I'm going to make hand sanitizer from 80 gallons of it. I will be donating a lot of it to my local first responders and the old folks home in town. I will also be donating hand sanitizer to the clinic in town, if they will take it. A few weeks ago I had several hundred medical masks that I tried to donate to the clinic, but they said that they could not take them unless I called the the hospital and talked to the administration office there. I said why don't you call them and see what they say and I will wait and she said that I would have to call. I said do you need masks and she said yes. I said that I have other things to do so if she did not take them that I would donate them to others. She said "well that's what you will need to do because I will not break the rules because, it could cost my job." I donated the masks to the first responders in town and they sure didn't have any issue taking them.

If you need equipment give us a holler: 417-778-6100 or email paul@ distillery-equipment.com

Aside from recipe development, pilot stills can also be a great starting point to get your DSP and get up and distilling. We've had several customers order big stills that took 20 weeks to build and we delivered their pilot stills within 2 or 3 weeks and by the time they received their big stills, they had several recipes worked out. Seeing incredibly expensive Vendome and German made Pilot/R&D stills at trade shows, gave me the idea to start building jacketed ones. Also we have had a few customers start out with 20 gallon 45 gallon or 50 gallon stills for their distilleries (don't quit your day job). We sold Ozark Distillery their first 40 gallon jacketed still several years ago. Dave ran that still for around a year then a purchased a 150 gallon still if, I remember right, then he traded the 150 gallon in on a 500 gallon still and he has been going strong ever since. Last I heard he was making hand sanitizer for his local hospital etc. He is not our only customer who started small and grew. We sell around 40 jacketed 10, 20, 45 and 50 gallon stills per year to distilleries,

417-778-6908

Thanks Jake. We have just what you need in stock. I look forward to hearing from you.

So just to be clear. If you are controlling cooling in an automatic fashion, it is best to control the vapor temp indirectly by directly controlling the coolant flow. The temp probe for a thermostatic valve should be at the output of the final condenser (from the final condenser, the coolant should go to the last dephlegmator in line and then to the one before that and so on) and the valve itself at the input of the final condenser. If you have your temp probe directly in the vapor path, using a PID, your spirit output will constantly fluctuate. Also controlling the coolant flow is best done in a proportional manner using a valve that acts proportionally instead of on off. Danfoss thermostatic valves operate in a proportional manner. I like them better than PID control because they are simple and do not need electricity or any other possible source of ignition. Also, thermostatic valves make controlling multiple dephlegmators simple. I like mechanical gauges better than PID or PLC for the same reason and because there is no electrical ignition source. My electrical department head developed a PLC controller and wrote the software for it. It basically controls everything including heating, cooling, cuts, as well as condensate and other pumps. It has been sitting down at my equipment development lab for almost 3 months, connected to a 2" diameter continuous column still. We used it to control a couple of little vodka still prototypes before we reconfigured it for the continuous still for data logging etc. It works great but I just have not seen the need to move forward with it at this time. As far as cuts go, my grandfather always said that your best instruments for doing cuts are your taste and smell, but just like most things, there are a lot of different ways to skin that cat and none of them are wrong as long as they work for you.

More than one of my customers has mentioned what a great job Dave Dunbar does.

That's a really great explanation. When I started building stills years ago we learned very quickly that directly controlling vapor temp was not the best way to go for the same reasons that you gave. If the customer wants automated control at a simple level we control coolant temp using a reverse acting thermostatic valve. We can use one thermostatic valve to manage the final condenser and up to four dephlegmators with very little to no fluctuation in ethanol output.

I recommended a couple of distilleries but he went ahead and bought the little still anyway.

In the last few weeks we have sold several stills for the sole purpose of making hand sanitizer. One customer told me that he is selling 55 gallon barrels for $4,600 each and his customer will take as much as he can produce. These larger producers are buying large stills. I had several large stills in stock but they are moving fast so if anyone needs a still quickly I only have five 200 to 300 gallon stills in stock. We have already sold all of the in stock 500 and 800 gallon stills. Strangely enough we have been selling a lot of little stills as well. We had over 70 internet orders for small stills and columns in 1 weekend.. Last week I had a Dr. from Texas order a small still to make hand sanitizer because they have zero hand sanitizer at the hospital where he works and they are having a hard time finding it. Here in MO the state nullified the federal laws against home distilling in 2009, allowing MO families to distill up to 200 gallons per year for their own personal use, however that is not the case in Texas and I told him that but he did not seem to care. I told him that he should get a DSP to produce ethanol for industrial purposes and he said that he would look into that. He seemed really desperate.

Josh, I agree with Mike. That's to much gap between the internal tube and the outer tube. Ours has a 2" inner tube and a 2.5" outer tube. It has over 40' of tubing.

Josh, We have them in stock and ready to ship at a very reasonable price. paul@distillery-equipment.com 417-778-6908.

I had trouble following this myself at first and I have a pretty good understanding of legalese. If you read everything that they reference, basically the translation is that the rules are being waved for the time being so that you can remove ethanol from bond for producing hand sanitizer and there will be no tax, if the hand sanitizer is used for that industrial purposes. It gives you the right to give it away or sell it to the government, hospitals, blood banks, sanitariums, certain pathological laboratories not profit clinics and qualifying education institutions. This does not allow you to sell it or even give it to the public or any other entities, except for those explicitly listed. I can deal with that but they are making our process for producing the hand sanitizer a lot harder by forcing us to denature our ethanol. If they would change that it would make things a lot simpler for all of us.

captnKB, If you need milk can still pots, let me know and I will give you a really good price. We have them in all sizes and we have sold over 7,000 of them as still pots for complete stills and by themselves. We have hundreds of them in stock and ready to ship. We also have heating systems in stock and we can custom build anything that you want within reason. 417-778-6100 or 417-778-6908. Thanks.

Below are some of our pilot stills: This is a 20 gallon steam jacketed still with our copper and stainless 4 plate bubble plate column, agitator and VFD for the agitator. This customer also ordered a filter housing on a cart which sits next to the still. The still's column contains one of my copper defuser plate assemblies. My defuser plate assemblies have 3 purposes, one of which is to catalyze sulfers. Just one of my defuser plate assemblies gives more copper vapor interaction than an all copper pot still, without a catalyzer. Below is a 20 gallon pilot still configured somewhat like the above still, except that it is a combination mash tun still and it is a baine marie. The agitator motor is UL listed explosion proof and as you can see all safety devices are in place. The electric heating system and agitator are compliant with the C1D2 hazardous environment that exists around a still. The agitator is a low rpm high torque geared agitator, vertically mounted with large paddles. Never use a high rpm agititator with a tiny impeller for corn or rye mash. They suck for that purpose. Below is a little 45 gallon baine marie vodka still with gin basket. The 6" diameter column is a hybred, bubble plate packed column that mimics a 20 bubble plate column. The heating system on this one puts out 16.5 kW. Below is a lttle 20 gallon R&D still. It is a combination mash tun still designed to produce just like our Pro Series Ultra Pro Whiskey stills and our Paul Hall Signature Series Ultra Pro Whiskey Stills. The drop line from the line arm to feed vapor to the 4 plate looks out of plumb but it isn't. I think that it's a trick of the eye cause by the items in the back ground. Just so everyone knows, we are an essential business and we do not plan on shutting down because of COVID19.

We specialize in R&D/pilot stills. If your large still is jacketed, then a single walled directly heated still will not mimic the production of your big still nearly as well as a jacketed pilot still. We have 10 gallon, 20 gallon and 45 gallon jacketed R&D still pots with modular column components to make them produce like your production still. Any of these stills can be configured as a combination mash tun still so that you can cook a corn based grain bill, then ferment in the pot and then distill. We can configure them to match the production of any of our production stills and the production stills of most of our competitors. We have them in baine marie electric, on board electric over steam and with steam jackets that are boiler fired. We can configure them with gin baskets, bubble plate columns, vodka columns, packed vodka columns, traditional single and double retort rum stills stainless pot and copper pot and pretty much anything else that you want. We even have some small traditional copper stills that are wood fired (outside use only) they have steel fireboxes withchimneys, one even has a hand crank agitator. We keep all of the ready made components in stock. Like our large stills, our R&D stills will pass all fire/ safety and electrical inspections. We currently have our production stills in around 20% of the distilleries in the US and most of those distilleries also purchased our mash tuns, fermenters, receiving vessels, proofing tanks, blending tanks, mash pumps, ethanol pumps and some purchased their UL listed ethanol storage tanks, vacuum stills, rotary evaporators, short path stills, low pressure steam and other boilers and many other items from us as well.. From what we can tell we have the deepest 304SS sanitary parts catalog in the USA. We have sold over 7,000 small stills and our production stills are in over 400 distilleries Our pilot stills are quality manufactured and affordable. If you need a pilot still, give me a holler and I'll set you up. paul@distillery-equipment.com 417-778-6100 or 417-778-6908

Yes, and yes. paul@distillery-equipment.com

I was really worried about my business going into this but something crazy is going on. Our sales have been increasing for all sizes of distillery equipment and sanitary parts. We have sold several medium sized stills in the last 3 weeks and we have been selling some large stills but the small still sales have gone nuts. We had over 70 online orders for 5 to 26 gallon stills and sanitary parts over the weekend.

There is also the option of macerating in the pot. The best option depends a lot on whether it is going to be a dedicated gin still or a multi purpose still. However in my opinion, a stand alone gin basket close to the final condenser is the best option.

When it's time for you to order your stripping still give me a holler: paul@distillery-equipment.com

Josh, What you want to do is doable. Contact Spirex Sarco about a steam sparger and filters. They should be able to answer your technical questions and get you lined out on how to plumb your mash tunetc. If you would like a price on a steam injected mash tun with crash cooling email me paul@distillery-equipment.com.

What Meerkat said.

Bluestar, I think that you may be right about the acidity. i just had a customer the other day ask if we could line the inside of a stainless still with PTFE because they will have some highly corrosive chemicals in the pot. They are not distilling beverage ethanol. Also lead solder was used in still pots in the old days. Normally they only used it in the pot or in the upside of the vapor path. Only idiots used it in the condenser or down side of the vapor path, for obvious reasons. They believed then that the lead could not climb the vapor path. I can't say either way and I would certainly never use it on any part of a still or drink anything from any still where lead was used in any way.

I certainly wouldn't distill 20 times for vodka in a pot still. Titos Vodka is worth over $1,000,000,000.00 last I heard. Talk about a success story. Someone told me a few weeks ago that they have grown so large that they may start making their own GNS because it will lower their costs. I guess they have came full circle.