Southernhighlander

Jocko,

The problems that Golden Beaver had were due to the wrong size Danfoss valve.  As long as the Danfoss valve and probe are plumbed according to the diagram and the bypass at the Danfoss stays cracked just a little, there are zero issues because the danfoss valve's probe is always in constant contact with the coolant flow.  This being the case there is no reason to change anything.  We have over 100 customers using Danfoss valves plumbed according to the diagram that we supply and they work great.  Also this same plumbing design is used by our competitors with good operational functionality.    

If you make yourself a screen using 100 micron or smaller stainless steel screen and wooden slats and place it on top of the fermenters, so that fruit flies can't get in there that should help a bunch.

You should not cap the vents. The vents are there for safety reasons. If the area where the tank is gets too hot, pressure can build in the tank causing a rupture and or explosion or if the tank gets cold enough, a vacuum implosion could occur.

Where did you get your still?

Welcome to distilling and best of luck at your new job.

Concerning the picture that Pour Decisions posted.

I thought that I should add this.  We keep our prices low and quality high by several different methods one of which is that our warehouses for stainless vessels and other stainless equipment have dirt floors.  This saved us a great deal of money when we built our warehouses and we pass those savings on to our customers.  Of course stainless is incredibly rust resistant so having dirt floors in the warehouses, where our stainless is stored, does not harm the equipment in any way.  If you are interested in quality mash cooling equipment or any other quality distilling equipment, at great prices, email paul@distillery-equipment.com or call 417-778-6100 and ask for Susan.

Thanks.

Pour decisions said:

>>>"I was the Op inquiring about this. Susan did send me pics and dimensions of one of your units but I'm having a hard time visualizing how this will drop into the 12" diameter opening on my ferment tanks?"<<<

It won't drop into a 12" opening.  You need at least a 20" opening.  Did you tell Susan that your opening was only 12"?  

19 hours ago, MisguidedCanuck said:

Am interested in tube-in-tube heat exchangers at a great price, hit me up Paul. I've got a 400-gallon (working capacity) mash tun and need a tube-in-shell for on-grain mashing. We've spoken before.

We've got what you need in stock with the best quality price combination in the industry.  Give Susan a call at 417-778-6100 and will give you a price and take your order when you are ready.  If you have technical questions call me at 417-778-6908 or email at 417-778-6908.

Thanks.

Welcome.

In the foreground is one of the many stills that we have recently completed.  The tall still pot in the back ground is for one of our 2,500 gallon Signature Series Ultra Pro Vodka Stills. 

Red Pine,  That's a Chinese made motor from one of our older stills.  We switched to American made Baldor motors a few years ago and even though we have a few Chinese motors left, it looks like none will fit your gear box.  I know my employee Tim is working with you.  I'm going to have him see if he can locate you a motor from another vender and send you a link.

2 hours ago, Red Pine said:

Hello All,

Looking for help in locating a vendor that sells electric motors for my mash tun/stripping still. I burnt up the motor yesterday and need a new one quick but haven't had great luck using the google search method. It's a 1 hp 3 phase 240v vertical flange mounted motor. Anyone that can help a guy out? Thanks in advance to all of you.

Who did you purchase your still from?

Golden Beaver.

I left you a phone message in the early afternoon.  I apologize for missing your call.  I also apologize for not understanding who you were on the forum and what you ordered at first.  I remember people names better than distillery names.  

Your still will do Vodka.  I look forward to your call in the morning.  

Thanks.

5 hours ago, Golden Beaver Distillery said:

We have run it just as suggested above several time to date.  We can balance the plates and start a flow at 180 proof. The minute you engage the bypasses/Danfoss  and try to increase the proof, the top plate floods or production is diminished to a trickle with no increase in proof.

We stepped on the input water pressure today and got better control but proof never got higher then 184.  We're starting with doubled distilled distillate at 100 proof. 

Going to put on a pressure regulator with gauge on the cooling water this afternoon so we have an actual PSI measurement. This should help allow the gate valve to have a higher range of adjustment. 

I think the output volume of an 8-inch column is too low to use the Danfoss. Just not enough BTU moving through the system to justify the functionality of the Danfoss.

Golden Beaver,  I'm very sorry that you are having this issue.  I think you said your still is 150 gallons.  I'm thinking that with your high water pressure and the small size of your still, we may need to trade out your current thermostatic valve with a smaller one.  I believe that your still is the smallest that we have sold that is using the Danfoss valve that we normally use.  I will have Susan pull your order for me first thing in the morning and send it over to me. I will have one of my engineers take a look at things in the morning to see if we need to send you a smaller thermostatic valve with less throughput. I will get back to you by email and then we can talk on the phone.  I think I and my staff can help you better that way.

Concerning your proof.  How many plates are you running in how many columns?  If you are running multiple columns you will need to pump the condensate from the bottom of the last column in line to the top of the column before it to get full functionality.  It takes at least 16 vertical plates to maintain 190 proof and above or the equivalent number of theoretical plates in a packed column, or multiple columns with the same number of plates using condensate pumps, However even with 4 plates you can usually reach 190 at the beginning of the run.  If you have never ran plate columns before, or if you have never ran plated columns with this coolant plumbing design we should set up face time with my distiller so that he can show you how to run the system.   You get unlimited phone and email support with your purchase.   I can also set you up with a free distilling workshop at one of my customers distilleries, if you like.  Also my people are here to help you, so you should take advantage of that.  You can call me directly at 417-778-6908.

Thanks.  

Golden Beaver,

I believe that Silk and Whiskey Tango's advice is spot on, especially Silks advice concerning your high pressure and backing off the coolant flow.  With that kind of pressure and the size of your lines you have far more flow than you need in this situation.   I rarely run stills anymore so the insight of people that run stills everyday can be really helpful in a situation like this.

48 minutes ago, Silk City Distillers said:

"I'm not Paul (don't know his rigs), but I'd be glad to hop on a Facetime/Video call with you and walk through real time.

Based on what I'm seeing, you should be able to get this to work.

You should be starting with valves full open through Dephleg 1 and 2, and only enough flow through the PC Bypass to be able to just barely hit 100% reflux to load the plates, which will be a pretty small amount of overall flow.  It's a ball valve, so tiny adjustments will make huge differences in flow rate.  Input coolant at 55f is plenty cold enough to easily generate full reflux.

Too high of a flow rate through the Dephlegmators will over cool the reflux, and result in top plate flooding that will be challenging to settle down without turning off heat to the kettle and allowing the pressure to reduce so the plates can drain down.  Top plate flooding, or flooding on some seemingly random plate in the column, is almost **ALWAYS** due to subcooled reflux creating a kind of block in the column, as the liquid is cold enough to condense the vapor trying to pass through it.  Where the flooding will sit in the column will tend to be based on the backpressure generated by the kettle vapor generation.  Quickly turning off heat to the kettle will drop the vapor pressure and allow the reflux to drain down to subsequent plates.  Usually a quick on and off is all it takes to force the column to restack.

You said something about 75psi on the water feed, having the PC valve full open is going to be way too much flow."

 

 

Thank you Silk.  This is a great explanation of what needs to be done.

4 minutes ago, whiskeytango said:

If im understanding what your saying correctly. In a sense yes it is useless. If hot vapor isn't getting to the top of the final condenser and water isn't running past the temp sensor yes the valve will remain closed.  Or at least very constricted.  

  This is why you run your set up with the bypass valve opened up first so that water is flowing through the system and it allows you to pack the column   Then you slowly dial that manual valve down as you do this it will start to allow vapor to the top of the final condonsor and the water going out will start to affect the temp sensor now because its hot and eventualy you can almost turn off the bypass valve completely   and the danfoss will do its job maintaining the temp 

Thanks Whiskey Tango.   

Golden Beaver, I'm sorry I thought that you had already loaded the plates by bypassing the Danfoss valve.  It's been a long day for me. 

If you run as Whiskey Tango describes you should start getting some output. 

Yep that's the right valve.  We've been having our customers plumb them like this for some time with good results.   

I think you should run her manually.  Go ahead and bypass both plate columns with your vaper and also bypass both dephlegmators so that no coolant is going through them and see if you get any output and then we will move on from there to running one column.  It might be more expedient if we do this over the phone.  Call me when you set things to run  at 417-778-6908 and we'll get her lined out.

Thanks.

Golden Beaver,  You should try bypassing the Danfoss valve to completely control the coolant flow manually to see if the still will function correctly manually.  If you cannot get correct functionality manually something is wrong other than the valve.  If you get correct functionality manually then there is something wrong with the valve.  

Also if you purchased the valve from us it will be a reverse acting valve.  If you purchased it yourself and did not purchase a reverse acting valve it will never work.  Did you just buy your column from us or your complete still including the still pot?

29 minutes ago, Silk City Distillers said:

That's an interesting approach - you are basically controlling the input temperature to the dephlegmator, but not the flow rate.

 

The reverse acting Danfoss valve controls the flow rate.  It does so proportionally to maintain the coolant temp going into the dephlegmator.  If you are running vodka and the danfoss valve is set to 120F then if the temp of the coolant coming out of the final condenser increases above 120F the thermostatic valve's orifice opens more to increase the flow rate which brings the temp down to 120.  Also, unlike with on off flow control valves, the Danfoss acting in a proportional manner gives a steady output of distillate.

I'm not sure why you are having trouble.  These usually work well.  Did you buy your danfos valve from us?

Yours looks like one of our Danfoss set ups.  Try increasing the temp setting on the danfos and allow a little bypas at the danfoss valve.  If that doesn't work increase the temp setting more.  Also you should try bypassing the dephlegmator on column 1 completely.

You need a reverse acting Danfoss valve and here is how it should be set up.

We build the most reasonably prices R&D stills in the industry starting with jacketed stills that cost less than $1,200.00 in which you can cook corn mash, ferment and distill if you like.  Even our smallest R&D stills can be configured to produce vodka.  We can build R&D stills to produce like the individual large batch still designs of ours and all of our competitors. 417-778-6908 paul@distillery-equipment.com

51 minutes ago, NateKThompson said:

I know and love you guys but I have to disagree. I've worked at over a dozen iStill sites and managed one for years. If you're a small distillery, you'd be absolutely insane to consider another still producer. Cost is one thing, but time is another. I have regularly run a still from my phone and been able to be out doing sales calls or getting time off. I've made basically every possible mistake on that equipment and the system has responded as advertised. Every problem has inevitably come from the biggest issue in distilling--human error.

You are opening yourself up for disaster.  A still should never be left completely unattended.  That's how distilling accidents occur.  Distilling accidents hurt everyone in the industry, so you not only hurt yourself, if an accident occurs, you hurt all of our businesses.  If Oden is allowing that he is wide open for a law suite when an accident occurs with no one at the distillery.

My safety manual states that a still should never be left completely unattended.  Anyone who does that voids our warranty and we accept no liability if a problem occurs. 

I have some questions.  Does Istill recommend running their stills unattended? Can you distill an on the grain mash in an Instill?  What is the run time for a stripping run in an Istill?  Can you fire an Istill with a steam boiler?