Southernhighlander

Bluestar, I agree, most manufacturers have issues, especially within the first couple of years and with one offs and yes it's how those issues are handled that separates the good from the bad. We have had issues with new designs, but as we have grown and gained experience, issues have become less common. New designs can have flaws, but these are not new designs and these designs were not created by these vendors or the factories that supplied them. These 3 companies are selling stills built to design drawings that I did 5 or 6 years ago. I know this for a fact because their customers supplied me with the drawings that were given to them by the vendors, so that I could help them solve the many problems that they had encountered. The drawings were identical to my originals including all of the flaws that I originally drew in, to protect myself. Also I'm not talking about 1 issue or another, on the contrary these people had a myriad of problems.

I would use all 16 holes and the cable. I would also ask the manufacturer what their recomendations are.

Those are the bolts. What is the OD of the column and the OD of the column flange?

Keep in mind that low RPMs with high torque and large paddles is best for grain in mashes. Variable speed 25 to 45 rpms max with about 1hp per hundred gallons is my rule of thumb. High RPM direct drive agitators do not work well with thick corn mashes. I suggest that you go with Explosion Proof, electric, geared agitators with VFD drives for thick mash and direct drive higher rpm pneumatic agitators with impellers for blending spirits and for liquid washes. You can use low hp or even fractional hp high rpm pneumatic agitators for liquids, it just means that the turn over time will be longer if you use lower hp in liquid washes. A $280.00 4hp gast air motor can use 128 cfm of air which means that you will need a $15,000.00 compressor to run it. We sell agitators with custom shafts and paddles designed to fit your tanks. Paul 417-778-6100 paul@distillery-equipment.com

I would use metal shims cut to the radius of the column, drilled and tapered, so that you have full support. I would use red heads with bolts as they will be much stronger solution. I would very strongly suggest that you use some aircraft cable attached to the very top of the column to help hold the column in place. My safety manual states that our columns that tall must be bolted to the floor and air craft cable must be used, however my columns, unlike some of my competitors columns, are incredibly heavy because of the metal thicknesses, so I like for them to be solidly supported at the top and bottom when they are that tall, and of course I am very safety conscious.

We can actually build custom tanks anyway that you want. hemi bottom and or top, side manway, cip including plumbing and pump or whatever you need. We have existing designs with all of those options as well.

What do your column bases look like? If they are bolt flanges just bolt to the floor using red heads and shim with metal plates. If the columns are tall then you should run some aircraft cable to ceiling joists or other very sturdy structures to hold them in place. if you need something fabricated, send me some pics paul@distillery.com and we will come up with something and give you a quote. http://distillery-equipment.com http://moonshine-still.co http://triclamp.co http://emeraldgoldextractors.com

Ethanol is class 1 division 2. Normally the class 1 div 2 hazardous environment for ethonal is considered to be 6' away from any part of the still and 36" off of the floor and 24" above any part of the still. For ethonal EX is required inside that area unless it is a non arcing electrical component. Typically if it is a non arcing electrical component then NEMA 4 enclosures and liquid tight conduit are required inside the class 1 div 2 area. Normally outside the class 1 div 2 area around the still, only NEMA 4 enclosures and liquid tight conduit are required for all arcing electrical components. NEMA 4 enclosures are liquid tight and many are wash down rated. EX motors are not that much more expensive however EX enclosures and some other components can be incredibly expensive. We have over 130 electric bain marie stills in distilleries all over the US. I learned the above from dealing with inspectors. You will have to research the codes yourself because I do not know exactly were these rules are in the NEC and other documents. This is my understanding of the requirements in most areas but that does not mean that it is correct for your area. It is just what I have grown to expect from inspectors in the North Eastern States, California, Canada and the majority of large cities and the state of Kentucky, however in many places, possibly even the majority, especially in rural and small town areas in the midwest and southeast, some inspectors do not require anything explosion proof and in some areas those inspections don't seem to be required. However, there is OSHA to think about if you are going to have employees. Also there is insurance to think about. Your rates could possibly be higher if the insurance company feels that things are not safe around your distillery. Also, the times they are a changing. Safety inspectors. states and municipalities seem to be pushing the safety requirements much harder than they did 6 years ago when I started selling distilling equipment, however you are almost always going to have an easier time in a more rural area. If you are putting your distillery right down town in a densely populated high traffic area, the powers that be are going to look at you with a very fine toothed comb.

I can see how many of the peripheral electrical devices could be dangerous if incorrectly installed and in that situation licensing and inspection is probably necessary for safetys sake. MO has no state requirements concerning building inspections etc, even for commercial. Of course all municipalities and many counties in MO do have requirements. I live and have my business in a very rural southern MO county and like many counties in rural areas of the south there are few requirements but of course that is slowly changing. Living and having a business here has it's advantages and disadvantages. There is no cell phone reception or broad band in this part of the county which sucks, but I can turn 360 degrees and not see a neighbor, which I love. But still, I have lots of security cameras all over and we are at the point where we need to move on to a more robust security system and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to hire a pro to do it this time. Also,the amount of maintenance required over 5 or 6 years was more than I thought that it would be, but mainly that is because we have so many outdoor cameras. The dang mice or squirrels or something keep chewing the wires outside and we have had a couple of the outside cameras fail because of moisture even though they were supposed to be fore use outdoors.

Adam, Scott, My IT guy did all of my security cameras from a kit that I purchased on line. There is no local building department here. If you want to build your own house or commercial building you can without having to buy any type of permit and without having any type of building, electrical or plumbing inspection. Things work very well here without any of that and it sure makes life easier. However I can see why those inspections are necessary in certain places for the sake of safety, even though we do no seem to have any more house fires here than anywhere else. What would be the reasoning for having to have a license to install security cameras other than the municipality using it to make money?

We just finished the 500 gallon Ultra Pro Whiskey still pictured below, yesterday. The copper 4 plate column for this one is 16" in diameter. This still will do a whiskey run in 4 hrs from start to finish. Please note the new parrot that I designed. These new parrots have a vent connection, just like all of our others. As far as I know we are the only manufacturer that offers a vent connection on the parrot for venting the ethanol vapor to the outside of the building, if the condenser goes down.

Glenlyon, I am hoping to keep the price below $1,000.00 but we will see.

What is the temp of your tap water and what temp do you want to hold the fermentation below?

fainting goat, The price for the 350 gallon with a 1.5 hp ex sanitary air agitator with shaft, impellers and 2 cip spinner spray balls you are looking at $4,995.00

Amrut, Baine marie heating systems are normally open to atmosphere with electric heating elements in the jacket and oil is the typical heat transfer medium. i have came up with a way to have steam in the jacket utilizing an open system which makes the still or mash tun safer than using oil, and this also allows the heating jacket of a mash cooker to be used as a cooling jacket. We actually build combination mash tun stills so this new system will work really well for those.

Glenlyon, Since steam has a better heat transfer coefficient than oil, you should use less energy with the steam. My patent application is in so I can tell you a little more how the OSP module works. It utilizes water column to build pressure. It is sort of complicated inside but basically the 6psi unit is 60" tall and consist of a 3" diameter tube that stands strait up. There are multiple tubes inside that are filled with water but the system is open to atmosphere with water column being the only thing that creates pressure. We are not only pushing up through water column we are pushing down through water column to gain pressure as well, and we have developed a way to keep the jacket from leveling up to the top with water during the run and especially after the run when the jacket cools and vacuum is created. The 14 PSI unit has 4 tubes and reminds you of a 4 barreled gatling gun that is pointed strait up.

Fainting goat, My agitator guy has today off. He will get back to me tomorrow and I will get back to you when he does. Thank you

prcdc At 50 PSI the g70 flojet will pump around 4.5 gpm. At 100 psi it will pump around 5.5gpm. You can run it at 100 PSI everyday all day long if you like. That is what it was designed for.

We've been doing multiple columns on our pots for almost 4 years now. Possibly even longer than you have, which is why I was so surprised when I first saw your double dragon kettle in San Diego. It is also why I paid you the complement about it at the show in Saint James, of course I didn't tell you that we have been doing it for years. Great minds think alike I guess, but of course neither of us where the first to do it. We have done some with 2 columns and a pedestal for the condenser mounted on top of the pot as well. I have a design for 3 columns on one pot for a 2,500 gallon still including a 28' tall vodka column. I had the multiple column on the same pot idea, when we started doing our first combination mash tun stills 6 years ago, but it took me a while to do anything with it. I was referencing a different company concerning winches. I have watched you guys very closely since you started. I do that with all of my competitors. I never knew you used winches, I always figured you were smarter than that.

Our plan is to test, test , test for the next 30 days so that we can make them available at the beginning of May. Once my info reaches the patent office I will be able to explain a little more about how the OSP modules work.

I will have a quote for you Monday for the CIP and the air driven ex agitator. Would you like a qoute for the compressor to run the agitator? Would you like us to quote for cooling and insulation jackets as well? If you will be chilling the tank we could do dimple jackets for the cooling. The silver blanket insulation does not look too bad and it would cost you a great deal less than insulation jackets, but we could do cooling jackets and insulation jackets if you want. The great thing about us is that we can pretty much do anything that you want within reason.

We just completed this combination mash tun/stripping still/vodka still yesterday. This still has two large copper defuser plate assemblies that remove all of the sulfides plus all of the plates and plate components are copper. Of course we can build the whole still from copper except for the steam jacket, if that is what you want. If others have told you that they cannot sell you vodka still because of a height restriction, just let us know. We can lower or split our vodka columns so that they will fit your vertical space no problem. Our vodka columns function perfectly even if they are lowered all of the way to the floor.

Chilling to 20 degrees thickens the long chain proteins so that they are caught by the charcoal. Chill filtering makes for a very clean crisp neutral spirit as long as everything else was done correctly. If you need charcoal filter housings for chill filtering just let us know. We can build you exactly what you need for your particular process. If you are interested just email paul@distillery-equipment.com http://distillery-equipment.com http://moonshine-still.co http://triclamp.co https://www.emeraldgoldextractors.com/

If you are doing gin it is best to have a dedicated tank for it, but you can do multiple spirits in the same tank as gin but you must clean really well or you might get gin flavors in your whiskey. W sell new transtore tanks at a lower price than buying direct from the factory. You can blend and store in the transtore tanks. these Tanks are UL listed and are legal to store spirits in. We can add CIP if you like. We could also add an explosion proof agitator and we have sold them with jackets for use as fermenters. They are made in the USA. We have other tanks as well. Please see the picture and drawing below of the 550 gallon. Also these totes are stackable which can really save on space.

It is not what I discribed. Since you are using a pressure release valve you are pressurizing the jacket as a closed system until the valve actuation pressure is reached. I cannot sell a still or mash tun with a closed pressurized jacket with a built in heating system as that would be illegal for me to sell and illegal for my customers to use. I can certainly sell systems with closed pressurized jackets up to 14 psi with an external low pressure steam boiler as the steam source and I have been doing that for 6 years. My open system pressurization module is a device that allows pressure to be built in the baine marie's jacket even though the system is open to atmosphere, meaning that there is no mechanical device closing the system to atmosphere like a pressure relief valve.. The pressurization module is an open system so it will be perfectly legal for me to sell it for use with any baine marie still. We are talking about 2 very different things, yours is a closed system until you reach 5psi when your valve pops. My system is an open system not closed. I know it seems to defy logic but it works very well. The great thing is that it can be added to any baine marie still, so that water can be used in the jacket and steam temps of 250 F can be reached in the open system jacket as long as the jacket will handle that pressure. We will be able to supply OSP modules for 4 psi, 6psi, 8psi,10psi, 12psi and 14 psi. I am doing this because I want to make my stills safer. I don't like oil as a heat transfer medium because oil is flammable. Also steam has a much better heat transfer coefficient so steam can heat faster than oil even if the steam is at a lower temp. We will have these modules available to convert pretty much any self contained electric baine marie oil bath to steam.