Southernhighlander

There is something going on that everyone should be aware of. There are 3 distillery equipment vendors out there that are importing stills from China that have major design flaws. One company is in Canada. All of the drawings on their web site are my design drawings. These drawings were given to them by a factory that I used to build some of my equipment. What they do not realize is that I added design flaws to the drawings before I submitted them to the factories. When I get the equipment here we fabricate things and change things to make these stills work correctly. We also pressure test them, inspect the welds, run and test the agitators, add apollo pressure relief and vacuum relief valves, assemble everything to make sure that all parts and components are there, then I personally do a 30 point inspection before the equipment leaves here.. Another company is in Washington state. I have helped one of their customers with multiple problems concerning their still. The vendor could not even give the customer the info needed to wire the agitator and that was just the beginning of a long list of problems. Another of these vendors is in the Rockies. This vender sold a still to a customer with the same design flaws that I drew into my designs when I submitted them to a certain factory 6 years ago.. I am helping that customer solve their problems now. Also this vendor sold a jacketed vessel to one of their customers with no vacuum relief valve and it imploded. If you are on a distillery equipment vendors web site and their stills look just like mine, beware they will probably not function properly, especially if they have bubble plate columns. Here is a link to my web site http://distillery-equipment.com if you see my design for sale on other web sites email me paul@distillery-equipment.com.

All fermentation areas should have proper venting when open top fermenters are used. I also suggest C02 detectors.

You are welcome. I'm glad to help you any way that I can. I put a link to my website below in case you need some parts or anything like that. http://distillery-equipment.com email: paul@distillery-equipment.com

Open top fermenters are best for grain in mashes. One of the benefits of open top fermentation is the fact that the heat escapes out of the top so you don't need as much cooling. That being said it is best to make a lid from slats and a fine stainless mesh. You just lay it on top of the fementer when it's in use and it will keep out insects and dust and debris while still allowing for the heat to escape. In my opinion conical close top fermenters are best for off of the grain fermentations. Conicals are not good for grain in because the grain can compact in the bottom.

As a rule of thumb you want to have 1000 BTUs of low pressure steam for each gallon of mash for a 1 hr heat up to operating temp time. You can use up to 2000 btus of low pressure steam per gallon of mash and as little as 500 btus per gallon of mash. That is for steam, if you decide to go with direct fire then you will need at least twice that number of btus.

Shindi, There are no open to atmosphere valves. I use 2 vents on the jackets of my baine marie stills for safety redundancy. I also put an apollo Pressure relief valve on one of the vents for even more safety redundancy. I also aim the vents downward so that if anything comes out it is aimed at the floor. It also states in my safety manual that the pressure relief valve should be plumbed with a pipe that goes to within 3" of the floor so that if the valve pops no one will get sprayed. It is illegal to run a self contained heating system with a closed pressurized jacket without an ASME listing and a UL rating for the complete unit. Also, when you have liquid in a pressurized jacket and a pressure relief valve pops more often than not the liqued will spray out first. That is what happened at twister distillery when the top blew off of the still from overpressure, the liquid came out first. If you purchase a jacketed baine marie still that has a fully enclosed jacket that gets pressurized and the vessel is not ASME listed and does not even have an ASME pressure relief valve on the jacket you are asking for trouble. Most likely your safety inspector or fire marshal will not allow you to run it, but if they do you are using a time bomb. Evidently some vendors just don't care.

Silk City, why would you run a wood fired boiler without a controller? Sungla never said anything about running the boiler without a controller nor did I. Wood fired and coal fired steam boilers are used all over the US for steam heat and industrial purposes. There is certainly no problem putting Apollo valves on them.

Just an Addendum to what blue fish said. The carbon housing must be sized according to how many gallons per hour of ethanol will be filtered. Also different types of spirits will require different amounts of filtering.

Silk City, He is not in a neighborhood in a city. He is in a mountainous region of Asia where there is no electricity. So immersion heaters are out. Also I seriously doubt that there is any code enforcement. Wood fired boilers have been around for over 200 years and they can be regulated fairly simply. I actually ran a saw mill that had a wood fired boiler and steam engine. I only ran 3 logs through it. The mill itself was an old antique meadows #1 mill with a little 48" diameter head saw. The feed was a lot slower than any of the handset mills that I had ran before, but it sawed really well. A guy that used to hand hammer my head saws had it. This guy built the wood fired boiler from the ground up and he had rebuilt the old steam engine that ran the mill. The steam engine had originally been built in the 1870s and it was without the original boiler componants. The old boy took it to the county fair every year. He would saw a few pine logs with it while he was at the fair, with hundreds of people all around. Sungla, If I were you and I just had to have a wood fired boiler, I would buy an asian made wood fired steam boiler. You can do that for a lot less than what it will cost you to build it your self and more importantly it will have a more efficient design. If you must have it built from scratch use a good pre existing design if possible, and have the builder pressure test it at 3 times the operating pressure. Use 2 pressure relief valves for safety redundancy and plumb them so that if they pop the steam will be blown to a safe place and not into your face. Make it low pressure operating at 14psi max with 15 psi safety valves. The truth is that you really don't need a boiler. Just build a fire box from fire brick and put your copper still on top of that and brick the still all the way up the sides to the bottom of the skirt. The fire will heat the brick and the brick will heat the still. You can mash with solids in without scorching. Build a good chimney on it and control with a vent and damper. Never put anything in the pot over 25%. Put it outside if possible. If it is inside have plenty of doors and windows so that you can ventilate qquickly if you need to. If you cannot get regular brick to the site just use fire brick for the fire box and use stone and motor to (rock the still up). You can bring in a little portland and use the rock, sand and water that is on site. Also, just so you know, you should not distill or ferment in aluminum. Use stainless or copper. Aluminum leaches in alcohol.

Hi Merci, I can help you with a carbon filter housing and small ethanol pump that you can use to filter your spirits. Email paul@distillery-equipment.com. Also I will need to know how many gallons you want to filter in an 8 hour day?

Jake, If you need any equipment give us a holler. If you would like to see our equipment in action call Dave Angel at Elevated Mountain Distillery in Maggie Valley NC and tell him Paul Hall sent you his way. I grew up in The Great Smoky Mountains on the Tennessee side. Are you in the Smokies? phone 417-778-6100 paul@distillery-equipment.com http://distillery-equipment.com http://moonshine-still.co Paul

That plate is fine. Like my grandfather used to say. Your still gives itself to the liquor. So here is what he meant by that. Every time you do a run, the sulfurs and other chemicals in the distillate eat into the copper. So after a number of years the ethanol eats up the copper. The same occurs when you clean the plates with citric. The acid eats up the copper when you clean the copper. So after many years your plates will be eaton up to the point that they will need to be replaced, but that takes a very long time. This happens to all of the copper components that the vapor interacts with and that are cleaned. PBW and Diluted citric acid are the right things to use. Just rinse well.

If you need a g70 c explosion proof pump we have them https://shop.distillery-equipment.com/collections/brewing-distilling-equipment-accessories/products/5-gpm-explosion-proof-beverage-alcohol-pump-for-high-proof-spirits-flojet-g70c These little pumps will last for years and years and they are actually rated as explosion proof.

If you have a local sawmill that can supply you rough sawn oak you will save a huge amount of money. 8'6" and 9'3" long pallet squares are dirt cheap. They are typically 4"x4", 4x5, 4x6 and 6"x6".Smaller circle saw mills saw these and sell them to other mills that resaw them into pallet decking and pallet stringers. These same mills usually saw rough sawn lumber that they sell to flooring mills. The # 2 and #3 common is pretty cheap. if the Miller will let you pick through the #2 common, #3 Common and pallet lumber you can find lots of boards that are structurally sound. Don't purchase the #2 and #3 common or pallet lumber as strait run or you will have a lot of waste. If you build with rough sawn Oak you want to build with it while it's green as it is really hard to work with and nail it when it is dry. I know all of this because I ran a sawmill for almost 20 years. If you know how to use wooden pegs and dowels as well as notching then you will have an easier time. Many of the old barns built 70 to 150 years ago were built from green oak lumber and beams using wooden pins to hold everything together. I used to buy old barns, tear them down and sell the old hand hewn beams and rough sawn lumber to contractors and end users. The old pegged barns built by German immigrants were the toughest to get apart. The pegs where so tight that I would usually have to drill them out and sometimes i would just have to take a chain saw to them. Somebody may say that you shouldn't use green oak, but they don't know what they are talking about. Green Oak has been used for building barns and racking houses for generations. If you use pine or other softwoods then it should be air dried. I would probably air dry poplar if I were using it. If you use Kiln dried Lumber it will move almost as much as green and nothing twists and bows as much as pressure treated lumber except for Hickory, which should never be used as structural.

Another Vacuum still. This one is a 105 gallon.

Just an addendum to what hottytoddy said. Centrifugal pumps work well for wash with no solids but they do not work well for grain in mashes. For grain in mashes, patato mashes, black eyed pea mashes and grappa mashes, 3 types of pumps are best Rotary Lobe, Double Diaphragm and Flexible Impeller Pumps.

I would like to do a conference call with you and my Master Distiller. There will be no charge for our help. What would be a good time for us to call you on Monday? You can email me privately paul@distillery-equipment.com

Okay, I was just looking at my messages from Friday. There was one concerning charcoal filters. If your initials are M.C. then I have your number and will call you back Monday. What would be a good time for me to call you? Thank you Paul

The largest stainless sanitary ball valves that I have right now are 2". I do have 3" and 4" ones on order but we will not have them in stock for several weeks.

HottyToddy, We should size your filter appropriately. How much volume are you talking per hour? Also, what are you filtering exactly? I can see the multicolumn set up working well for Vodka or GNS for Gin but that is probably way too much filtration for most other spirits. I don't think that a vacuum set up will work well for the multiple column system. I think that we would be better off going with a double diaphram pump. We will do a design drawing in Auto Cad using the drawing and recommendations from Cabot. Once the drawing is complete we will build one and test it. Silk, do you think Cabot's multiple column design will work well for HottyToddy's needs if he is looking for an absolute neutral?

HottyToddy, That sounds like a good common sense solution.

When you say big bursts, do you mean that you are getting pressure surges that make your hydrometer jump?

Is it possible for you to put the tube under the surface in the mash tun? That way it could act as a dip tube and that might stop the steam from rising? Another way might be to have a one way flapper in a stainless tube.

Lorenzo, We have what you need, but they are not listed on our web site yet. Email me paul@distillery-equipment.com

I have a customer in New Jersey that ordered a parts kit from me for a carbon filter set which included a vacuum pump and trap. He said that he received the design from an expert and that the expert told him that the best results are obtained by having the pump suck the spirit through the carbon instead of pushing it through. He also said that running under vacuum enhanced the filtering process. Does anyone know anything about this type of carbon filtering set up? I am getting ready to research this and do some thorough testing. Is anyone here interested in seeing the results of the testing?