MG Thermal Consulting

Hope our PM's have helped you get your mashes cooled!

On 9/1/2017 at 7:34 AM, Silk City Distillers said:

Recommend going back to the still.  With the vodka, run it again, this is easy, all 24 plates.  If the intention for your rum is white, you can redistill as well, but only run through your short column (4).  In both cases, your focus is going to be on the tail cut.  This is entirely based on your comment of visible clouding, which you should not be seeing.  This is making me think that carbon will *not* be efficient here, as you'll quickly overwhelm the adsorption capacity, and waste a lot of carbon to get where you are wanting to go.

Chill filtration, there's not a whole lot out there for the craft market, most I've seen have cobbled together their own systems out of jacket tanks, freezer chests, plate and frame filters, etc.  As far as something turnkey you can just ring up and order?  I've never seen one.  I'd love to see something work with a smaller 10" Code-7 style filter housing, as opposed to trying to run a smaller volume of spirit through a gigantic plate and frame, losing 25% of my spirit volume in the process.

Getting ready to supply filtration packages, with/without chill filtering.  The fellow doing the engineering on all this is getting a patent, so not much on paper right now.

Right now, paying $8,000 for a chiller and another $2,500 for the filtering side is somewhat of a budget.  I am looking at using a glycol feed from my distilling chiller and the filtering package as an option. The chiller has more cost for the PLC to recognise the C.F. need and start that process which is $1,000, but the downside is there is a lot of interdependency.  I do sell off my vendors reman small chillers and cancellations to mitigate the chiller cost. Hope to get this onboard by years end.

According to a manufacturer of the "activated" carbon, the activation takes place around 32F product temperature.

I have supplied a rum producer a "dual setting" chiller, glycol settings: for 45F for production, 25F for chilling product prior to chill filtration.

I have a "reman" chiller in stock that would fit this system, 230/3/60,with 90 day parts warranty.

Cash sale.

Email me is you need a cooling system to use with this.

Mike

Sev,

If you need any replacing on the cooling end, give me a shout.

The treatment can vary from ozone, traditional chemical to glycol (glycol %needs to be 30% of else it will aid in biological growth.

I have a client who is transferring water from a couple large tanks, equalizing them if necessary, using hot water from mash cooling for heating ends and the makeup city water to temper the cold water tank to lessen the heat load on his chiller.  Much like Paul's concept.

Whenever able, I like to place a small glycol loop with an isolation to chill cold water tanks from cold night-winter air cutting down chiller usage for all winter.  I am looking to add a heat reclaim chiller to this loop as well to make hot water up to 170F, shedding off max use for boiler load.  These paybacks vary from one to 4 years. Higher temperature refrigerants will make the maximum reclaim temperature close to 190F.

Mike

Class I Div 2 industrial users have gone to pressure positive inert gas purge systems go air cannot leak into panel and cause a spark and explosion.

Last one I quoted, an electrician was doing work on the substation about 75 yards away from the plant where they were going to put the chiller to avoid cost....well a garage door was opened at the plant resulting in gas moving to the substation causing an explosion and fire that killed the electrician and put the company permanently out of business.

Never underestimate.

I can supply you with a heat reclaim chiller, making 170F hot glycol off the chiller and use the heat on various heat heat exchange devices needing heat, but then that would be an overkill.  Rube Goldberg the heck out of it:):)

If you're using a central cooling system and it doesn't have a cooling jacket, you could wrap a mess of pex tubing around it and run a chilled water return line from your still and warm it up

Used to travel IN when I repped in Chi-town after going to college in N.IN.

I am placing a cooling system in N Chi suburbs and have some around Indianapolis, too.

Don't hesitate to give me a ring if you have cooling questions.

Mike G

Was reading one of those posts on Facebook and was wondering, but they can use shells for lots of things but they do make ethanol for gasoline additive from it.

Has anyone ever tried to make beer or spirits form crushed almond shells???

I figure someone from Cali would know.

I may be able to get a 2 HP unit from someone who wound up not using it.  I believe it would be in the $3,000 range tho'.

I'll give him a call and see if he decided to keep it or not.

Also a 16 ton remote condenser split, but it's 460/3/60 unused.

A booster chiller will work if configured properly. 

I have a couple 5 HP chillers and a 4 HP, all either factory reconditioned or new, customer cancellations.

Prices vary between $7k and $8K plus freight.  All are 230/3/60 and one is located at a customer's location in N.CA.

Prices do not include freight.

Jordan, I work with distillers on cooling system design, give me a call if you have time to talk.

Mike G 678-773-2794

Seems to be a more common way to for higher production srt ups is to store product in a jacketed tank during the week, chill during weekend and filter it out next day in.

I have chillers that be turned down to 25F for that purpose and reset for 45F for weekly production.

I have a rum producer that does the chilling similarly, and it all seems to work out well for him.

Great, just kinda keep watch on your well level, not so much for still runs as mash cooling, where I've had customers that have had their wells running dry.

If necessary, you can fill up totes and get a small chiller and run it down to colder than 49F and recirculate it and when your done, use the water for heating or mash fills.

Good luck!

Good luck on your next steps!!  let me know if you have any cooling questions!

Nab,

How big is your chiller? 20 HP?

Things are picking up! Busy Spring and summer:)

Hey, I went to college at Tri-State (now Trine) in Angola & went all over NW In when I worked out of Chicago.

Shipping a distillery cooling system to Chicago in a few months.

Welcome and contact me if you have questions on chillers and boilers.

Good Luck!

Chilling fermenters for wine is so much different than distillery loads, of which a small part is the fermenter load.

The mash cooking or stripping loads are the largest and would need over triple the size to satisfy the cooling without a reservoir, if the heat didn't burn up the refrigeration compressors first.

Probably be cheaper finding a walk in cooler and putting the fermenter into it.

Like Paul said, if you have cooold well water, you could do it that way.

Also, the product needs to be chilled to activate the carbon.