Telluride

I'm sure people have thought of this, but has anyone tried what the wine industry does and just line the walls of a fermenter with charred oak? It seems like you could match or increase the surface area to dictate time and extraction rates and im sure its got to be cheaper and utilize less space. Space comes at a premium where I live

Hey guys, we doubled in size on all of our fermenters, so i got a bigger mash tun. My starter mash tun is for sale, it is built on VC open top fermenter. I sized it to do 125 gallon mashes, my marks are there already for a 2lbs per gallon ratio. It has a false bottom, stand and lid. I used the racking arm to inject steam. Needless to say it has worked very well. The tanks themselves go for about $1200 and a false bottom is going to run you another $300. The stand i made out of 2x4's. Pm me for any questions or interest. This tun is located in Telluride, CO 81435 to figure out a freight quote. I apologize in advance if it takes me a couple days to respond, its elk hunting season and many days i am out guiding or looking to fill my freezer for my family. Thanks! Abbott Telluride Distilling Company

Just switched to a mini bain marie at the bottom of the column and it works a lot better. I welded a 2" stainless pipe thats capped off to the 4" to 2" reducer and put the element and oil into that. I'm getting foamin a third the way up the column. It wouldn't be noticed if i had a copper or stainless column but with the glass i can see it, it never gets higher but is still there. Anyone see this as a problem? Joe?

I think in a distillery class i took they said a chain link fence worked to separate.

If i remember correctly you need to separate the two spaces. Personally i would just try to rent the space next to him. We are next to a brewery, although we dont use any beer from them, its nice because people stop by both places when they go to one.

I don't have any problem using the same pricing for both, I know its a little different though and I don't want to upset one or the other.

I've spent many years as a liquor buyer for bars, I know that our pricing was always higher than what a liquor store paid for the same bottle. Many times I would step into a liquor store and find the bottle cheaper than what the distributor charged me, although due to our state laws(which was the same for Colorado and Wisconsin) we could only spend $500 a year as a bar for alcoholic products that weren't from a distributor, limiting us to use that alottment for those moments that we ran out on a friday and had to go grab something for the weekend. So my question here is what is the difference in percentage from what you charge a liquor store to what you charge a bar/restaurant? Say if my bottle wholesales to a liquor store at $25 for a $35 retail bottle(all of my liquor stores use a 40% markup), would you increase it 20% and charge a bar/restaurant $30 at wholesale, or would you go higher, lower or stay the same across the board? I am looking to jump on a mini sales tour in my town next week to catch our last two big festivals(Telluride Film Fest and Telluride Blues and Brews). Just a note we are self distributing. Thanks! ~Abbott

I'm glad this has turned into a discussion and away from a sales pitch where we can throw around all of our ideas. Jheising, elements arent very expensive, but time is and holding up my 3000 liter fermenter to let the continuous still work its magic for 8 days just wont work, it would be quicker to do 6 strip runs and 2 spirit runs on my 500 liter still. It does bring up a good issue however, where the immersion heater should be periodically checked. I would however think that a mineral buildup would be similar to one in a hot water tank, do you notice off flavors in your hot water tap at home? I would also think the efficiency would be easily noticed, such as my temp and psi werent getting to normal that my needle valve allows. I'm thinking that I'll just add the heaters to the calender of when I clean my inline water heaters that i use in lew of a HLT. Joe, i like the idea of a mini oil bath, or even convert my existing steam to a recirculating style through my bottom heat exchanger as you had hinted at before. Joe, do you have any problems with scorching grains, the oil bath does bring it to a larger surface area, but still relatively small in comparison to the amount of heat built up. This was the whole reason to my use of steam injection.

To fill my full column was quoted $6k i kinda laughed then called my pops(engineer) in which we came up with the dished plates idea, if anything i would use ceramic rings then add a copper catalyzer in the vapor path after the mash had entered, such as right before the condensers

My element is run off of a PID, but i dont think it ever ends up turning off, next time i run it i'll check how many amps im drawing off of it. The problem i see with the band heater is a much larger loss in energy, so the actual mash/beer/wine is seeing only half of that actual heat. If anything i would maybe try to run what joe d has suggested, a steam system in a continuos loop with a heat exchanger to heat the entered mash, i wont be testing this, though i would appreciate someone else to chime in who has or wants to test this.

So at 4 gph its gonna take you 8 days to strip out 768 gallons, thats too slow, I'm running around 1 gpm, but that would be the difference between a band heater and steam

I believe that particular picture is from when they were set up in silverton, but i could be wrong

Pm me your email

So 5500 watt and not 1500? I looked at copper raschig rings and they were coming in at a couple thousand dollars to fill the column, which is why we went with dished plates, try them out, it probably slows it down more than raschig rings, depends how big the column is though, keep us updated!

Still dragon supplies them, they are labeled as torpedo tops.

That is Montanya Rum's still. It is made by iberian copper, copper-alembic.com. What you are seeing is the drain lines that are plumbed together using simple hardware store plumbing items. Just so we are aware, the dephlagmater looking disk is sold as a refining lentil, it does work well, but even with extensive cleaning, flavors between spirits carry over. So as montanyas makes only rum, it doesnt effect them. I switched to a flute after a while and ended up purchasing a 500 liter flute styled setup when going legal. Heres the basic operation of the cooling lines: Cooling water gets tee'd, one side goes to the bottom of the condesor bucket, the other side goes to the refining lentil. Both of which should have a needle valve otherwise you will waste water and probably force too much reflux. A trickle of water easily got me 90%. In the refining lentil you will want to place a rag or towel on top, cut to the size of top of the lentil. I also tee'd and looped tubing around the top tube with holes to spray the entire top of the lentil. The hot wasted water appears to also be tee'd in this setup, and it looks like they added an additional needle valve from the lentil effectively pooling water on top. I never did this, I forced enough reflux with no needle valve on the exiting water from the lentil. Either way it is not necessary to tee the waste waters together if you are just exiting to a drain. Gravity does the work as long as the hot water leaving the cooling bucket comes from the top. All I would say is dont over think this, its simple plumbing and not hard to do by any means, and really only a hardware store trip away.

So you are saying creating a closed steam system with reboiling capabilities and no steam entering the column, makes sense, ill give it a whirl. What kind of psi/temps do you have on your "steam thermo siphoned system"?

You could hook up a simple steam generator and clean it that way, i posted an economical way to build a simple steam generator on the continuous still thread

Update: Turned it on today, first time the steam generator got flooded due to the float switch working too rapidly with the rapid boiling in the water. Drained and turned the needle valve to minimal flow so only a little water would go in with the rapid sensing the switch would make upon the solenoid valve. Called the engineer(my pops) and we decided we need to route in a water reservoir that would house the switch and valve. Fortunately I had a bunch of parts sitting around to build a reservoir using: 1x torpedo tee 1x short 4x4x2 bubble tee 1x 4x2 triclamp reducer 4x 2" triclamp to 1/2" npt 4x 1/2" npt to 3/8" flare Some 3/8" soft copper tubing The reservoir held at a non boiling temp for over an hour(telling me we could potentially crank this up to a higher temp and pressure of steam to allow for a higher flow rate of beer/wine to be stripped) and kept the water level perfect. At the top of the column on the still i was reading over 200 degrees, I was getting 15psi of steam at 250, with no problem and the system had reached its equilibrium. I dont expect any problem when i start pushing beer and wine through it, but i will update that when i return from vacation. So far i am very pleased and believe this design should fulfill the need for an economical steam stripper in the micro distilling industry.

The parts that follow those two items you listed are the components to build the two items you listed

I've been cross posting on the SD forum, I forgot to add this: So my father's engineering firm designs numerous types of equipment like this for farm ethanol fuel production, steam stripping of wastewater and for pulling bio fuels from waste water to run turbines, lots of green energy projects. I wanted a minimal reflux steam stripping still that can handle grain on distillation, so I got together with a group of his engineers and put together this system built off of modular parts rather than contracting out a bunch of tig welding. I basically wanted to design and build something that could help out the rest of the micro distiller industry. Theres a couple guys building systems very similar to this, most of which have quite a bit of reflux, which i didnt want, the guys who make these are also charging around $10k. I wanted to give an affordable option to the industry as this can be put together for less than a third of that price, ill put together a build list and price it out. Im the kind of guy that likes to share knowledge, ill make enough money off the booze i make in my tourist town. Also my numbers on this system are vastly different than most as this system is at 9500' above sea level, my temps in the boiling of ethanol and psi vs temp of steam are so different that its going to take a entire different set of trials to get this dialed at sea level, I believe the biggest difference would be that the flow of beer that this system can handle at sea level is less, my steam generator can handle a larger psi at my elevation compared to someone at sea level, and ethanol requires a lower temp for distillation at my elevation, hopefully someone that lives at a normal elevation will build one and we can compare numbers.

I'll get a video, but it might be a couple weeks, I am going to head to wisconsin to drink beer and eat cheese curds, anyways, here is a breakdown of parts: Steam Generator Controller $261.20 (tax and shipping not included) Auber PID Controller SYL-2352 $46.50 Auber Enclosure Box W/ 40 amp Heat Sink B252015 $49.90 Auber 25 Amp SSR MGR-1D4825 $15.00 Auber Maintained Pushbutton Switch Green SW12 $7.98 3 x Auber Selector Switch 2 Position Maintained 2NO SW4 3 x $5.99 = $17.97 3 x Auber LED Indicator Green IND1 3 x $3.45 = $10.35 Auber Din Rail Mounted Circuit Breaker UL1077 2 Pole 25 amp $19.80 Auber Din Rail DINR $2.00 2 x Auber Leviton Round 120V Socket 5258SS 2 x $7.50 = $15.00 Auber Leviton Round 240V Plug L6-30P $14.80 Auber Leviton Round 240V Socket L6-30R $16.90 5 Feet 10/2 Stranded Power Supply Cord ~ $5.00 3 Pole Power Distribution Block Ebay ~ $20.00 Various Gauge and Colored THHN Wire ~ $20.00 Steam Generator $549.01 (tax and shipping not included) SD Element Guard Kit $36.00 SD 4" - 2" Concentric Reducer $32.00 SD 4" x 12" Triclamp Pipe $60.00 SD 4" x 4" x 2" Reduced Height Bubble Tee $50.00 SD 4" x 2" x 2" Torpedo Top $50.00 3 x SD 4" Clamp 3 x $11.00 = $33.00 3 x SD 4" Gasket 3 x $1.00 = $3.00 4 x SD 2" Clamp 4 x $6.50 = $26.00 4 x SD 2" Gasket 4 x $.50 = $2.00 SD 2" End Cap $4.25 2 x BrewersHardware 2" Triclamp to 1/2" MPT 2 x $15.00 = $30.00 1/2" NC Solenoid Valve 120VAC Ebay Seller Valvesforprojects $47.95 Auber Liquid Level Control Switch FSW1 $10.97 2 x Hardware Store 8' 16/2 Power Supply Cord with 120V Plug 2 x $5.50 = $11.00 Camco 5500W Element $28.38 1/2" NPT Stainless Cross $4.40 Auber RTD Sensor w/ 8' Braided Cable PT100-L601/2NPT $45.35 1/4" FPT FPT MPT Tee $6.05 1/2" MPT - 1/4" FPT reducer $2.30 1/2" MPT - 1/4" MPT reducer $2.30 25 PSI Pop off Valve Ebay $11.90 0-30PSI Pressure Gauge Ebay $22.26 1/4" FPT High Pressure Needle Valve Ebay $27.90 1/4" MPT to 3/8" Flare Hardware Store $2.00 Stripping Column $1530.25 (tax and shipping not included) SD 4" Sight Tower $140.00 2 x SD Torpedo Top 2 x $50.00 = $100.00 SD 2" 180 Bend $35.00 SD 2" Regular Product Shotgun Condenser 2 x $110.00 = $220.00 SD 2" Long Product Shotgun Condenser $135.00 SD Modular Parrot Kit $207.50 7 x 2" SD Clamp 7 x $6.50 = $45.50 7 x 2" SD Gasket 7 x $.50 = $3.50 2 x 4" SD Clamp 2 x $11.00 = $22.00 2 x 4" SD Gasket 2 x $1.00 = $2.00 3 x BrewersHardware 2" Triclamp to 1/2" FPT 3 x $15.00 = $45.00 Scitech Glass 4.5" Heavy Wall Pyrex Tubing $160.00 6 x Threaded Zinc Rod of 52" with Nuts ~ $15.00 2 x Threaded Stainless Rod with Nuts ~ $20.00 6 x 3/8" Flare Fittings ~ $12.00 3/8" Soft Copper Tubing 25' $25.00 26 Plates CNC'd by Ebay Seller automation248 $252.00 2 x SD Push Connect 3/8" MPT 2 x $3.00 = $6.00 SD Push Connect 1/2" MPT $4.00 SD Push Connect Hose $20.00 SD Push Connect Y $2.25 3 x SD Push Connect Needle Valve 3 x $11.50 = $34.50 2 x SD Push Connect ThermoTee 2 x $12.00 = $24.00 8020 Extruded Aluminum Stand ~ $400.00(I had the stuff sitting around from a previous project) Cole Parmer Masterflex Peristaltic Pump with Hose ~ $700.00 (used on ebay, hose new from CP) Total Cost $3440.46 You could do all of this differently for a few items, such as using raschig rings instead of dished copper plates. You could also use Triclamp Pipe instead of a sight tower. You could use 2 x 4's for a stand to cut down on costs. A lot of this stuff I had lying around, and a couple of the prices are estimations. In total it took about 40 hours of design time, which was free utilizing a couple engineers at my pops engineering firm, but had I paid I would guess $10-20k, and about 20 hours to assemble. The reason I built this is I have immersion water heater elements on my 500 liter SD 8" still and I only wanted to put low wines into the still with those elements. This also drastically cuts down on time, I can strip out 3000 liters of beer/wine with very little work, and do 2 runs in my 500 liter still rather than 6 runs of unstripped beer/wine. Have fun guys, I will post detailed pictures later today... possibly.

Alright folks, here is a steam stripper complete, it uses mostly triclamp parts sourced from stilldragon.com, brewers hardware, auberins.com, and a couple ebay sources parts as well as several trips to the hardware store. Basically in a nut shell there are 3 condenser/heat exchangers, two of which are used to preheat the beer before it enters the top of the still, first is in the vapor path acting as a condenser, and the next is in the bottom of the still utilizing the hot spent beer, then it enters on the top. A perstaltic pump is what is used to dial the exact amount of beer entering the still. There is an additional condensor to knock out any additional vapors. The steam generator was the hardest to figure out, it has a solenoid valve controlled by a level switch sourced from auber. All of the parts are rated to 265 f, so at my altitude comes to about 25 psi, most altitudes are less. The plates i use are 26 dished plates, 13 x 3" dishes and 13 x 4" to 2" doughnuts that are dished as well, theres a great guy on ebay that will cnc them exactly to what you want, just ebay copper dephlagmater plates. Raschig rings will work perfectly fine. The glass tube came from sci tech glass. Ill try to get a full build list and better pictures soon. I dont want to take any liability in building these for people, so take all of this as a guide rather than a plan to build your own steam stripper, and dont ask me to build you one.

Yup just noticed that

Wow, you guys are really stepping up your game, nice work hillbilly stills!