stevea

This is NOT a recommendation - I have no experience with this company, but ... http://sellerscleansteam.com/

It's possible to clog any slurry pipe. You'll find entire texts devoted to 'slurry flow', as the concept is used in mining & mass-transfer. I never suggested it was a bad design, but it's always important to understand the design limitations. At sufficiently low flow rates you will get sedimentation 'sanding' of the solids.

Hey Paul, that's a fantastically priced tube-in-tube, HX. So how exactly is it operated? The 2" inner tube seems to drop ~3+ft over ~40ft length, so that would cause a 50-60 gpm water flow due to gravity. Because of that I assume you pump mash in at the bottom (to avoid airgaps), and water in at the top (for a counterflow). But aren't there airgaps in the water jacket???

Then I've done the impossible ... again (never in a good way). Tubes will clog/wad-up/plug given a sufficient incline and a low enough flow-rate or else on/off pumping. I expect that Paul (and Richard1's) system has a shallow enough incline and high enough flow rate to avoid that. Back when I was fussing with this problem we were using a peristaltic pump, and tho' they can handle some solids in a slurry, they don't like that big wads of particles on the inlet side. Tube-in-tube, like Paul's, has an advantage in that the pump will apply a lot of pressure to any clog/wad. In Richard1's heat-exchanger with the multiple tubes-in-shell, if one tube clogs, the others limit the pressure available to break-up/move the clog.

Actually the larger diameter may be easier to plug!! You want to keep the mash velocity in the tube(s) well above the sedimentation velocity of the solids, and ideally in turbulent, not laminar flow.. The other thing I recently discovered is that vertical & horizontal tubes are harder to plug than tubes on an incline. Civil Engineers have been dealing with 'slurry flow' for a long time. https://giw.updatesfrom.co/which-pipe-design-should-i-avoid-in-my-slurry-pipeline/ What are you all using for grist-in mash pumps?

Why is that SD ? I'm missing the trick.

Safety issues & testosterone contests aside, you can find plenty of wifi controlled relays, but as they require power, none will be a drop-in replacement. You'll need to understand the current and voltage across the switch, choose a compatible relay. Any idea how that switch is wired ?

Reading this (now dated) tale of woe leads me to a few thoughts. The off-flavor was never identified with enough specificity. "Skunky" suggests sulfur compounds, Tim-O-Tees description sounded more like a classical phenolic flavor, acrolein in quantity would certainly be off-putting but unlikely to be described as either "skunky" or "band-aid", 4-VG & 4-VP are phenolics, and in quantity may suggest "band-aid", but there are other phenolic compounds that would sooner cause such flavors. Then there is the long & circular discussion of infection, which are not well evidenced. A half hour with a microscope & a gas-chromatograph would be definitive wrt to these theories. I am inclined to accept Tim's description of phenolic/band-aid flavor. The chances that bacterial infections are so prevalent as to create this flavor reliably despite acceptable sanitation and pitching rates is difficult to accept. Needs labwork, not guesswork.

Why you are willing to risk other's health and our industries credibility over your inability to find a source ? "Didn't know it was bad" isn't an excuse for adding something to the food supply of others. You need to show us your "scientific" source that shows it's safe - not he other way around.

That's very poor reasoning. The quantity and quality of an ethanol extract can't directly relate to smoke from pyrolysis. Juglone is a minor aroma component in Nocino, but they use green italian walnut nuts (Juglans regia), not american black walnut (Juglans nigra) staves. You are comparing apples to baseballs. Further juglone may not be the only toxic agent. Despite your claim, juglone is lethal to mammals in quantity, as the FDA website clearly shows. http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/plantox/detail.cfm?id=27515 links to nih, see the "toxicity" tab. https://chem.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/rn/481-39-0 . No - the worst case scenario is that your customers (or you) end up with fatal allergic reaction, neurological problems or cancer. And all I have to say is that when you fail to understand the toxicity of things you add to any beverage - you are creating a huge liability for yourself as well as the craft distilling industry. There was a case in Canada ~50yrs ago where some brewery killed several dozen customers with such unschooled attempts to improve their beer. You don't get to experiment on your customers, and as we aren't controlled by FDA, there is no shelter that we were following rules. Your attempts to remove juglone (is that the only agent?) with water are unlikely to be effective. Juglone is only slightly soluble in water but very soluble in ethanol, and the ethanol clearly penetrates the wood far better than water. When we are talking about consumables, there is no room for such errors. If it's use is not approved by the FDA and not traditional with your exact materials and use-pattern, you are walking on thin ice. == I've just read some claims that Elias Staley 'whiskey' was stored briefly in toasted hickory barrels pre-prohibition. I say "whiskey" with the exception that current TTB rules require charred oak. So I wouldn't hang my hat on the notion that a pre-prohibition beverage wouldn't contain toxic extracts, but at least it shows some traditional use pattern. Nuff said - but please disclose the product name so reasonable people can avoid it.

K' and don't you assume the TTB won't make more dubious rulings in the future ! Sometimes in your favor. IIRC someone (Cowdery?) noted the Heaven Hill use of "whiskey" on their unaged new-make labels. Someone else (Jack Daniels?) got away with a similar gaffe on a white product too . I think the Chapter4 categories are fine as typical uses of the terms, but IMO the point of the label reqs should be to accurately inform the consumer - to avoid deception. They don't currently do that. Some of those abuses of the definitions (like a 60 second barreling then calling it bourbon) is IMO blatant consumer abuse. The OPs quest to use the "whiskey" term on unaged highly distilled product is similarly dubious - tho' no one should care greatly in a flavored beverage (IMO)

Humulones (the family of alpha acids) have meltng pt ~65C(150F) and boiling point around 550C(1020F) and effectively nil vapor pressure. They aren't going to vapor-distill at all,. Likewise steam distillation (hydrosol) of humulones should be nearly nil. Any that make it up the still are 'sputtered' there. Also they are not very soluble in water (some of the isomers formed in heating are a bit more soluble than the natural form; like ~100ppm vs ~5ppm). FWIW it's well know that early hop additions boil-off the flowery ester&isoprenoid compounds, but the bitterness (humulones, lupulones) remains and actually increases as the boil isomerise the alpha-acids. Brewers make late hop additions and use hop-backs or even dry hopping to regain the hop aroma. I *suspect* much of the gumminess comes from the isoprenoid compounds and esters of short-chain fatty acids - which are abundant in hop flowers. But that sputtered goo isn't unlikely in the lower column. So you have a good idea w/ the gin basket. that's probably the correct place to introduce hops if you want bitterness.. humulones are pretty soluble in ethanol. *But* the attractively bitter humulones vs the coarser tasting lupulones are selectively extracted based on low pH in beer/wort. No such condition in the hot distillate stream. Another alternative to to dry-hop in the tank/barrel ! Personally I would't put hops into a still I liked, but that's me.

My brewing tech background may come of use here - There are numerous compounds in hops that add to flavor and aroma. The main bittering compounds - humulones and beta-lupulones are IMO very unlikely to make it through the still, and as Bluestar says are very likely to foul the plates with gummy residues. However hops also provide esters, and an array of aromatic iso-prenoid compounds that are more likely to pass distillation, but not necessarily likely to re-condense as say 30C. You can separately buy hops bittering and hops aroma extracts. The most complete extractions is performed using liquid CO2. I'd *consider* adding these extracts after distillation, not before. -- There have been claims for decades that hopping wort protects against lacto-bacillus infection, but the evidence is scant, and the effect is at most partial protection.

So yours a product that falls between the cracks ; at 180pf, is too low for neutral spirits, and too high for any TYPE of grain distillate EXCEPT light whiskey, BUT you must store light whiskey in used or uncharred barrels. The CLASS is WHISKEY as TNJustin suggests, except ... The "characteristics generally attributed" may be problematic, since only corn whiskey doesn't require wood, and it requires a lower proof at distillation to retain the corn character. In the US "light whiskey" was generally meant for blending and requires a some limited wood, so AFAICT there are no generally accepted characteristics for this as a separate beverage (tho' there are a few in the market). == You could store it in uncharred or used barrels (no minimum time required) and then lawfully call it "light whiskey". That's a pretty inexpensive approach, and gains you the "light whiskey" label. I don't know about a 5 second rule, but someone (don't recall) has a label proudly states their bourbon is aged in barrel for 60 seconds ! You can label the product source the same as other white dog products, like "unaged corn distillate" or whatever. Somehow Heaven Hills Trybox white dogs used "New Make" in large letters and "whiskey straight from the still" in small letters. If the TTB still buys that you might get "UNaged grain distallate" "light whiskey straight from the still".

I find the Defiant "american single malt/WHISKEY" to be a little deceptive. They appear to use barrels, but also seem to use (charred?) versions of the barrel spirals added to wine barrels. Accelerated Aging: I've tracked some of the accelerated aging schemes. All the big distilleries did a deep-dive into the science after prohibition, but didn't come up w/ anything. Small barrels - right. Apparently Prichard's is successfully using a mix of small & large and transfers to make a good product - but I have few details. Otherwise it's hit&miss. Cleveland Whiskey buys 6month old bourbon from someone (stories vary, but either four roses of mgpi), chops up the barrels and does some sort of pressure technique on it to extract barrel flavor. IMO it tastes like a decent too-young whiskey (w/ congener flavors) masked by a lot of oak flavor. The char & sweetness & caramel part of the flavor & color is good, but it also has a "woodshop oak" raw oak note and a black charry coloration (maybe from iron contact) that it's unlikeable. Terressential uses a sonochemical process to oxidize components faster (imaging a big ultrasonic welder jostling the molecules), and I've only tasted their ChickenCock product. The flavored chicken cock is not interesting to me, but the point is that the alcohol seemed remarkable smooth and lacking in offensive congeners. These guys *MAY* have some useful technology. (you can google-scholar up the patent). I mentioned this to a ChemE involved in the food industry once and he immediately came up with several alternatives that might get the same end. A couple years ago, I sampled all the whitedogs I could get my hands on (universally awful) but I did find that adding a little hydrogen peroxide and waiting a day makes a difference. Seems to clean up and add a little estery aroma. I don't think there is any good means to evade aging. More volatile "bad stuff" selectively evaporates or is trapped in the char, barrel flavors are extracted, and some energetically favorable reactions take place among the secondary components. You might do one of those by alternative means, but balancing the three is magic. Most results are like throwing a steak in the microwave. It might technically be "cooked" but ...

Wikipedia gives Perrier in Ireland made a crude continuous feed for the wash. Stein invented, implemented & patented the first "patent still" in 1828. Coffey, after observing the Stein still, made some substantial practical improvements in an 1830 patent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Column_still Coffey was certainly the first one to take off commercially. It's certainly mass transfer. Cowdery suggested the removal of less-volatile congeners was the point of a thumper and not to increase proof (remove water) tho' proof increases marginally. Your interpretation of the diagram seems wrong. That diagram looks very similar to a smaller 12" continuous unit I discussed w/ Vendome a couple years ago. The "copper 4 tray rectification section on top of beerstill" in the column above the feed represents 4 nominal plates and is sufficient to pull high proof product directly off the column. There's a "column mount copper dephlegmator" at the top. The column is NOT a stripper, it's a conventional continuous whiskey still w/ rectifier over beer still. They called the bit on the bottom-right "copper doubler/thumper with vapor onion". With ..."Option to bypass low wine condenser and send vapor direct to thumper" (not shown) for whiskey use. It can be used feed-though as a thumper, and then they pump some of the excess tank liquid back into the feed stream (also not shown in that diagram). The doubler/thumper it's own own steam feed, and can be used "batch mode" They suggested that's used to make cuts on low wine to produce vodka/gin as high wines.

Can anyone comment - I've read that distilling hopped beers really gums up the still and requires an extensive cleaning after. I'd be more tempted by the gin-basket approach or even adding hop extracts. An ethanol still is a filter and trying to catch two very different chemicals with the same filter seems a fools errand.

So a question. I don't see any reason to consider a doubler or thumper as anything except a additional plate in the column. Does that make sense ? As Cowdrey's note suggests the point is to remove less-volatiles, not primarily to raise the proof. That suggests a rather inefficient plate. In discussions w/ one of the Vendome designers a few years ago, he stated that the proof does increaounds like a poor plate.

It's a shame to see a great thread go a kilter over what appears to be a nomenclature issue. I have great respect for Steve of ASD and what they are doing, and I hope DR continues to post. Also for Joe "dances with stainless" dehner. Of course the Coffey continuous still is a practical implementation of Steins's patent still. This classic still consists of two columns, and "analyser" column and a "rectification" column. The original had a rather large number of plates IIRC (60?). It should be fairly clear (as ASD says) that we can stack the 'rectification' on top of the 'analyser' (adds height, but removes a pump and some piping). In this case it might be useful to call the top part the rectification "section" and the lower part the analyser "section". The dividing point is the feed point where wash enters the column. Carrying out this mental exercise further - it's clear that we can split any still column at any plate/section and make it operate so long as we pump up the liquid reflux from the former 'top' to the former 'bottom', and plumb and insulate the system. So whether it's one column or 5, and whether we split the column at the feed point or somewhere else doesn't seem terribly important to me, tho' any practical design will have issues with this sort of change. I'll suggest that the 'analyser' section is what we would conventionally call a 'beer section' of a column. That is all the plates between the primary feed point and the 'bottoms'. The rectification section retains it's name in NA parlance I think. Also as ASD notes, all the really good info on continuous stills appears in Chemical Engineering sources - the distillers & Vendome etc are pretty tight-lipped. But we can consider more ornate stills that remove 'stuff' (vapor or liquid phase mixtures) at various plates, and that also introduce various feeds at several plates. So this Vendome diagram of a continuous still, shows 15 plates in a beer section and 4 plates in a rectification section (by my terminology). http://alcademics.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553b3da20883401910498634f970c-pi The doubler/thumper appears in the bottom right as an apparently optional step (note the valves between hi/lo wine tankage). One of the configurations I've seen has excess (overflow) liquid from the thumper feeding back into the main column around the feed point !

As a FWIW to a stale thread. I've found papers that show that hydrogen peroxide can be used to remove the chlorine (&chloramines) in municipal water. Removing iron is a bit more difficult. I believe the potable limit is 0.5ppm, and it has a flavor effect well below that. All of the methods involve oxidizing the iron to 'rust' then (optional) filtration. One local municipality simply uses excess chlorine to oxidize iron. RO Reverse osmosis has the disadvantage of creating waste-water proportional to the amount of clean water needed. I understand that common RO units have around a 50% water efficiency (2 gallon in, 1 gallon of nearly pure water, and another gallon w/ concentrated 'bad stuff') but they can go higher efficiency..

Nick - Those are two excellent books, and Piggott is a flavor/food scientist I've been following for several decades (he must be near retirement). My Sci&Tech of Whislkies is a xerox copy from ~15+ years ago (was out of print, maybe still is). Another is the ""Malting & Brewing Science" books wrt beer brewing, but with some overlap. Anyway one think to consider wrtt these British books is thatthey are primarily about malt whiskies (tho' S&ToW discuss the neutral grain spirits used in Scotland for blending )and that give an occasional nod to US & Canadian Whisk[e]ys. IOW they are not very interested in the aromas from raw grain, although you can find a few articles in the BRI. The other thing to note is that their flavor descriptions are European. They can't call a mercaptan "skunky" b/c they don't have skunks (they call it "catty" or similar terms), and they won't describe DMS as "creamed corn" aroma b/c they don't typically eat sweet corn.much (a little more recently) ,so they refer to cabbage and vegetable aromas. Yes DMS can get overpowering and bad, but a lot of lagers have 100ppm, and most whiskies about 1/10th that. You can certainly sense it in some whiskies (new make corn esp). This is the seminal paper on DMS. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1982.tb04101.x/pdf The outline is this. in germinating seeds the amino acid methionine is converted to SMM (for transport). The kilning & drying regime of malt can destroy a lot of the SMM precursor to DMS. SMM is heat labile and converts readily to DMS at modest temperatures (<boiling).. The DMS has a low bp (~38C), but there is a lot of SMM in malt, so it takes an extended boil to drive it all into DMS and off into vapor. Note that in raw grains there is relatively little SMM (tho some) so this is mostly an issue of malt source SMM, not raw grain. The DMS can boil off or can oxidize into DMSO (relatively high bp), but the yeast in anaerobic fermentation have an ion imbalance and have to reduce things in there environment - including the conversion of DMSO back into DMS. Other fermenter bacteria can produce DMS from sulfates & sulfites as well, and some in prodigious quantity. -- There is no direct relationship between DMS and dimethyl-disulfide, dimethyl-trisulfide, dimethyl-tetrasulfide, nor with the various ethyl-sulfide compounds. DMTriS. Is discussed as a component in whiskey flavors, but at ~10-ppm in whiskey and a flavor threshold down around 0.1ppb you simply are not going to get rid of it. It's a part of whiskey. So any finished DMS in your fermenter will appear in the heads, and it isn't abnormal to have quite a bit in new make.

I'm from a brewing & sci background, and lack experience wrt distilling. Your point begs the question. If boiling is unnecessary (and I believe you are correct) then it's unlikely that temps much above the gelatinization temperate are useful. Is 99C any better than 80C ? Gelatinization (as well as pasteurization) is a matter of time and temperature, You might need a bit more time at 80C than 99C, but heating & cooling energy reduction ... I see others dismiss plate heat exchangers out of hand (given the grist) but I wonder if that is accurate. Plate HX are used to chill trubby wort. Are there plate HX available with sufficient clearance to handle grist ? Plate HX several advantages of tube&shell that makes the idea worth considering. Plant source gamma amylase (better known as alpha glucosidase) has peak performance around 45C & pH of 3, so it's mostly gone by the time you get to gelatinization temps of raw grist. You might get some activity on the way up for low gelat temp starches. Limit dextrinase (~60C & pH5.4) is a more credible cause of debranching.

CDEs comments are indeed good, but let me add a twist wrt gelatinization. First point - I am not addressing the issue of 'gums' mostly polymers of pentosan sugars that cause a lot of viscosity in the case of rye, for example. There are two categories of grain starch, amylose and amylopectin. Amylose is mostly 'straight' chain glucose with 1,4 bonds and typically ~300 glucose molecules in length. Amylose is soluble in water and doesn't cause anything like the viscosity problems of amylopectins. I write 'straight' however they are really a spiral (like DNA) and the spiral traps iodine for the iodine starch test. Amylopectin is not a real pectin (does not contain regular terminal methyl groups like fruit pectins), but a single grain starch granule may consist of ~300,000 glucose (up to 1.2mill units) units in a tree structure. The tree consists of segment of amylose (1,4 bonded glucose) typically around 18-22 glucose in length, which then split in a 'Y' with a 1,4 and a 1,6 bonded group. [imagine a 14-15 stage binary tree w/ 20-unit amylose units per segment] .The amylopectic is the stuff that absorbs the water in gelatinization. As the tree unfolds, the very polar water molecules become trapped between the branches of the 'Y' (the glucose hydroxyl groups are the cause). Amylopectin is the stuff that thickens a gravy or a mash as the starch granules swell, expand and trap water. Common grains consist of ~70-80% starch (maize is on the top end, most small grains closer to 70%) and the starch is typically ~25% amylose and ~75% amylopectin. The exception is that "waxy" grains and especially waxy maize can be ~100% amylopectin. So as you cook starch in a water slurry the amylopectin starch begins to unravel and trap water. If there is insufficient water then retrogradation sets in which the internal tangling of the amylopectins. A common example of retrograded starch is stale bread. Another is the 'skin' that forms on wet dough if allowed to dry. The retrograded starch is not susceptible to enzyme or acidic hydrolysis - it's indigestible and a distillers loss. So the practical deal is that w/o enzymes, grain grist may require 10x to 12x the grist mass of water to prevent retrogradation during cooking. That means to prevent retro' you can only add ~2/3rd lb of grist to a gallon of water! The solution to get to ~2lb/gallon is to add a little 'debranching' enzyme to the grain cooker and this can drastically reduce the amount of water needed, as the debranching enzymes cut apart the amylopectin tree and reduce the water trapped. Alpha-amylase is a choice. I can't speak to the proprietary 'visco' enzymes, but they are certainly the right direction to create normal cereal cooking. Enzymes don't directly cause or improve gelatinization (that's a matter of water, heat and pH) but enzymes are necessary for a practical thick cereal cook w/o excessive retrogradation. We should also mention beta-glucanases which assist in clearing the cellulosic "wrapper" from around the starch granule mega-molecules. This is fairly effective in malting, but for raw grists a rest may have some advantage. The starch will gelatinize at temperature in any case, but the glucanas residues can create a gel and add to viscosity.

I assume you are in Ohio from the title. Ohio is a control state. You can get an A3A state permit and serve 4 tasting samples (1/4 oz servings) per person per day w/ an A3A, and you can sell the individual 1.5 liter per day for off-premise consumption only. Even that is a bit shaky wrt law where the TTB does not allow your production to be on same-premise as any retail sales, but apparently a closed door is separate enoug. It's not seamless to customers. To serve regular drinks and cocktails you'll need some sort of D' class permit, and essentially you are operating a bar at that point. Part of the "3 tier system" means that the producer/distributor/retailer are financially separate entities (can't have a tied house). If you've ever been to Party Source in KY (and it's worth a trip), the shop owner is the farther of the distillery owner across the parking lot. That makes it "hands off'" enough I guess. Even brewpubs in Ohio have to have separate ownership for the brewery and pub. Anyway in Ohio you have to ship a pallet to the state warehouse, and the bar would have to order from the state brokers (they aren't really distributors, since the state holds the stock). I don't think what you suggest is possible w/o getting some separate entity to own the bar, but I've seem some really strange things that stretch my understanding of regulation.

Very real if you consider the wholesale prices and availability. I'd be more concerned about the 9 tons on top of the lowest pallet than the storage angle.