whiskeytango

Canola. Its cheap and smells like French fries.  

So sort of theoretical here I dont want to get into any of the cost associated with or accrual practicality of this just the facts of how it works. 

I know that the temp fluctuations in a rick house cause the liquid to be forced into the barrel and drawn out and that affect aging. 
 My main questions are 

1. Is there a time associated with this. As in does it need to be cold for 3 months then heat up slowly and hot for 3 or could you force cycle this in a week as long as the liquid had a chance to change temp since that will be much slower to change than just air temp? 

2. What king of temp swing is optimal is there one?  If you could cool to 35 degrees then heat to 100 is that way more efficient than a 50 to 80 swing?  

Yes.  We have one that we use to move neutral spirit to the tank to macerate our gin and one that we use to move the gin to the tank to proof down so yeah 190 down should be fine 

I have a couple little snapper pumps I use daily they are great little units for the money. Yes be sure to ground them 

1 hour ago, Golden Beaver Distillery said:

So our still came with some healthy paddles and a simple on and off controller.

If we ran still 75% full and the agitator on (full), we would generate a pressure differential keeping the return drain from working correctly.

We replaced the controller with an AC drive allowing us set a slower agitation rate and now the drain works correctly.

I have seen in some instances the direction  the agitator runs actually pushes mash up into the dip tube and when the motor is reversed its a non issue.  No idea if this is what happened but its worth a try.  You can usually reverse those motors by swiping the polarity on them. 

7 hours ago, Thatch said:

Hello Velten and Welcome,

The short answer is, you will have to move the box.  This article should be very informative.  Although it is based on US codes, it is likely that Zambia's are similar.  The only one who can decide for certain is your local fire marshall.

https://proof33.com/everything-distillers-need-to-know-about-explosion-proofing-and-the-electric-sombrero-of-death/#:~:text=What Is the Sombrero of,codes as well as OSHA.

Unless I read this totally wrong. This setup will be in Zambia not sure that they give two cents about OSHA or any other American code.  Basically its going to be up to whoever their local authority is and the comfort level of the person operation the equipment 

10 hours ago, meerkat said:

I hope that @robowop will give some feedback here on his results, but I did receive a DM from him saying that the column is no longer flooding although the leaking agitator seal still needs repair.
 
I understand that he made changes external to the column only. @whiskeytango noted that a possible cause of the flooding could be the downcomer from the bottom tray and certainly in my experience the downcomers are far and away the largest cause of internal problems in a column. But it seems that robowop was lucky here and did not need to make internal changes.

Glad its working,   and that it was an external fix. Without a sight glass in the bottom of the column the downcomers are such a bitch to get to 

Hey OP can you post if the fixes worked?

We thought about going the "local" route but the reality is the jumper communis that grows in the US is rarely if ever good.  Now I am sure someone will do the old add one local harvested berry into their recipe and say they use a local sourced juniper.  Its all marking after all..  

The biggest problem with local sourced in my eyes is just the business model.   Unless you want to be in the juniper picking business your going to spend tons of time picking.  We can routinely go thought 50-100 lbs in a month and picking that would suck.   

3 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said:

I would imagine they are exactly what you want to compare to.

My thoughts exactly.  
 

If you don’t think they are who you should look at for numbers I’d ask yourself why?  Are they only producing less popular spirit types? Do they only sell from this location no distribution?  Things like that and why do you think you will be different 

1 minute ago, robowop said:

Hey thanks for the reply - some additional details:

they aren't draining properly - after equalizing the plates under full reflux, the bottom plates (bottom 2 to 3) will fill entirely.  I can only correct this slightly by taking reflux off all together.

It's as if they aren't able to drain to the pot quick enough

Send me a picture of the drain tube that goes from the bottom plate to the collection area below where it drains back to the pot. Im betting I have about a 14$ solution (might be more in Canada lol)

You say plates flooding.  But how give more specific info.  For vodka they are supposed to flood.  I assume you mean more that they are not draining properly then filling up? 

If so where top of column bottom of column?  How much how fast?  Just more detailed info 

Get you one of these,  https://www.rancoetc.com/ranco-etc-111000-000-digital-temperature-controller

super easy to use and program 

The problem with any focus group (professional tasters or just off the street) is that everyone has an opinion.  Im in the camp of make something you like and stand by it.  If your relying on focus groups to drive your profile your going to be all over the place trying to pick something.   

We ran regular old canola oil for years only problem was it always smelled like we were making French fries.  Didn’t effect anything but damn I was hungry a lot 

Seems to me the built in racks would be a pain in the a$$.  With my luck I would always need the first barrel on the rack so I’d have to move all the ones in front 

How much are they charging?  

Onbatch is  $200 p month.  Its ok but defining has plenty of bugs and needs a few features added that would dramatically increase functionality  

 Im my opinion anyway 

I had to get some glass in 6 packs and then re package them into 12's so I have a 500-600 6 pack boxes if anyone wants them pay shipping. Hit me up for any questions 

I had to get some glass in 6 packs and then re package them into 12's so I have a 500-600 6 pack boxes if anyone wants them pay shipping. Hit me up for any questions 

What's it made out of?
 

2 " id and about 3/4" of shell on the outside of that for glycol 

We done. We haver farmers come pick up our spent mash to feed to livestock. So we are not discharging anything down the drain. 

On 8/6/2020 at 6:21 PM, Silk City Distillers said:

If a bottle of Arak falls off the shelf, does anyone care?

We all know the answer but More importantly does it make a sound? 

Globes are great for fine control but they are kind of a pain when starting up and you want a lot of steam to the kettle to quickly heat it up.  Do some sort of bypass with a ball valve so you can blast it in the beginning then close it so you can fine tune the globe.  Otherwise your just opening and closing the globe all the time 

What are you looking for?  How many are you going to run at a time? You want them on a roll or a sheet?  Do you want them to be able too do custom shapes or are you planing on printing standard shapes?

How much experience do you haver with photoshop and AI?