nabtastic

The juice is diluted from the mill. A typical (large) roller mill set up will step the cane in hot water bath on its way to the mill (removes dirty n rocks), then its crushed (high pressure = heat), then the bagasse is steeped in hot water before going through the second set of rollers, then steeped and press again. This lowers the starting gravity down to 10 brix or so from as high as 24 brix. Bakers should still give you a quick ferment though.

it's probably floc but could be beta-sitosterols from the wood as well. I've filtered to 1 micron and still had issues with it but only in barrel aging. Chill filtering will work but you'll alter the flavor (all filtration will alter the flavor profile regardless of hype). Racking might lessen the issue if you cold crash it - which is the same principal behind chill filtering. It's most likely floc from fatty acids. I don't know for certian but I'd bet this is at least partially the reason some of the established distilleries carbon filter before and after aging. Since we do single-pass spirit runs I'm experimenting with condenser hygiene which will be super annoying if it ends up "solving" our issue since I have to dismantle the still to clean it.

No doubt that you dont need a degree (I dont have a (relevant) degree and I like to think my hooch is good..) but the "big boys" definitely do. MGP probably wouldn't hire me just yet to take over their Rye program... Regardless of what you read in a text book, hands on is necessary (imho) for context.

Oooh gotcha. My apologies

Our brand manager has a master's in Chemistry but found his calling bartending, becoming one of the best known and respected mixoligist out here before getting into rhum. For some people it's more important to enjoy what they're doing than to make less money doing something they hate. I also expect there to be a lot of chemist and engineering people in the industry given that it's the very fundamentals of what we do. Moonshiner's may not need a chemical engineering background to make hooch but tweaker's don't need a *chemistry* degree to make meth either. Chalk it up to one's own standards, I suppose..

That's added to the wish list..

No separate collection for fusel oils but they do vent (although I doubt rectification is high enough to matter). I think they must be fairly in efficient in terms of alcohol recovery. I also ran across a company that was doing double distillation in traditional armagnac stills for young spirits, which I had thought was unheard of.

Oh I gotcha, I think this is the classic car of pasteurized v sterilized. Follow up question, given lactic acids positive contribution to mouthfeel, do you foresee distilleries intentionally bringing in a malo-lactic ferment into the program? (Idk enough about wine to know how long that step normally takes)...or am I completely off base?

Or the majority of Scotch whisky. Buying, aging, blending, treating - what have you - is not wrong unless you misrepresent the product. Blending is a true art. Nobody cares where they get their fix from as long as they don't feel duped in the process. Do I care that a corvette is only "mostly made" in America? No. Because it's fast and sexy and I'd pay a premium to not be in a Prius (which is also largely made in America but I digress...). Just don't add water and claim it's "local". Customers care about taste and honesty.

apparently lysozymes (gram - ) and celloferm work well, just fyi

Not trying to start a rap-battle here, but wouldn't the actual process of mashing count as pasteurization? flash pasteurizing is 15 seconds at 160 for juices I believe... obviously that doesn't change the fact that lacto can be practically epidemic in open ferments

has anybody came across an armagnac still being produced? Anyone have experience using one?

just trolling I assume..

It's just a piece of leather.. check out a local supplier and cut it yourself. I no longer have a hoga (new employer) but it took me a couple tries to get our replacement. He actually recommended that I cut my own but sent me a replacement anyway. You may be able to buy a flat gasket and use an adhesive to attach it to the door as someone previously mentioned.

super old thread but figured I could throw in an answer: 1) cognac is distilled in a fairly simple pot still with a wash pre-heater. It's double distillation is similar to that of whisk(e)y else where in the world...brief heads removal, collect hearts and redistill. Armagnac is basically a modified analyzer column. The wash is preheated in the spirit condenser, which flows into the upper trays ( a few below the partial condenser/dephleg), and drops down through the column where it comes in contact with a series of trays and steam before being stripped of alcohol and washing out the bottom of the column. Cognac is batch distillation, armagnac is continuous, but with low rectification levels thus the higher congener (flavor) profiles 2) it's probably distilled 4x before it gets to Tito's and then they distill it the final time hahahahaha (reference the fifth generation lawsuits floating around...) 3) That depends on your spirit run, style of spirit, etc but in my opinion, you should pull heads on every run to some degree. destroy the foreshots (early heads) and recycle the rest into your low wine run. Fancy continuous stills vent the most volatile components or de-methylate them.

well those are certainly pricey. It would be super handy though. We fill by weight w an intrinsically safe scale by Arlyn. Gotta keep an eye towards the end though - 1# difference can mean a spill. As for food grade - I can't speak to the Huskey that's mentioned above but most nozzles have aluminum in them which doesn't play well with ethanol. There are a few out there made specifically for booze though. I imagine that's where this Huskey came from. Forklifts need to be XP in the distillery (EX for electric). I'm betting that they just want to know that you've taken safety into consideration and want to see a plan so that they can wipe their hands clean in a unfortunate event.

Yes! This is exactly what I'm looking for. Have you used this before or are you just better at Google than I am? Lol Thanks. I'll add that to the procurement list and let y'all know how it goes.

Anybody have recommendations on purchasing kits to test for YAN? I'm looking to test in-house levels of YAN in our fresh sugarcane juice. I know it will vary by field, variety, harvest times, time since last fertilization, etc. I'm sending off for HPLC to establish a baseline but I'd like to get an idea of each field's N levels. I'm looking for solutions under $1k which I suppose would include sending off for lab testing.. This assay kit is where I'm at so far. Thanks!

FinishedRye - talk to some freight forwarders and get shipping quotes/estimates. shop around as prices will vary considerably. It may be beneficial for you to buy bulk spirits in totes or larger and ship barrels separately. An empty 53gal weighs 110#. Some will stack 8, most will stack 4 to a pallet. Filled barrel should be #500+ as mentioned previously.

sadly just saw this post but I'm curious as to the responses as well. Best of luck to you.

I don't follow where you going with that

https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/ChemicalContaminants/ucm078546.htm DAP and urea should not be used in the same yeast nutrient mixture. I have not (knowingly) purchased any blends but if you know of some please let us know to prevent this issue. Most of the country's I've looked at exporting to will require a destructive test that will include testing for EC, just fyi.

urea is a precursor to ethyl carbamate, a known carcinogen. you can boil bakers yeast (as the homedistiller forum suggest, yeast hulls don't provide nitrogen but thats also not the point of using hulls) for amino acids. DAP is also better than urea because it has a N base (diammonium) and P (phosphate), the two macros that you'll likely be deficient in. You need to ensure that all of the nutrients (or at least the DAP addition) is metabolized before the finish of fermentation because residual N will affect flavor. This is one of the reasons why you add at the beginning of fermentation or after 1/3 of the sugars have been depleted. For my current use, I add it at the start of fermentation and after 12-16 hrs depending on ferment speed and lag time - but I'm doing fresh pressed sugarcane (agricole-style) which is an entirely different beast than most of y'all

remember that brewers use barley (almost) exclusively, so if you aren't doing a pure malt wash then the rules don't necessarily apply. If you aren't having fermentation issues then carry on. If you are, follow Blackheart and add go-ferm (although I think that's specifically for rehydration benefits), fermaid k (or ferm-O). Chances are you'll benefit from one of the nutrients whether its faster ferments or just a cleaner ferment. Don't add urea though.

yeast need o2 for building their cell walls as sterols (thus sterols can be used directly although its not be proven practical on a commercial level to my knowledge). Yeast will consume sugar, oxygen, and most available nutrients during growth. It will also produce alcohol provided there is more than 2g/L available in the wort - it just does it very inefficiently and simultaneous with reproduction. The notion that yeast cannot produce alcohol under aerobic conditions isn't exactly right, it will, but it'll only produce small amounts of alcohol poorly. I believe it's 8ppm o2 in wort that is the maximum level required. in response to other posts: commercial enzymes should be able to reduce all starches completely and have very different pH and temp max (and optimal) levels than what barley itself has. They aren't made from barley (a. niger is commonly used) and often have more than one base source. You'll have one or more of the following: gluocoamylase (amyloglucosidase) reduces to glucose, alpha-amylase, pullulanse (limit dextrin - reduces "non-fermentables"), proteinases (breaks down protein), glucanases (breaks down glucans) corn (typical dent corn, other varieties will vary) has 72% starch on a dry weight basis (400 lpa/ton - presumably continuous distillation and with exogenous enzymes used) LPA- liters pure alcohol soft winter Wheat - 69% starch DWB Rye - 68% starch DWB Barley - 65% DWB basically, barley - if not malted (malting uses some available starches) gives you the least potential alcohol of the 4 listed.