Silk City Distillers

Where the heck do you keep finding this stuff?

Hielscher makes larger scale sanitary processors, they are very expensive. 

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I used a large high power ultrasonic bath.

3 way triangle test works like this - you put three samples in front of the subject.  2 of the samples are Liquid A, 1 of the samples is Liquid B (and vice versa, at random).  You ask the subject to pick out the sample that's different.  You compare that against what you might expect if someone was just picking at random.  Statistically, it becomes very easy to tell if the subject can actually distinguish any difference at all in a repeatable/reliable way (better than chance).  You then ask the simple question, do you like it, better or worse?

The problem with simple A/B tasting, is that people are coming in expecting a difference, they might have a preference for one or the other, or just be guessing.  Thus, the triangle test, is the ultimate tool to judge if people can really tell a difference, and what that difference is.  If they can't pick out the one that's different, it's not really so different?

For the sonicated vs unsonicated samples, the subjects were able to select the outlier in a way that was better than pure chance, BUT, people were mixed as to better or worse.  Interesting that there is a difference, disappointing that it's not necessarily beneficial.  Maybe a far larger sample size and better procedure control is necessary (We're a distillery, not a lab or product testing institute).

My hypothesis for the temporary nature of this has more to do with ultrasonic degassing of the spirit.  It's a pretty obvious phenomenon when you open a bottle, drop it in the bath, and watch it "fizz" for a few minutes before going still.  Over time, the bottle is going to absorb gas to equilibrate with the atmosphere again, it's a temporary phenomenon.

There is a tremendous amount of "distillers bias" in everything we do.  There is such an overwhelming desire to find evidence that justifies our own hypotheses, that we'll usually find it "Oh, yeah, see that's much better".  But is it?

Saw a few other distillery builds that utilized cooling/condenser flows for in-slab radiant heating, I think that’s a brilliant idea.

I’ve been running 100% malt barley through a hammer mill, fermented and distilled on grain.  No astringency.  Try it for yourself.

Talked to him a month or so ago via email.

1) Make a vodka called 6.5 millibar and market it as distilled at the same atmospheric pressure as Mars.  "Filter" it through some crushed up asteroid if you have the money.  

2) Get Elon Musk to retweet.  

3) Profit.

7 minutes ago, Foreshot said:

I've never seen anything on the alcohol side other than a long & high temp fermentation.

Amino acids and the Ehrlich pathway.

It's actually a fun process to run the lab still reactions between a set of carboxylic acids, and a wider range of alcohols beyond ethanol to simulate tails fraction alcohols (isobutyl, isoamyl, n-propyl).  You almost always start with something awful, and end up with something wonderful (well ... at least better than what you started with).  Mix it all up together and you end up with something between Fruit Stripe Gum and a Sledgehammer.  I did these with my 7 year old daughter, she was amazed.

I really wonder if the TTB would approve the Cousins process if you submitted it via recipe.  I'd bet a stick of the above mentioned gum you'd get a rejection right off the bat.

Biotechnology for fun and profit...

I will say though, it's more than just the reactants from a simple reaction of ethanol and the carboxylics.  I've added the products of the lab still reactions to a glass of rum, and the end result is not at all comparable.  It's like looking at a chromatograph and just finding the largest peak, and assuming replicating that is going to be enough (it ain't).  Pretty sure Stephen from @bostonapothecarywould vehemently agree with this.

Great walkthrough @Atarijedi - the misuse in terminology you highlighted is actually pretty widespread in the industry.  

The shortest time possible that yields the cut you want.

Protracted time under full reflux will promote esterification.  This can be beneficial or detrimental depending on what you are producing.

Had a similar experience running a single-pass rum.  Emergency came up, had to shut down and leave.  Restarted the next day.  Peppery, hot, spicy, awful.  Ended up destroying the second half.  Someone had mentioned to me perhaps it was increases in acrolein or other aldehydes due to the extended time at high temperature (thermal decomposition), which seemed plausible.

I’ll never stop a run again though, that’s for sure.

I have to smirk a little bit about throwing solar panels on a roof and saying that it's an effective strategy towards reducing environmental impact (aka Greening).  Solar feels like the easiest of "cheats", compared to where the real work, and impact, is.

Heat Recovery & Storage vs. Chillers

Carbon Dioxide Capture/Recovery for Fermentation

Energy efficient distillation processes (read: Continuous distillation with heat recovery, low NOX high efficiency steam boilers (Miura, etc), highly insulated steam lines, etc) - none of this batch distillation on an uninsulated still.

On-site Wastewater Processing, Waste alcohol processing

Post-consumer recycled glass bottles and/or bottle re-use where legal

Local sourcing of all raw materials

High efficiency CIP

Yep, Teton imported them and sold them to a couple places.

Picked up some awesome cognac barrels from Rocky Mountain recently.  Got an apple brandy from Keystone that we finished bourbon in that was really nice as well.

Why not just buy ex-brandy/cognac barrels from someone like Northeast Barrel, Rocky Mountain Barrel, Keystone or others and just cut them down to what you need?

There are already a number of low cost and even “free” open source solutions for controlling mashing and fermenting processes - so 2/3 of the “problem” have already been solved.  Many of these platforms can be easily used to allow for monitoring of the still as well.  Plenty of folks here already using them.

You’ll find that many here, and in the industry in general, are strongly against remote still control, because it enables reckless behaviors, that when go bad, impact all of us from a liability, regulatory, and scrutiny perspective.

Good intel, thanks Paul.

On another note, I cringe at worm condensers.  More and more I don’t think they belong in modern commercial distilling.  Their design is a hazard - long narrow vapor path, narrow diameter soft copper prone to kinking.  It becomes very easy to overwhelm and easily achieve vapor speeds high enough to blow vapor through a cool tank.  In a puke scenario, clogging is a very real possibility, and cleaning them afterwards is difficult.  Shotgun style condensers offer redundancy and a far larger vapor path, easy to clean, incredibly difficult to clog when properly sized.

Sorry if I offend the traditionalists.  In the hands of an expert it’s probably a non-issue.

Could have been diatomaceous earth.

It’s what I would recommend, along with sub-micron filtration, ideally 0.1 micron.

Pitch enough it would look like milk, fine DE powder looks like milk powder.

DE is commonly used in spirits filtration, it's customary, nobody would raise a concern about additives.

This is true, some recent photos show more than one still - one of the old ones doesn’t even appear to be plumbed.

Google the name and use the Images tab, you’ll find photos there.

Appears to be “home” built or some mashup of components.

Prayers go out to the individual air lifted to a burn center.  That's never, ever positive.  I hear one other individual was subsequently transferred to the burn center, guessing that person was a bit more stable after the incident, but again, having to go to a burn center is never a positive.  There were a total of 3 people treated, so it wasn't a matter of an empty facility.

There are some other photos online, the damage to the building appear fairly substantial, clearly we're talking damage sustained from explosion and not necessarily from fire, so again, prayers for the two folks in burn, this is a life changer for them.

There is a gofundme for the two folks hospitalized.. https://www.gofundme.com/f/medical-expenses-for-local-friends?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet

Perhaps the issue is the same - they expect the ingredients to be only gin and tonic?

Interesting, there are a number of Manhattan RTDs that I would have guessed contained Vermouth.

Lol, you need to call.