Silk City Distillers

Can't get in, despite trying all morning.  Won't let me log in, reset my password, etc.

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Also looking for the same "study / papers" that states there is no real risk of allergenic contamination in distilled spirits.

Perhaps theoretically, but the concern is reintroduction of contaminants via dust or otherwise, post distillation.  This kind of cross-contamination issue is the rationale behind the peanut warning (above).  Even if the product doesn't contain them, there is a risk that the product might have been contaminated, because of proximity, people, etc.  Clearly, this is a kind of "worst-case" scenario, and probably not common for most of us.  But ... it does come up when discussion gluten free wheat spirits.  Can gluten make it through the distillation process?  No.  But what happens when the nano-distillery is milling wheat 10 feet from the bottling area?

Mop sink was on the list for us as well.

Not in California, but the rules aren’t all that different.  We were required to have a three basin sink in the production area as well as a separate hand wash sink.  The tasting room also has a three basin and hand wash behind the bar.  Their rationale was COP (clean out-of place) in a food manufacturing plant, proximity was a factor.  
 

Would imagine every health department is going to be pushing handwash sinks like crazy now, so figure that is going to be a minimum.

I suppose it depends on how clean your vodka is.  The higher your purity, the more irrelevant slow proofing is going to be.

Flavored water...

Yep, thanks!  Just thought I'd ask the community here first.

Shot in the dark, if you've got one laying around let me know.  

Our scale has relay control to hit a set point.  Considered using a small dosing pump from our RO/DI tank connected to a solenoid for the set point.

Would be able to slowly add water, drip by drip if necessary, over the course of days or more.

We picked up a couple tons from Rabbit Hill Farms in South Jersey.

4 hours ago, perfection said:

Distillation is a controlled process and the lower the temperatures the slower (and more thorough?) the distillation.  So do distillers stay clear (below) this temperature (boiling point of the liquid at various concentrations) for a better separation  or is there some other significance for pot and column still distillation?

Can I be so bold as to summarize?  This is a common thought, but it's totally wrong.  You can not control the temperature of boiling.

The temperature the pot will boil at depends on how much alcohol there is.  More alcohol, boils lower.  You can only control heat input, this is, the SPEED of boiling.  More power in, more vapor generated, but the temp doesn't go up.  Less power may may the temp fall, but this is only after it's stopped boiling and producing vapor.  Over the course of the run, the temp in the pot will rise, but this is a function of the alcohol being removed, and the boiling point increasing as a result.

NM absolutely in the US sweet spot for swamp coolers.  Out here in the northeast, it's like trading hot and humid, for nearly as hot, and twice as humid.

http://adiforums.com/topic/11780-greetings-from-nj/?tab=comments#comment-67938

https://gizmodo.com/gin-bottles-containing-hand-sanitizer-sold-to-public-in-1843962760

A gin distillery in Australia has issued a recall after it accidentally shipped gin bottles containing hand sanitizer, according to the Apollo Bay Distillery outside Melbourne. The gin distillery had previously converted some of its facility to hand sanitizer production to help combat the coronavirus pandemic.

“The product is labelled as gin, however it is not gin,” the company said in a statement published to Facebook. “The bottles are not correctly sealed, they can be identified as having no shrink wrap seal.”

Agree with the lower proof, we really like 110.

Feel like the lower proofs do better in small cooperage over shorter time periods, just my 2 cents.

I'd say you are likely to lose somewhere around 10% a year in a half-full 15g.  Sweet spot is going to be 12-18 months.  I'd say keep it in the garage during the spring and summer, and when it gets below 50f or so, bring it indoors (no idea what your climate is).

6 hours ago, Brewstilla said:

Perhaps try sparging soon than you currently are? At the brewery I ran up until last year, our pump pulled directly on the lauter tun, no grant, and did't have a collapsed grain bed in 15 years on all malt brews. Just a simple solution to try before installing a float, keep an inch or so of water on top of the grain bed throughout runoff and you shouldn't have an issue. 

My guess is that they were using a normal centrifugal pump.  The Jabsco is a PD impeller pump and can pull far more suction.

On 2/24/2020 at 6:01 PM, ShelteredKarl said:

they merely had me tell them the ppm of the unpronounceable compound in licorice root.

Lol.  Glycyrrhizin.

Back to the topic.  Scored a bottle of Purell today, the pump.  Good god. The delicate floral nose.  The long, luxurious, silky finish.  Just a hint of spice and heat (on my papercut).  Sweet baby Jesus, it's a gel.  Craft sanitizer ain't got nothing on this.

You are passing the spirit through some other filtration afterwards?  Or are you expecting the mesh to do all the filtering?  Only asking because 300 mesh is already down to 50 micron.  That's fairly tight.  I'd be concerned about splashing and pooling.

I don't think we are even near 20 or 30 mesh.  However, we're passing through particulate filtration - we're just keeping the chunks of char out of the pumps, lines, and cartridges.

Our PID-based dephlegmator and product condenser controls completely compensate for tank temperature rise through the run.  We hold set points like a rock.  Controller increase the flow rate through the run to compensate for the warmer temperatures (reduced delta-t).

Oversizing your condensers is a good option if you are planning to recirculate coolant or use a single-pass water-reuse arrangement (cooling with city water that will be reused for other purposes) - Increase in delta-t means you can squeeze more cooling BTU out of every gallon of water.

That's the way to do it, test and try.  Every botanical has a method that works best with it, there simply isn't one best method.

Vacuum distilling cucumber extract was one of my favorites.  If you distill the skin, the flesh, and the seeds separately, you'll find three very different extract flavors/aromas, one of which is just magical in capturing fresh cut cucumber, the two others, not so much.  The lower the pressure, and temperature you run, the better.

You might want play around a bit to see if it's more efficient to just recirculate all 3200 gallons (daisy chain the tanks) vs. single pass 1600 gallons.

1600 gallons and 5 tons is more than enough for the 300 gallon still.  We run similarly sized chillers (4.5 ton) and an 800 gallon tank.  Two runs back to back is a little bit of a challenge, but one run a day, works great.  The chillers run all the time, through the run they help control temp rise, the tank is usually back to our 55f set point by midnight.

We don't go too cold anymore, the condensation on the non-insulated tank is a real pain during the humid summer months and when we're mashing.

I think you'll get more overall intensity with the roast nibs.  I'm actually surprised you got such deep color with raw nibs.  It is possible you did have some Maillard reaction during the Soxhlet extraction.

Keep in mind, when you distill, you are separating the flavor compounds based on volatility.  High volatility flavors will come across in the distillate - low volatility (or non-volatile) flavor components will remain in the stillage.

If you still have the stillage, do yourself a favor and taste it compared to the distillate.  Mix the stillage and distillate and compare it back to your solvent extract.  This is a hugely valuable exercise to understand the impact of distillation on flavors.  What goes over, what stays.

Lots of botanicals distill across "green" and lose a little bit of their soul, especially fruit.  I always call out ripe blackberry as being the best example of this.  The distillate tastes nothing like blackberry, I mean barely recognizable.  Intensely green and chlorophyll - think fresh cut greens.  The flavors that we recognize as blackberry are not necessarily volatile.  The sugars, the acids, they don't distill over.  So, if you want blackberry flavor, masceration is the way to go.  Your soxhlet extracted product is not at all distilled, it's only hot-solvent extracted.  Remember, the soluble flavors aren't necessarily all volatile.

Start with good quality roast cocoa nibs.

Suspect you'll need to winterize to remove fats.

Soxhlet extraction is a good approach with hard cocoa.

Shamefully, NJ ABC prohibited distillers from working with local craft brewers to distill stale kegged beer into sanitizer.

Figure that one out.