Silk City Distillers

Why not go wider?  6"

If you are planning to operate in 100% reflux, surface area is king.

You might also consider adding turbulators in the tubing to force contact with the tube walls.

Will you be leaving the top open to the atmosphere?  I think what you find that if they tubes are indeed too small, the dephlegmator starts acting like a perforated plate, holding liquid above it.  Highly unlikely you'll get to this point.

Another option is to use a larger product condenser, and position it horizontal, feed vapor into the shell side, not the tube side.

I'll ping you for specs on the tun.

22 minutes ago, daveflintstone said:

From...dirty water and conditions in developing nations?  80% alcohol doesn't kill those?

Apparently the spores of some of these nasties are particularly resistant.

Fungal and Bacterial spores

You are right in the fact he based his calcs on the “wrong” numbers.  The hydrogen peroxide in the final product breakdown is based on 100%.  The liquid ingredient is only 3% concentration.

10 liters * 0.00125 / 0.03 = 417ml

Way off - should be about 3x the volume of the glycerol.

The peroxide calculation looks wrong

We had more than one local hospital reach out to us.

I don't know whether to be proud I'm helping, or absolutely terrified that hospitals are running out.

My local mega chem supply has zero Isopropyl in stock, zero denatured alcohol in stock.

NY, NJ, CT, PA, MA up here in the Northeast.

Making popcorn, this is about to get good...

We pay a lot of attention to dephlegmator temperature control as a proxy for managing reflux ratio through the run.

We don't run constant dephleg temperature, we run a pattern that looks like a U - high reflux ratio at heads and tails, low reflux during hearts.  We feel this gives us the benefits of optimizing yields and to make very specific cuts (as typical with plates), but gives us the flexibility to dial it back during hearts to pull through more flavor.  We run PID control with a proportional valve to control dephleg temp.

We do cuts by taste, but honestly we run so consistent/repeatable, that we we know almost exactly when our cut points are approaching.

I almost think we could cut by weight of collected distillate if we needed to (or PG if there is some variance).

We don't like cutting based on vapor temperature, it's fine to ballpark identify the cut point (this varies by product), but always by flavor.

True pot?  No plates?  Easy.  Fill it with 190 proof, run it.  190 proof comes out.

Take a token heads cut, maybe leave a little behind as tails.

Meadows 10hp hammer with a blower discharge.  1000lb an hour.

40hp - good god.

So with 4 plates, if I load the kettle up with a few strip runs, it's impossible for me to stay under 160.  Even with the reflux condenser completely off.  Just passive reflux alone will keep the plates loaded enough to keep the proof very high.

We do this with white rum - with even a touch of reflux, she wants to run 180-190.

With or without bypasses is the question.

5 plates may be too many without bypasses - you may struggle to get the aggregate proof below the 160 max.  Even passive reflux might make things challenging.

3-4 is the sweet spot for single pass whiskey.

We run 4 plates, no bypass, reflux control - we can easily dial in anywhere from 135-160.

Would love to get your thoughts on the basics even.  Who cares about the proprietary commercial stuff, I'd love to know what you think makes good whiskey.

Amazing experience!  Glad to have you here.

I think we are saying the same thing.

Pump slip on most displacement pumps makes pulling that kind of vacuum a long shot.

Most pumps we use can’t generate the same differential in suction as they can on the output side.

Enolmatic is vacuum, totally different scenario.

Ah ok - sucking through a filter is a lot harder on the pump than pushing.  I'm talking about tank-to-tank filtering prior to bottling.  And timer fill is going to be far more sensitive to changes to input flow rate.

We use a tall bottling tank, we need to adjust the fill time of our volumetric over the course of the run as the level in the tank falls.  It's most noticeable once the level falls below the level of the filler.  We picked up a Mori just because of how frustrating the fill rate adjustments were.

We do a white rum that is treated with powdered softwood carbon for decolorization that requires .1-.22 to remove the gray haze induced by the PAC.  The PAC we use looks like laser printer toner.  I’m sure this has to do with nominal vs absolute ratings - but makes me feel that it doesn’t necessarily hurt to go tighter - assuming you are using two-stage with a pre-filter.

We use the same .1 and .22 with aged spirits - with a 1 or 5 micron prefilter.  Honestly I’ve thrown out cartridges long before they have clogged up, just because I’ve felt I’ve got my money’s worth out of them - and I get paranoid after using them for a few months.

I am of the camp that feels sub-micron filtration really gets you a “sparkle” that really coarse filtration does not (5-20 micron). The decolorization work we did was an eye opener in terms of filter micron ratings.  Even with a decent 1 micron filter - staring down through 200 gallons in a tote - it was obvious.

We used to do a triple cartridge setup with a really coarse initial filter - but came to the conclusion it was a waste of time.

Unless you are going out of your way to kick up barrel char and jam it through t  filters - cartridges last a long long time.  Exception being the decolorization - where we go through multiple carts per batch.

I don't recall seeing anything in the code that makes an exception for 26 gallon stills.

But, this is basically what I meant when I said this above:

"this is where engineering common sense comes into play, etc."

Not that you don't need an architect, but if the architect has some common sense, they'll plan accordingly.

We have had very good luck with the IFM ultrasonic "SU series" flow meters.  We use them for metering in water to the mash tun.

You can get them for a song on eBay - only thing the flanges need adapters and you need the cable too.

Some of the units have pulse counter outputs to be able to feed a PLC if you want to control your mash tun water fill.  Oh, and make sure you take a look at the flow rate ranges and make are you falling in the measurement range.]

For example:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/IFM-ELECTRONIC-SU7001-ULTRASONIC-VOLUMETRIC-FLOW-SENSOR/301640423279?epid=1330140070&hash=item463b2b976f:g:9lgAAOSwl8NVXeF6:sc:USPSPriorityMailPaddedFlatRateEnvelope!07470!US!-1

0-13gpm measuring range, pulse and analog output.  Has the flanges - just needs the cable.

Here's the spec sheet:

https://www.ifm.com/us/en/product/SU7001

Saved you $500 bucks.

Measuring stick would probably get you 95% of the way there.

I don't see how density and solids content doesn't throw off the mag and ultrasonic units.  Turbine, possibly, but what's the maximum viscosity - and what's the impact to error rate of being at whats likely the high end of that?

Coriolis mass flow device is the ideal measuring device here, being able to account for solids and the density - but we're talking thousands of dollars.

That GW Kent unit says to use an 18 mesh screen to protect it.  That's like 1/32nd - would clog up very quickly.

Almost impossible to answer your question.  That might largely be determined by your code officials and architect.  Or, you might not have either or them, or they might not care at all.

Typically ventilation requirements are expressed as air changes per hour.  We're talking about replacing all of the air within the building, some number of times per hour.

The number of air changes per hour will depend on those code classifications, architectural/engineering decisions.

A common number that comes up in the case of flammables is 6 air changes per hour, and also 1cfm per square foot of floor.

What that means in terms of what ventilation equipment is going to be required, is going to be based on the volume of space, make up air, HVAC considerations, how "leaky" your structure is, passive air changes, etc etc etc.

This is getting into a pretty esoteric area from an engineering standpoint.  Hell, I've seen code officials satisfied with large bay doors being left open during operating hours - and a few towns over they've required vapor monitors wired to automatic exhaust fans.

If you live in a very cold, or very hot, climate, these numbers will start to get very concerning if you have a large "volume" of space to change.  It's 10f outside today.  We'd like to keep it 65f inside.  Imagine having to reheat all the air in the building 6 times every hour - this is where engineering common sense comes into play, etc.