Silk City Distillers

A 50-75 ton chiller.

How much cooling is required to cool 600g mash to pitch temp in 30 minutes?

50-75 tons?

Depends - are you boiling or not?  If you are not boiling, your wash will be full of lactobacillus and a number of other bacteria, since grain is microbiologically filthy.  The 2 hour runoff is irrelevant compared to the bacteria that will survive mash temps.  Considering that most malt distillers don't boil, you probably shouldn't be concerned.

Yeah @Aux Arc answered for me.  If you are just starting to get into a rhythm and don't have a regular production schedule, using backset/stillage in your mash is a little bit of a challenge, since you need to keep it around.  The spent wash from the pot, after distillation - separated from the spent grain.

You shouldn't need pH stabilizer, adjust using your acid of choice along with the backset.

Question 3 - Anything malted goes in on the way down, at 150-152f.  These grains will easily gel at those temperatures, and that temp range will preserve enzyme function.

Glad to see you worked through the challenges, keep truckin.

Discretion of the judge to allow the suit.  In situations of illegal behavior, courts generally permit direct suits.  Liability limits don’t shield against commiting fraud.

At what point does it become fraud?

Lawyer up, sue management not the company.

Not to mention fermentation temperature, distillation style, output proof, and product yield (cut).

You can almost tell the stage of the mash cook by listening to pitch of the eductor.  Starts out very loud, higher pitch, but as you hit maximum viscosity of the mash, it gets much deeper, quieter.  

On the water additions:

One Pound of Steam = One Pound of Water

One Pound of Steam = 970 BTU

1 BTU = Heat 1 Pound of water by 1 Degree F

1 Gallon Water = 8.3 Pounds

Becomes pretty easy to calculate your water addition due to heating.

Don't quite follow you @MDH.  Goal is to age longer than we can currently age in 30g, which based on our environmentals, is looking like 30-36 months maximum.  Not necessarily minimizing wood, but extending product line aging duration.

Switching to ex-bourbon doesn't necessarily make sense for us, since you would be losing the age statement for any time in ex-Bourbon - from a logistics and cost perspective, it would be far easier just to go into new 53.

We average 20% evaporation in ~2 years in 30g, which is fairly high.  We attribute this to very dry winters, and our barrel storage is in conditioned space (heated, not cooled).  Temperature ranges for us are around 55f-100f - Warm/dry winters and hot/humid summers.  Proof over the 2 years is typically flat to slightly increasing, but we do swell barrels with water which is going to drop the proof initially.

It sounds easy, just lay down a ton of 53g - however the issue is that a gap in product availability is a financial killer - so that's not a possibility, but the opposite situation, a long overlap period - would result in a situation where it would be difficult to move the younger product.

Was $85 for carbon steel, 3/4” - 4 years ago.

Brass is way too soft for a steam jet.

My cast version looks fine after hundreds and hundreds of runs.

Stainless one?  I’m running the cast one, it was like $200 or $300.

That pump head with the overpressure bypass (to protect the pump) sells for well over $1000.

Looking at a pump curve, using a viscosity of 7500 (molasses between 5000 and 10000) - looks like you can do about 12-18 gallons per minute at 600-1000rpm.  Just a quick estimate of motor, probably 1.5-2hp.

Can you fabricate?

Here is a Desmi pump head they sell for sugar and molasses manufacture:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F192590239749

It’s dirt cheap, but you need a base, motor, gear reduction, and frequency drive.

Yeah don’t bother trying to find a sanitary pump that’ll deal with it.  We have some big Viking S2 lobe pumps and they struggle unless you run them very very slow. 

Fair enough.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5731e51d8a65e244fd560a92/t/577c1c5e15d5db726ef26bca/1467751519284/Brochure+2835_R1.pdf

You might want to consider electric heat tracer line to heat the pipelines and pump head.

There are lots of similar gear pumps that will work.

Fork lift works best for us.

Believe 182.10 is the physical spice/botanical, 182.20 is the extract/oil of.

20 hours ago, Southernhighlander said:

I think a fuel oil fired boiler is a great option for a distillery.  I don't know why I didn't think about that. 

Oil is usually a better option than propane, but it really depends on where you live.  Out here in the Northeast, heating oil is still pretty common (although slowly disappearing).  I can pick up the phone and have a 250 gallons delivered in an hour, no big deal.  But I understand, in many parts of the country this just isn't the case.

You can burn biodiesel with an oil boiler too.

Always wondered if there was a way to make biodiesel using heads (ethanol+esters and not methanol).  Could be a really interesting way to be self-sustaining, recycle waste products into usable fuel.  You can add a small amount of heads to heating oil, but only a small amount is soluble without fancy chemistry.

I always thought the holy grail would be to find a building on city steam - aka Con Ed steam in NYC.  Why even bother with a boiler?  Unlimited high pressure steam on tap.

That said, fuel oil isn’t mentioned often here - we burn fuel oil for steam.  Our boiler came with two burners, gas and oil.  Running gas was complex for us, the pipe was too small.  So we said screw it, drop in a 300 gallon tank, once oil gets expensive we would swap.  Oil still pretty cheap.

Natural gas fired steam boiler is king for a reason.

In most cases, it's significantly less expensive in the long run, compared to running electric - to the tune of about 50% savings.  Sure, you can find places with a closer gap, but you can also find places with a wider gap.  Low pressure steam is very safe, and well understood by local authorities.

Lets say you have a 300 gallon still, to heat it up from 70f to 197f (the bulk of heating), given a few losses, takes about 375,000 BTU.  That's roughly equivalent to 110kw over an hour.

Let's say you pay $0.12 per KWH.  That's $13 to heat up your still, and roughly $25.00 for the whole run.  There are some states that would be close to 2x this (Cali, Mass, NY, etc).

Lets say you run 4x a week, every week.  That's $5000 a year in electric, probably $2500 a year in natural gas.  That's $2500 a year savings.  Over 5 years, that pays for the boiler.

Trying to compare this from a "simplicity" perspective is moot, since 110kw is going to require either 480v 3 phase, or heavy 400a 240v 3 phase.  If you don't have either, they'll cost the same as a steam boiler and gas to install.  Brewery next door just installed 400a 240v 3 phase, they had to pay the local utility $20,000 to drop power to the meter head, and probably another $20,000 of electrical work internally.

There is a "balance point", where the decision is significantly closer.  Probably around the 150 gallon mark, especially if you already have 240v 3 phase in place.  However, if you are successful, it means you are going to hit a point where you are scrapping your investments and installing steam and nat gas to be able to scale.

If I had heavy 480v 3 phase, and absolutely no option for natural gas or even fuel oil, I'd install a Sussman or Chromalox electric boiler.

11 minutes ago, kkbodine said:

In my location with my single malt whiskey, I see five years as the minimum but we are bottling it at seven. 

New or used oak?

High temp varnish?

Trying to plan out the logistics of shifting to 53g.

What are you folks seeing in terms of lower bound maturation timeframes in 53g?

We are currently predominantly 30g, with a 24-26 month lower bound.

Through the grapevine, folks have told me 36 months on 53 - but that seems somewhat young.  We have a few at the 3 year mark now, and I’m hesitating to even think about touching.

Really interested in hearing your thoughts, planning for a shift from 30g to 53g - and it’s a major investment in time, and money, and I’d prefer not to get it wrong and end up with a gap as a result.

Cooling water is the big energy savings.  However, are you legally permitted to take the water and discharge it?