Silk City Distillers

Also understand the irony that most electric fillers are not explosion proof, nor do they use explosion proof pumps inside. Some of the most common ones we use, either pumped or vacuum - not explosion proof. Even gravity fillers with bottom-mount feed pumps, usually not explosion proof. That said, Flojet makes AC120v or 12/24v DC diaphragm pumps with compatible plastics that have a pressure switch shutoff. It will pump as long as the output is open. You might find a very similar pump within a very commonly used filler.

If I wanted to get really, really creative with that G70 pump... I'd run it with Nitrogen or CO2, only from a tank. No electrics. I'd also remove the exhaust muffler, and instead plumb the gas exhaust to a second nozzle to act as an inert gas purge. This way, you aren't wasting the inert gas you are using the power the pump. You get to eat your cake and eat it too. Sure, managing bottled gas is a real pain in the a$$, but if inert gas purge is something you feel is important, you could probably do something really slick with this. One nozzle wash, the second nozzle purge. Workflow is simple, place bottle on wash, move wash bottle to purge. For the gas flow control, use something like a gas whisker valve, again - no electrics, just use it on the wash port, the purge port simple runs as a slave. Or even a simple pneumatic/gas foot switch. https://powermatic.net/whisker-valve Simple recirculating system, with the pump pushing through a filter cartridge prior to the nozzle.

Brass has questionable compatibility with many different liquids. Also, unless you have documentation saying otherwise, you'll need to assume it could contain lead.

Washing bottles with soap and water seems like it could be hugely problematic.

As quinoa is one of the least-utilized grains in alcohol production, we thought we'd give it a go. I thought I'd share some of our experience trying to make a go of it, since so little is out there. We experimented with quinoa as an adjunct, flavoring grain, in a predominantly corn mash bill. Even in smaller quantities, quinoa dominates the aroma and flavor. It has an incredibly distinctive nose, and if you've ever cooked quinoa at home, eaten quinoa, you'll be familiar with it, because that aroma dominates the distillate. I really need to emphasize this, we talk about tasing and smelling aromas of the underlying base grains in whiskies, corn, wheat, this is an entirely different level. The distillate is amplified quinoa. It permeates. Everything. Clothes. Hair. Quinoa. Everywhere. As terrible as it sounds, there is this very redeeming nutty, caramel, chocolate, roasty flavor. Doing some research, I came across some old brewing articles that referenced 2-pentylfuran as being a key contributor to the quinoa aroma. 2-pentylfuran not very common among conventional grain, but prevalent in some of the ancient grains (Kamut). Also very common as a Malliard reaction output, common in other roasted items like bread, coffee, chocolate. It's a really appealing profile. We tried experimenting a bit with chocolate, coffee - the problem is they amplify the flavor profile to the point at which the distillate starts to get this kind of savory flavor profile (think the savory aspect of a roast). Very interesting, screws with your mind, because there is something, almost a kind of umami, in the flavor profile of the distillate. In the end we gave up on trying to build a corn-based mash bill - it was impossible to dial back the quinoa impact without distilling far above 160. After a few more trials, we started to like distilled far cleaner. Ultimately we decided to go 100% quinoa, and use the very unpopular light whiskey category, stripping, then distilling it a hair above 180 proof. It's still choc-ful of quinoa flavor, very, very strong. However, much more approachable as a whiskey. Went to sleep in some fresh dump used char-4s. Operationally, quinoa is incredibly difficult to work with. The tiny size makes milling very, very difficult. We couldn't get a tight enough gap on the roller mill to get a good crack, the 1/8th inch screen on the hammer mill really didn't do a good job. The flour screen we have on the mill is painfully slow, and is a dusty mess. If you look at the structure of quinoa, it's a little different from a typical cereal grain. There isn't a big pocket of starch, with the germ off to the end. The starch is encapsulated at the center of the quinoa seed. The tiny size, the grain structure, made the cereal mash among the worst we've ever mashed. It simply does not mash. We held it in the 190-195 range for more than 6 hours, impossible to get a negative starch test. We ended up letting the cook go overnight, yes, overnight. In the morning, still could not get a negative starch test. Lots of high temp alpha amylase, glucoamylase, beta glucanase, protease, xylanase - we finally decided to call it quits and cool to pitch. The best we can surmise is that without milling it to micron-sized flour, the tight pocket of starch gets trapped by the seed structure, and slowly "leaks" out as it hydrolyzes. Anyone who thinks that protracted cooking will simply cause the seed to expand, burst, and fall apart - nope, sorry, there was still obvious whole quinoa particles in the mash, after nearly 18 hours of cooking. We didn't notice it so obviously during the test batches, however most of the test batches were corn-predominant, so the lower-yield wasn't as obvious. Yield was mostly terrible. 1200 pounds of quinoa in, roughly 35 proof gallons out. We fermented down to about 1.01, on the grain, with active enzyme. What was really interesting was the amount of bulk that was remaining in the mash. Attribute this to the much lower starch content of quinoa relative to other grains. We had another 1200 pounds of quinoa for batch 2, we decided to give it to our farmer as feed. The effort involved is simply not worth it. To get any chance of reasonable yield, we'd need to have gone to fine flour, even then I think we'd be dealing with an impossible to dewater stillage/sludge. We'll see how the distillate ends up, I think there will be fans, but ultimately, it'll be a very polarizing whiskey. Maybe I'll be wrong, and maybe it'll be fabulous, and maybe I'll regret giving away a metric ton of quinoa as goat feed (they love it by the way). That said, if you really want to try it, go for it. You'd probably get enough impact with as little as 5% of the mash bill - given the high price of quinoa, it's a much more cost effective approach. The most difficult grain we've ever worked with, and we've worked with Millet (Size challenges) and Whole Oats (worse than rye)

Ordered some phosphoric from my chem supply. Will compare.

The still geometry is a major factor of foam. IMHO - foams tend to climb walls easier than expanding in open space. Tall narrow stills will have more problems than fat squat stills. The nearer you get to the top, the more surface area to stabilize the foam, this includes the roof of the kettle. You will hit a point where no amount of antifoam will prevent puking, as the high vapor speeds in that limited remaining volume will start to pull what little foam there is - and entrained liquid up the column. Why exactly are you trying to reinvent something? There are scientists and companies that devote huge time and resources into this. Just buy Patcote or another Simethecone and call it a day? No?

I'm a sucker for a great deal, but if they are asking $15k for that piece of work, I highly doubt anything else is going to be worth it. Can you even run that still in a single day? 18kw on 300 gallons is a 5 hour heat time (optimistically), probably another 8-10 hours running time if that's a 6" packed column with a dephleg, probably another hour or two if you want to collect tails. Condenser looks way undersized to be able to support fast stripping, not that those heating elements will do anything fast. Sounds like a fun day, get in at 5am, leave at 10pm. Like the folks above said, put in a few modifications, and you are in the territory of a new still, exactly the way you want it. Adding an agitator to that still is a cool $5k in labor and materials, and I'd argue it's throwing good money after bad. New heating system, column, condenser. God I hope you didn't already buy that thing.

I would imagine, with a set of reference compounds, you could run trials to establish exactly where in your birectifier fractions specific constituents would fall. You could pair that with reference samples of these compounds, and it would be a very interesting organoleptic tool. For example, just making things up, if damascenone falls in fraction X, you could do a test birectifier distillation, check fraction X against a sample of damascenone, and establish not only presence, but an idea of rough quantity. It would take some significant legwork to run all the test distillations (ethyl alcohol+Compound). A nice set of references - positives and faults, would build out a very nice little analytical kit.

Have you considered adding damascenone to a sample of fairly pedestrian rum? Maybe a quick and dirty blind tasting. I've done this myself with many other esters. It's fairly insightful, or at least helps establish a sort of confirmation of the relative importance of a component. I see that Aldrich has small samples available for $40, relatively cheap test.

No

Following.

Originally I was trying to hunt down a jet cooker from Pro-sonix or Hydro-thermal, and when looking at their smaller sanitary designs, realized that there was really nothing all that fancy about them. All the complexity involved is to just build in enough flexibility to handle different flow rates, viscosities, etc via adjustments to the injector. Managed to put together a fairly robust steam injector assembly using nearly-off-the-shelf sanitary triclamp parts. Having to use a lobe pump from the slurry tank, before the injector, is probably the most costly part of this. Need to handle a heavy solids feed, and have the ability to deal with the back pressure of the injector and pipeline.

Prototype run #2 worked pretty well. Hammer Mill dust collector directly feeds a completely sealed slurry tank. The slurry tank contains a water spray injector that feeds water into the mix at a set ratio to our mill speed. PD lobe pump pulls from the bottom of the slurry tank, and feeds the steam injector assembly, and the mash makes its way into the mash tun. Trial run was just feeding cold water out of our filtration system, only problem is our water is coming out of the tap at 45f right now. Didn't help we were running a temporary steam line as well, undersized, that limited our steam injector flow rates. So, we were running about 7 gallons a minute slurry through the system, about 15.5 pounds of grain perm minute, going from 45f to 130f out (we were only getting about 300,000btu into the process). We didn't bother restricting the mash outflow to increase the pressure (and temperature), since we weren't at all near boiling. Need to swap over to hotter water on the slurry feed, and figure out what the max temperature we can use before things start gumming up in the slurry tank, and then upsize the steam line for the injector - we're only using half the boiler capacity, so we have some upside. Need to do some more welding to get all of the components together in a a workable fashion. I wish I was a a better tig welder. Very happy that there is absolutely no dust being liberated. This was the big issue just using the pneumatic air conveyor from the hammer mill to deliver grain to the dust collector - then drop into the mash tun. We get a little bit more grain dust being captured in the dust collector, but it's fairly minimal in the grand scheme. What will be promising is being able to get the slurry to above 220f, where starch gelatinization is very fast. At that point I can produce 420 gallons of gelatinized mash an hour, for as long as I want to run the mill.

We used to fill hot, mash in, then use steam injection to get to gel temp. It logistically became a problem, because we were milling and rebagging 1000-1200 pounds of grain for each batch. We aren't setup like a traditional brewhouse with a HLT and Grist Case. We eventually came to the current setup, where we mill, fill, and heat simultaneously. Hammer mill has a pneumatic conveyor, so it's silly not to use it to convey. In the hour it takes us to mill 1000 pounds, we can fill the ton, and get it to temp. So we do all three at the same time for corn. For rye, similar, except we heat less, to end up where we want to dose beta-glucanase. We're trying to prototype a small scale continuous jet cooker, so that we're not using the pneumatic conveyor, as it can get dusty when it discharges. Prototype run #2 was yesterday, and it did great.

I have a giant 3 foot long whisk I got from the restaurant supply. Works much better than the paddle.

What I'm saying is if you are working with rye and wheat in high percentages, or unmalted grains in high percentages, going in hot, even if you are able to easily do it, is less ideal because you can't take advantage of glucanase and protease enzymes and/or rests. So your rye-dominant workflow is going to be very different from your corn-dominant workflows. Why not just deal with one cereal mash workflow and optimize it based on the equipment? Document your optimal cereal mash workflow and it becomes much easier when dealing with assistants, training new brewers on the system, etc. Your dosages, hold times, wait times, heat times, pH adjustments, etc - all become very very predictable and repeatable. I don't see how there is time savings, waiting for the mash tun to heat up to add the grain, versus adding grain at a cooler temperature and then heating. Either way he will have to wait for the tun to heat up. I've actually found that going in cool, and allowing some time for the grist to hydrate and swell during the heatup, actually results in reduction of time spent at temperature. Think about it, if it takes you 1hr to go from 70 to 190f. If you add the grist at 70, you have an additional hour in the water and at least near gelatinization temperatures. So you'll either have higher yield, or a shorter gelatinization hold. That's a great decision to have to make. The point of this thread isn't about optimal/efficient/time saving mash processes, it's about getting this guy a process that'll give him an easy workflow with very high probability of success, with the equipment he's got (shared on another thread). That's all I documented above. It's overkill on many levels, but that's not the point. That's not the process I use, but then again, I've got my process dialed in for my equipment, and my equipment is different from his.

I was told to never add enzyme directly to pure hot water, as you risk denaturing the enzymes at a significantly faster rate than if they were dosed in mash at the equivalent temperature. YMMV. While you might be able to mash-in coarsely ground/cracked corn at 190f, the finer you get, and the greater increase in fines overall, the greater probability of dough ball formation. If you are augering in with a grist hydrator - probably not a problem to go directly into 190f. If he is dumping 50lb sacks of hammer milled corn "flour" into the top of his mash tun at 190f, he's going to spend his afternoon spear fishing with a mash paddle while getting a steam facial. Mashing in grains like corn and rye at a lower temperature, than heating, means you can keep the cereal mash workflows identical. Rye Whiskey, High Rye Bourbon, Bourbon, Corn Whiskey, Unmalted wheat or rye mash for neutral spirits - these can all use the same mash methodology above. Going in cool allows for the addition of beta-glucanase or a glucanase/protease rest as part of a cereal mash process where high rye or wheat percentages are used, or high percentages of unmalted grain, etc. Trying to make things easier for the guy.

Amylo300 is Glucoamylase. Not removing it, just adding it after malt. Spliting of the High Temp Alpha is insurance that it does not all get denatured during the cook.

Theoretically unmalted should have a slightly higher yield than malted, since some starch is converted/utilized during the malting process. However, if you are working by weight, the wildcard is moisture %. Fresh malts are typically pretty tightly controlled and consistent from a moisture percentage. Raw grain from a field is going to be all over the place. We notice this with our rye. We considered starting to test moisture of our mash grain - using the simple oven method. Weigh, dry, reweigh, repeat until stable. Other consideration is grind. Unmalted grain does not mill like malted grain. Unmalted is tougher to work with. Probably irrelevant with a hammer mill, but with a roller mill, it will require a tighter gap. Also, higher percentages of moisture may require multiple rollers, or multiple passes through the mill. We used to roller mill unmalted rye (less dusty), but the first pass through the mill would yield a flattened piece of rye, not unlike a flaked rye. Two passes were necessary to break it up. (our roller mill only has 1 set of rollers). Malted grains always roller-mill beautifully.

Here is a foolproof method for your 600g batch. I am assuming this is approximately 1200 pounds of grain. I would consider this an over-dosage of enzyme, and uses extended hold times, but it's a starting point that will guarantee success. Once you dial it in, start keeping a journal and start dialing back your hold times and enzyme additions until you start seeing a dip in yield. 1. Add water and backset (10%) to mash tun, start heating, agitator on. 2. Once you've gotten to your desired fill, add corn to mash tun. You want to mash in cool. Do not mash in corn at 130f or above as you risk clumping and creating dough balls, especially with a fine grind getting dumped in bulk. This will be a nightmare to deal with in a closed tun. Mashing cooler, and heating, reduces risk of clumping, vs going in hot. 3. Adjust pH to 5.6 or under, wait 10 minutes between acid additions and rechecking. Add High Temp Alpha Amylase (500ml). Do not add enzyme directly to water, only to mash. 4. Hold for 90 minutes at 190-195f. Hold time will depend on numerous variables. Your corn, your grind, your agitation, how long it takes you to get to temperature. 5. Start cooling, check pH, adjust to 5.2, add second dose of High Temp Alpha Amylase (500ml). Wait until about 180f to add the enzyme - as you want it to remain active. 6. At 150-152f, add malt, hold for 90 minutes. You will drop temperature during your malt addition, you'll need to figure this out and adjust accordingly. 7. Start cooling, check pH, adjust if necessary, again 5.2 is target. 8. During cool down, add Glucoamylase (1 liter) at 130f, do not stop cooling, do not add at a higher temperature. You want this enzyme to remain active through the entire fermentation process. This will clean up any mistakes made during corn gelatinization or malt mash-in (longer chain dextrin and residual starch). 9. Cool to low 80s, pump over to fermenter, pitch 1kg yeast. * One additional point - if you have issues with your agitation being insufficient, and/or your corn grind is too coarse to achieve grain suspension during initial mixing. Do not run the bottom jacket during the first stage of gelatinization. Watch the mash, be the mash, you'll see a point during heatup, when it visually changes. It will go whiter, before it goes yellower, and it will develop a more glossy sheen and clearly increase in viscosity. At this point once you have suspension, you can turn on the bottom jacket to take it the rest of the way to 190-195f. Corn sitting on the bottom jacket, under the mixer, not moving, is going to cook it to the bottom. Not only is this a pain in the ass to clean, it means you are losing yield, or even worse, breaks off a corn ball and clogs the pump or pipelines.

I've often thought of shutting down production over the summer months, late June, July, August, early September, because of this. With the cooler temperatures coming in right after harvest, wondered if it just made more sense to increase capacity and run all-out during the fall, winter, and early spring. Goal is to run out of grain before the flip flops came out. Then shut down the still house and spend the summer at the beach with an umbrella drink (or building bottled inventory heading into the fall). We can mash significantly faster in the winter, with 42-45f water. By mashing a thicker mash and using cold water additions, it makes very, very quick work of cooling, way faster than our chillers/jacket can cool - since we need the water for the mash anyway, it's free cooling.

Once you are talking about a system that can support scale, the fact is, jumping up to the next size doesn't cost anything in the grand scheme of things. If you are taking about a steam driven still house, what's the all-in price difference between a 125g setup and a 250g setup? Nothing. What's the difference between a 250g setup and a 500g setup? Nothing. What's the price difference between 125g and 500g? Minimal. What's the cost of upgrading? 2x, more even when you consider the downtime. God forbid you size a boiler and cooling for a 125g setup, you've got to basically tear it all out to upgrade. I expect Paul to railroad my comments, because well, he's trying to sell stuff here. @Tom Lenerz or @bluefish_dist speak the truth. Can a 50g electric still even afford to pay it's operator minimum wage, disability, and health insurance once you consider all the other overhead?

Yeah, interesting, since citric acid is naturally present in grapes, naturally present in cane juice or molasses, and even present in grain based beers - due to citric acid being produced by yeast during the initial stages of fermentation (Krebs/TCA Cycle). Not to mention that all four of the noted metabolites have numerous pathways for production, and typically exist in every fermentation, regardless if citric is dosed or not. Saying backset is better than citric is odd (though I'd agree, but for more reasons than just acidity), because backset is going to be choc-full of the same exact organic acids, lactic, acetic, formic, butyric, propionic, that the particular judge would identify as a fault. Single greatest impact to acetaldehyde is fermentation temperature and yeast strain. Great study by Chris White looked at fermentation temperature, same wort, same yeast, fermented at 66f and 75f. The slightly higher temperature fermentation produced 10x the acetaldehyde. Less so would be distillation prior to the completion of fermentation, acetobacter infection (fruit flies), oxidation post fermentation, etc.