Silk City Distillers

Regarding the ancillary products. We did a collaboration with a local farmer, we aged his maple syrup in our bourbon barrels. We sold it under our brand/label. While it was a great seller, selling hundreds of bottles over the course of two weeks, the biggest benefit was the draw and exposure from via social media, we immediately attracted a customer base who wouldn't have normally walked in the door, and it didn't cannibalize other product sales.

Q-655G Surge Protective Devices BR.pdf

Blown boards sound more like transient voltage spikes, not noise. Noisy lines aren't going to fry boards. It would be easy to tell looking at the boards, if you had a good electrician. The fact that a number of these have been damaged makes me believe this is a spike issue, not a noise issue - bar cooler boards don't give a crap about noise. Talk to your electrician about potentially considering a panel-mount surge protector/noise filter, this is a unit that would wire into your main panel. Typically you see them more often in places that have very sensitive electrical equipment, hospitals, labs, data centers. They aren't cheap, but they are cheaper than replacing equipment. This doesn't mean you can skip thoroughly reviewing the electrical installation. VFDs can throw off very high voltage spikes, 4x the line voltage, however it's typically only the motor that's subjected to it.

If in your state the wholesaler/distributor is responsible for collecting and paying excise taxes, in your case the excise tax would payable when bottles are transferred from the distillery to the tasting room. This would be the equivalent "event" in that situation. The way we work, the distillery invoices the tasting room and "distributes" to them. Liability for the excise tax occurs as soon as the bottle moves out of the bonded area, regardless of when it's poured or sold. This also keeps state and federal excise taxes synchronized, otherwise you are tracking both excise taxes separately.

We were able to (somewhat) easily upgrade the agitator on our Mueller with a larger unit.

Worth noting, we are using a rectangular tank (converted dairy tank). In a cylindrical tank with tangental injection, you might be able to get the liquid spinning fast enough to keep suspension with a very fine grind. And keep in mind, it's very, very loud. Even fully submerged, zero hammer, you are in the range of requiring ear protection.

I don't think you can get good tank mixing without running high pressure steam, probably using multiple injectors based on tank geometry. We push about 550 pounds an hour of steam through a single eductor. We stagger water additions to help speed cooling, so we'll typically start with 700 pounds of corn in 300 gallons volume. Until the corn is gelatinized, it tends to want to fall out of suspension and sit along the tank bottom. The eductor alone won't mix. Once we've gelled and ready to start cooling, we've got good suspension with just the steam mixing. For us, we run the agitator from the start of the mash to the finish. We use injection for heating, and the jacket for cooling. Without the agitator running during the cooling phases, cooling the mash with the jacket would take hours longer, it's that significant. Heating rum wash, on the other hand, the eductor alone in the ~500g total volume works just fine.

You running any inverters/motor drives? They can be very “noisy”.

Mashing a metric ton (2200lb) of Quinoa this morning. Despite the pending rule change, we submitted formula and TTB says it's whiskey, so let's make 100% Quinoa whiskey.

Humans drink beer, yeast drink mash.

You can drive those pinned hoops a little bit tighter without removing the nails. Usually a couple good whacks around will get you a quarter inch.

A bit more complicated than that. I'll post some pictures once we're setup.

We are dry milling so no need for shear mixers. Expensive and delicate - a stray rock or metal would destroy it. Approach is more similar to jet cooking, the steam jet provides some additional shear as well to speed gelatinization. We can probably run the inline cook at 5-7psi, meaning we can hit mash temperatures above atmospheric boiling point. Depending on the total dwell time this might result in faster gel times. Our target is around 1000 pounds per hour, which is the top end speed of the hammer mill with corn.

2” for grain in mash. We’ve found that 1.5” can clog with high solids or thick mash. We have both sizes, but are pumps are all 2” or 2.5”. 1.5” works great for CIP, Rum Wash, etc - the flexibility difference between 1.5” and 2” is night and day. It’s much easier to work with 1.5” hose otherwise.

By chance anyone out there utilizing a "continuous" mashing/starch gelatinization process? I know this is the realm of the big plants. In an effort to eliminate any and all dust from the mashing process, we've been working on an in-line masher, directly connected to the hammer mill, which will provide for continuous milling, mixing, and heating (utilizing direct steam injection). Essentially a smaller version of a mill-fed starch cooker. Instead of conveying grain to the mash ton by air, as we do it today, or even through an auger, we're planning to pump liquid mash at near-gelatinization temps. Being able to generate continuous mash isn't necessarily the end-goal here, it was to minimize dust and make for an easier and faster mash day. But, given we have enough clean steam to bring the mash to gel temps in-line, we thought why not just do it all in a single pass. By the time we're done milling, we're already at temp. Not to mention we can go down a screen size without creating a disaster of fines. Thoughts? Feedback? Are we crazy?

There is a government that accepts "ish" for excise taxes, proofing, and gauging?

Keep in mind switches can be challenging to make XP - as the switch really can't switch any appreciable current, or require enough energy to operate that the power supply poses an issue. Instead, the switch can only switch a tiny sensing current, likely through a barrier, and the switching actually be done through a relay at the panel side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_safety Utilizing intrinsically safe techniques can often make compliance much easier.

@richard1 - You would need a different sensor and an approach to intrinsic isolation. If you want to stick with Endress, see part number FMI21 and the associated application note for how to use an intrinsic isolation unit in your controller. I don't know the ATEX to US conversions, this may only get you to C1D2. Either way, the approach is similar. Compliant on the sensing end, intrinsic barrier (if necessary) on the controller end - this keeps your controller out of compliance scope (however distance may still be required). https://www.e-direct.endress.com/us/en/two-rod-capacitive-probe-liquicap-t-fmi21-for-level-measurement-in-liquids If you only need a point switch, you can probably go through the other sensors to find one that's appropriate. I don't really see a way to make FTL31 compliant.

Subject to interpretation, and there is little consistency across jurisdictions. Even your initial premise is an interpretation that might not be shared:

5-10% backset/stillage. This generally gets us close to the ballpark, with only small additions of citric being necessary to adjust our large batch volumes (2000l). Our water is a little bit on the alkaline side and on the hard side, so it would require larger acid adjustments. Find a local chemical supplier and buy USP citric from them, you'll probably pay less than $2 a pound.

Looking for a couple skids of 30g racks.

How many lb/hr is pushing you to 4”? That's like 2mmbtu territory. We run a teeny 16hp with a 4" header and 2" steam lines to the still and mash tun. The 2" and 4" is sweat copper by the way. Why not just rent a threading machine and use black pipe? Welding seems silly.

On the temperature probes, you can argue intrinsically safe, if your control panel is using Intrinsic Safety Barriers for the RTDs, like this: https://www.pepperl-fuchs.com/usa/en/classid_4.htm But this requires panel certification, which we were not required to have. In the end, the XP probe housings were easier.

No just the immediate area, as illustrated in your drawing, 5' from all points on the still. We actually just removed circuits and outlets that were in the area, as opposed to replacing them. Cheaper to achieve compliance by tearing out circuits. The control panel is about 15' away from the still, but in a place that's visible from the parrot, that side of the conduit has similar explosion proof sealing fittings prior to entering the fiberglass NEMA housing (for the still controls) and steel housing for the motor controls.

All joking aside, we were required to go C1D1 in the still area. Explosion proof motor, wiring, conduit, even the temperature probe housings and steam pressure sensor.