Silk City Distillers

Made it up, seemed like a pretty plausible range for bottle temperatures around the US, coldest or warmest.  Plus Minus 50% of the typical 60f calibration point, so +-30f around 60f.

I don't think the CFR makes any statement regarding the specific temperature that fill level should be measured at.

TCW now carries a Code 7 cartridge filter in the small 10" form factor that will work for chill-filtration of floc and haze.  Really great option for anyone looking to either chill or haze filter at smaller scales than a typical plate/frame setup would require.  If you've toyed around with trying to chill filter using a standard poly cartridge, even sub-micron, you realize that it doesn't actually work.  At first glance, it looks good, but after a few weeks the haze returns since the larger "clouds" just get broken apart and pushed through the filter.  It needs an medium with an ionic charge to attract and hold the colloids/haze.  These kinds of filters are easy to find for plate/frame style systems, but until now, there was nothing good for really small scale filtration.

https://store.tcwequipment.com/products/graver-gfc-haze-pre-filters

I picked one up the other day to try, have a batch of corn whiskey I want to take down to 80pf, where it will haze like crazy.

Besides, it's significantly more accurate to check your fill by mass.

A 1000ml graduated cylinder is something like +- 10ml accuracy, and the tiny graduations are 5ml, so adding the potential to misread by 1 graduation puts you around +- 15ml, which means your 750ml could ready anywhere from 735ml to 765ml, exactly where we started!

Working at 60f, 750ml with 2% variance by volume would be 735 to 765ml, which corresponds exactly to your 692-720g.

Keep in mind though, the regulation immediately preceding this one says you need to have the same number of over fills as under fills, so you likely aren't consistently filling at the upper or lower limit of your SOP range, but somewhere more tightly clustered around 706g.

Variance of a bottle filled with 706g (750ml of 90pf at 60f) based on temp would be 741ml at 30f and 760ml at 90f.

If you wanted to stay within 2% tolerance across the entire 30-90f temperature range by both volume and mass, you'd probably go a little bit tighter, 698-716g.

Or, keep exactly what you are doing and tell the TTB they shouldn't be testing your volumetric fill at 30f or 90f, because that's absurd and unrealistic.

Unless you have access to fresh cane and the ability to press it yourself, it’s difficult as cane juice will spontaneously ferment.

Regarding the cut away of undesirable congeners - acetic acid and ethyl acetate.

This accounts for something like 90-95% of carboxylic acids and corresponding esters produced in a typical ferment.

The possible citric acid mediated gene expression of 493 to produce propionic acid is probably the most important part of that paper for rum producers.

It’s counterintuitive but acidification of the non-sterile rum wash can prevent bacteria from taking hold in the ferment, actually preventing the pH from crashing.  This can also yield a cleaner rum as a result.

Pure sugar washes also have nearly non-existent buffering capacity, so they crash like no other.

Just curious, going through that study again, what specifically in the study is leading you to believe that the choice of citric as an organic acid is somehow problematic?

The only yeast in the study that's currently relevant, I believe, is 493 (aka EDV493 or Distillamax RM).  It's a fairly common rum yeast strain, I actually use it quite a bit, it's absolutely a fuller-flavored yeast strain (higher congeners).  However, there aren't really any solid benchmarks, since the rest of the yeasts in the study are not in common use.  I can't seem to find any current reference to the INRA 390, which may have been renamed/numbered.

Not to mention, the statistical relevance is kind of thin for many of the columns in the two tables I think you are focused on (Tables 4 and 5) - the data seem relatively noisy as well.

Looking at the 493 rows as the most relevant, Oura Synthetic Medium + Citric was resulting in a slightly lower congener volume compared to the synthetic reference alone, higher alcohols were slightly higher and short chain fatty acids were slightly lower, but the net difference was marginal at best.

Acetic acid production is very tightly correlated to heads cut percentage (ethyl acetate concentration), and 493+Citric was among the lowest total acetic acid production values (Table 5).

It's absolutely not so clear cut.

Especially in the context of these two excerpts:

Quote

 

It is also noteworthy that citric acid induced the production of three other fatty acids normally absent from the fermentation medium: propionic, valeric, and isocaproic acids.

 

Propionic Acid production is probably the most important factor in high ester/heavy rums.  The propionate esters are a huge factor in the characteristic of rum, with Isobutyl Propionate being identifiable as "rum" by most people.  Citric inducing propionic acid production in 493 is a hugely positive factor.

The last factor which is material here, is the fact that molasses and cane juice will already contain these acids:

Quote

 

Cane juice and molasses are particularly rich in cis- aconitic acid and citric acid, sometimes they also contain malic acid (Matsui, 1976; Meade, 1977).

 

The addition of sulfuric acid as a mineral acid catalyst in Fischer esterification is a very, very different thing.

Not for grain, but for other solids-laden liquid/slurry.

For 100% malt barley - this should work just fine.

"Funnel" at the bottom would be ideal - especially if your collection containers can fit under it.  You'll need some sort of plastic rake to help it along at the bottom, as it'll start to pile up if there isn't any way for it to fall clear quickly, not a big deal though.  

Ok, now I follow, usually the weir box isn't that large, a couple gallons at most.  I think you are on the right track welding in some plates to reduce the volume.

Don’t mess with the weir at the top, that’s critical.

Its to force the liquid into a sheet like flow over the wedge wire screen.  Without the top weir the liquid will stream right down and 90% of the screen won’t ever see liquid.  The wider the slow the slower the flow.  These guys know what they are doing.

You need to level the sieve so that you have perfect flow over the full weir.

You need to clean it anyway, pump some additional water through at the end to clear the weir box at the top.

Keep in mind these guys are talking about separating mash or beer, not stillage (post-distillation), so they can't pump it into totes.

Separating corn or rye mash, right after mashing, pre-fermentation -> this is the absolute most difficult separation.

Not only is the liquid the most viscous it will even be, it needs to be done in a sanitary manner.  Even worse, if it's been cooled already, now it's impossible.

I really wish people wouldn't sell stills with immersion elements to people who even remotely hint about making whiskey.  Sure, the still is 1/3rd of the price of a jacket or bain marie, but now you've got to deal with the impossibility of lautering corn and rye mash.

@Avak - Don't waste your time, it doesn't work.

I have tried everything in an attempt to not need to buy a very expensive machine from Russell Finex, Kason, or Vincent.

I'll tell you this, static presses do not work, period.  Don't waste your time and money.  The screens will occlude, the system will clog, and the mash will remain completely wet.  You will not be able to safely build the pressure necessary using any kind of simple tank.  The closest approach to this is a filter press, and unless it's a filter press that either has air injection or bladders, your plate sections will simply fill with wet mash.

Those machines are expensive because they do work.  These wiper/screw presses are fairly simple conceptually, but realize that you need to find the absolute perfect balance of screw taper, screen, wiper, back pressure, feed rate.  In many cases, you are paying for the expertise needed to provide a system that works, not the specific parts.  You could easily spend $20,000 trying to build a similar machine that doesn't work.

The reasons that rotary screw presses and decanter centrifuges work is that they are self-cleaning and do not clog easily.  They can handle variable particle sizes and significant differences in types of particles.  A small bit of corn is a very different animal from a barley husk.  Once you accept this, you will realize that no static filter press could ever work.

That said, we use a screen, a squeegee, and a scoop.

It's incredibly low tech, but is exactly how a wiper/screw press works.

Squeegee is necessary to keep the screen clean and to unclog it.  

The trick is, never allow the tank to fill, this is bad.  You need to squeegee and scoop, never allowing the screen to fill.  Just like the machines work.

And do it as hot as possible, the higher the temperature, the easier it is to separate.

You'll need to find a balance, larger screens are easier/faster to work with, but will allow more solids through.

Even if I had 3 phase I’d still run though a VFD - and I’d have one that has over current monitoring and protection. 

Slow start, motor protection, reversing, speed control - VFD is always the way to go.

For what you get for a few hundred bucks, worth every penny.

Hey @indyspirits - please share your thoughts after you spend some time talking with the vendors.

David Dunbar

Also consider, now that it's summer, someone with a bottle in a hot car, bringing it inside, will see reverse-condensation on the bottle neck due to the glass cooling before the liquid.  Or, a warm delivery truck, and a cool store, where a bottle might be sitting undisturbed on a shelf.

No, but you'd need to sit down and do the math to determine what the breakeven looks like on a holding tank.  I bet saving $0.10 a pound on molasses (after shipping) might pay back the holding tank in one delivery.

I thought the genesis of the "limestone water" and whiskey linkage had to do with mashing, and not proofing.

Limestone water is higher in Calcium and has higher Carbonate Alkalinity.

Calcium deficiency results in poor enzymatic conversion of starch to sugar, specifically, calcium ions make amylase more resistant to temperature and pH.  To an extent, more calcium, more sugar, higher yield.

Higher carbonate alkalinity means the water has higher buffering potential, so that pH doesn't crash.  This would directly impact yeast efficacy, especially in a situation where they would be in competition with bacteria.  Bacterial competition means lower yield, so better buffering potential means potentially higher yield (faster fermentations).

This all assumes the alternative is water deficient in calcium with poor buffering ability.

Reverse osmosis, even very poor RO (on purpose), is still going to yield something like a 90% reduction in these ions.

You are right but don’t let the marketers know, it’ll ruin the story.

Marketers love limestone.

It'll certainly change the pH.

Maybe there is a marketing angle in that, pH Neutral Vodka.

Couple points.

I think you'll find rum in used barrels is more characteristic of the typical flavor profile of an aged rum rather than in new barrels.  Color on the new barrels is fantastic, but like you say, the oak can be very forward, especially on a 5 gallon barrel.  I've tasted some nice rums that were aged in a mix of new and used oak that I thought were very good, so it's possible.  Likewise, probably doable in a larger format barrel, where you can better control extraction vs. maturation.

Which brings me to the next point, extraction vs maturation.  On a 5 gallon barrel, extraction will outpace maturation significantly.  10g is better.  15g is better than 10g.  25/30g better yet.  

If you must work with small barrels, consider cutting the time in oak, transferring to a tank, and finish maturation in glass or stainless (yes, maturation reactions will continue).  Realize there are age-statement implications.

The problem isn't when things fail in the way that we anticipate that they will fail, these scenarios are trivial and easy to manage.

It's when things fail in ways that we never expected them to fail.  This is where a human can recognize a problem and react accordingly, and this is exactly where a system will fail.  You don't think a primary and backup relay can fail?  You don't think a primary and backup solenoid can both stick open or closed?  You don't think tubing or metal can fatigue and break?

I never said that automation was bad, I made that very clear Richard.  In all the cases you mention, those additional safety mechanisms improve the overall safety of the system.  Great, I'm all for it.

However, they do not create an environment where the system is safe to run unattended, period.

This is not up for discussion, we don't run stills unattended, period.  Anyone who advocates for this, or builds systems that allow this, is wrong, period.  Is that enough periods?