Silk City Distillers

I would have paid more…

We got a skid of bottles with the wrong neck diameter - so our existing bar tops did not fit. Beyond that snafu - I have noticed more quality issues - inclusions in the glass (specks of black material), as well as some bubbles in the base that look like dark inclusions.

Milled into a hopper and metered in water to match the grain mill rate. The grain slurry was then pumped into a steam jet assembly followed by a static mixer and piping for dwell time. We ran it around 5psi and 225f. If we had high pressure steam, we’d have pushed that. However, there is a limit as the mash will flash boil on at the output. We ended up pumping into the mash tun through the bottom. It was promising, but we gave up on it ultimately.

Calculations by weight and not volume

We were playing around with continuous starch cooking for a while. We had to shut it down unexpectedly and the whole line post steam jet just gelled up tight. Connected it to the compressor to try to blow it out. Was like a giant corn silly string shot out of a cannon. Be careful using tube in tube to cool cooked, but unconverted, starches. Sure, it’s hilarious in retrospect, but you are going to hate yourself for it.

It's not really applicable to commercial distillers. It's a fun project, and nice work on what you built, but the reality is that those simple calculators aren't really relevant on a day to day basis. For example, you can't make volumetric proofing calculations without taking into account the temperature of your liquids - you don't. Even without taking into account the impact of temperature on volume, the result being provided was off compared to my manual calculations. Are you using OIML or TTB calculations for proofing? If you are serious about this, you should consider taking up Alex's offer.

Wow, that looks like a headache to run.

Assumed the OP was talking about anise-flavored Arak (aka Ouzo, Raki, etc).

Crack? Er... Cr-arak? (groan, not my best work)

Triclamp is what you’ll most commonly find.

That’s also a great option when you have your pump hooked up to a tank to cycle through CIP solution for cleaning. You can cycle through caustic, acid, rinse, sanitizer, without continually breaking down hoses.

Oh one additional point - Make sure your valves are opening and closing in the right direction, and don't interfere with each other, before you start. You are going to get sloppy one day, and put the valve on backwards, and then swear a bit when you need to clean the resulting mess.

Used equipment coming out of Pharma and Food are often good sources of high quality sanitary/food grade equipment. Pharma especially, since they tend to not re-use anything when they build/refit production lines. Equipment is usually in very good shape, as they have maintenance and compliance programs. Keep an eye on the auction markets for when local plants close. We got two bombproof 2" Viking Duralobe pumps out of a Colgate toothpaste factory for $500. How much you can repurpose, refit, reuse is going to depend on how handy you are to make it all work.

Use two valves back to back on your hose connection. Close both valves before you break the tank connection. Walk the hose over to the drain and open the valve to drain. Depending on how high your pump is off the ground, you may need to do this on both sides of the pump. The most you'll spill in this scenario is the liquid between the two valves - half cup, quarter cup or so. You can still flush with water to drain the hoses of wash. Some pumps are less problematic. For example, lobe pumps will generally pump air through the lines, and force air into the receiving tank, emptying the hose/pipe. Centrifugal pumps won't do this, and the hose/pipe after the pump will nearly always be full of liquid.

Have the same questions about that thing getting stuck at the top of a grain cap and reporting crazy data as a result. Its a brilliant idea though, I love it. Especially if you have a lot of different tanks to accommodate.

I really wanna know what the hell y'all talking about. Speaking in tongues. I'd like to think I'm in the loop on things, and I'm just scrolling through here wondering what the heck.

If you are looking for something more in line with an industrial control approach, or are looking for something more technical/flexible. Omega's got some great units that are ethernet enabled (iSeries) - easily plugged into wifi bridge to wirelessly enable them on your network. They have web browser interfaces, and can easily be integrated with whatever apps you'd like to build (if that's your thing). This includes pid controllers, so you can actively control your fermenter remotely as well, not just monitor. Red Lion Modular Controller as well, they have nice HMI style web displays, where you can drop lights, switches, readouts, etc. Ethernet as well, but easily plugged into router or wireless bridge, etc. You can display these on monitors, tablets, whatever. Neither of these are plug and play though, you've got to be comfortable with din-style controllers, and or wiring, configuration, etc etc. You can almost always find a unit on eBay for cheap. Those Ranco units are not WIFI, but they are BOMB-PROOF reliable.

I know a couple of guys that have mounted that Danfoss adapter in the opposite direction, with that bottom end attached to the condenser, and using the current input port as the output, facing straight up. In every case, they did it that way because their reflux condenser was higher than the product condenser, and lining it up that way saved a bunch of plumbing fittings. Position isn't universal though, for example, the most common probe type, you can't install it with the line going downwards, so do keep that in mind. It can be vertical (line upwards) or horizontal.

Honestly, just open that bypass and introduce some higher, more turbulent flow, and it'll take care of that. As long as you have no plumbing leaks (where air can be sucked in when not in use), it's unlikely to build up much air over time. Higher flow rates will grab that air as little bubbles and pull it out. Absolutely nothing to worry about re-engineering.

Trapped air is more of a function of flow rate and air bubble entrainment on the cooling side. For most of us running cooling loops, the fact of the matter is that most "trapped air" simply gets carried out by the liquid flow. As long as your not pumping through liquid filled with bubbles, it's not likely that those areas will stay air-filled for very long. This isn't necessarily something that needs to be "trapped", even if you are running a system that lets the coolant naturally drain out after use. What you can't do, is just put a hose on the end of that Danfoss adapter tube, and just let it drain to the ground (I don't think this is what you are suggesting at all, but would be a scenario where you *would* need to trap).

Suspect he was the only guy left in the industry that didn't decide to sell a stockpile of heads and tails as hand sanitizer. Drum it up and call a hazardous waste removal company to haul it off. Bunker fuel processors, ethanol product destruction companies, etc.

I would imagine the easiest way to produce gin in a continuous still would be to take your final alcohol as vapor, as close as possible to your intended final proof, and pass that through a carter-head style vapor extraction process before condensing.. That said, I don't know of many people doing this today, if at all. I've experimented with this process myself, and have found that the ratio of water/ethanol in the vapor feed to the carter head is absolutely critical in getting the right flavor profile for extraction. Passing azeotropic ethanol vapor through botanicals will not yield an ideal extraction - meaning one that is comparable to traditional batch distillation - water vapor is CRITICAL. My approach was to vaporize a combination of two liquid streams - one of ethanol and one of ro/di water, and pass that through a reloadable basket. I used metering pumps to control liquid flow rates to be able to dial in exactly the vapor abv concentration desired. Spend enough time running gin on a batch rig and you'll start to get a good sense of flavor profile over time, which is partially *influenced* by the change in vapor abv through the run. It's also not necessarily a "continuous" process, as you will likely need to reload botanicals multiple times through the run, based on the volume of your carter head/basket. All that said, the approach can create very small footprint gin machine capable of an astronomical production rate.

We got a skid of 375s that had the wrong neck diameter entirely.

About 4x too low on the nutrients, should be 1.25lb (567 grams) of Superfood and 1.5lb (680 grams) of DAP for 250 gallons wash volume, per the BSG recs. Sugar is 0 FAN, it's even worse than the "Very High Risk" table in the BSG chart. That n-pure stuff looks interesting.

Hoping someone gets my “tastes like burning” reference.