Silk City Distillers

Rafael Arroyo laid out the framework for mixed-culture bacterial fermentation and ester-selective fermentation in his 1945 patent, "The Production of Heavy Rums". He showed how the rum industry had been building specific congener profiles through the selective use of bacteria in fermentation, even though they didn't have a good idea of what the microbiology was when they were doing it. From the 50s on, there were numerous attempts to artificially replicate whiskies through adulteration, or somehow accelerate maturation. However, all of these techniques, good or bad, still required mashing, fermentation, distillation, maturation, and perhaps adulteration to yield a final product. Last year Robert Freitas laid out his spirits nanofactory concept, to completely build any spirit from molecular scratch, completely eliminating all the steps prior. Sure, the process is nostalgic, especially for us, but perhaps completely extraneous if one wishes to have full control. The Whiskey Nanofactory concept makes your proposed product look completely outdated. http://www.imm.org/Reports/rep047.pdf So, I'm not sure where you are going with this, but your argument that these technological trends are somehow ignored by the distilling community is a little misguided. We have a few more years left, Freitas estimated the cost to replicate 1 whiskey at $10 million, and at least 2 years - and still the bottle cost would be $1000.

Really depends on your mash efficiency, and process consistency. At a 1.04sg with 5kg in 27l, you are about 68% efficiency. There's lots of room to improve there. It might not make a difference in your test mashes, but at 50x volumes, you are talking real money.

This one? The 5 second full swing proportional actuation makes other valves look like dinosaurs trying to crawl out of a tar pit. I don't think you can use PWM directly, only 4-20ma/2-10vdc proportional like you've got with your Omega today. If you are looking to use PWM out of a micro controller and have no other option, you are going to need a PWM to Proportional converter (sometimes called a valve driver). You trying to build something with a little micro controller kit like an Arduino? I suspect it's going to be much easier to find a way to add an analog voltage output and control the valve directly versus trying to use a converter (which needs to be tuned typically). What are you trying to do anyway? I haven't swapped out my slower dephlegmator actuator for this one yet, on the list of projects. No spring control, it fails in place. We use recirculating water anyhow, so if we lose power we lose pump, so spring return open isn't much of a failsafe. Something like a PWM controlled solenoid - you absolutely want that to fail open.

Sure, you can eliminate the fungamyl if you are using enough wheat malt. Wheat's significantly lower gelatinization temperature means the enzymes will stay active longer. You can keep it under ~160F, you aren't going to be denaturing your enzyme, unlike with corn, where you are near 200f, way above what the enzyme can withstand. Add your Glucoamylase during the cool-down, not mashing, keeping in mind the appropriate temp and pH ranges. In addition to being a dextrin ninja, glucoamylase also has the ability to hydrolyze some starches that were not converted during mashing, so it's a bit of a one-two-punch when it comes to improving yields. Because of this, you are better off adding Glucoamylase at a lower temperature, keeping in mind that it will remain active through fermentation (if you are fementing on grain).

In Jersey? Gino Pinto down in Hammonton. Much better pricing than online.

Glucoamylase is more effective at saccharification than the beta amylase in malt. It’s common for the amylases in malt to create nonfermentable dextrins. Glucoamylase can reduce these dextrins to fermentable sugars - thus giving you a higher yield when combined. its also common to use high temp fungal amylases during cereal mashing, where regular malt amylases would be quickly denatured by the high temps. Use them alone with unmalted grains, or together with malt, there are good reasons in both cases.

Exactly why not to bother with paying for "refurbished" kegs. You can get all necessary o-rings in EPDM easily and relatively inexpensively. Fusti tanks (aka olive oil tanks) also work well, look better, and come in slightly larger sizes.

Beautiful space by the way, The Chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Buzz.

This doesn't address your issue, and I think you do have an issue, but ... your still has a CIP system, it will be more effective to use that compared to doing any kind of "cleaning run".

How much room do you have on your property? You can potentially expand your bonded area to extend outside the walls of your facility, which may allow you to use shipping containers as mini-rickhouses. I remember years back at Tuthilltown, they had a couple of shipping containers they were using for barrel storage.

To tell you the truth, I can't understand why anyone would even care the difference between the two. We should be open, drop me a line and we can work something out. We'll be open a few days that week for pre-turkey bottle sales and our rum cask finished bourbon release.

Nah, cheaper coke style pin lock. My local guy brings them in my the skid. I don't buy the cleaned/refurbished ones for exactly that reason, I don't want the new nitrile/buna gaskets. I think I got an email from keg connection that had 4 refurbished pin locks for 119.

For small production it’s hard to beat corny kegs (soda kegs). Sanitary, stainless, rugged, easy to move, very inexpensive. The beer guys sell em 4 for $100 usually.

By the way, someone sold you a still wrapped in Reflectrix and Wood? Knowing you were going to use it direct fire? God I hope it's not a vendor on here. That's the stuff they sell at Home Depot to staple up between your floor joists when you put in radiant floor heating - well, that's what I used it for anyway.

Not sure if this is what you are saying, but the boiling point of the wash is a function of the percentage of alcohol to water, you can't use the wash temperature as a proxy to attempt to distill out only specific components. If your wash temp is 170f and your column temp is 78f, it's because you aren't boiling - the column/head temp will not begin to rise in earnest until you are boiling. You would need to fill your kettle with azeotrope to be able to boil that low.

If your Teflon gaskets leak, throw them in the garbage and replace them. If they get knicked, kinked, or deeply scratched, they’ll find a way to leak. Inspect your triclamp fittings for any damage as well. Teflon is not at all forgiving, if you have a TC flange with a nick, it will seal fine the first time, but ruin the gaskets for future use. Pretty much everything has a seal, so assume the worst when the type of rubber or plastic isn’t indicated. Flaretek is a sanitary tube and fitting system that has zero gaskets. You find it commonly in Pharma, with a price tag to match.

In Roger's comment is a valid point though. Poor product quality reflects poorly on all of us, whether we like it or not.

Pre-distillation? No, that would directly impact the character of the distillate, by causing ester hydrolysis. I mean, it might be beneficial in a neutral spirit, but it would mute esters some in a flavored spirit. We do adjust the pH of the liquid stillage after separating it from the solid stillage, as required by our local sewerage.

Distillers grains, wet distillers grains (WDG), distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) - when you are talking about distilling grains, it's nearly always assumed to be post-distillation. I've eaten a handful. It's pretty sour. It's hard to get past the sour. It might take them a little while to switch over if they are used to eating that candy, usually when they get hungry enough.

@microshiner I'm surprised that you missed a key element in your original post. Your focus is primarily the value proposition of the product, and I'd argue that isn't the case at all. Buying local has no tangible component in the value proposition unless it results in a lower overall cost. It was made close to me, and didn't need to be shipped, so perhaps it should be less expensive? Otherwise, this is subjective, emotional. Do I have some connection to local products and they make me feel good. What's the marginal difference in product prices will I pay that keeps me feeling good? Buying something "craft-made" is slightly more tangible, as most will feel that craft products are higher quality than commercial, thus potentially justifying a higher market price, or higher quality at the same price (thus value). But this too is subjective, and it's very easy for large-scale producers to portray this same kind of image. If they can't, they can always hire Mila Kunis, and she is way prettier to look at than your ratty looking distiller. But what is missing is, at what point is the product of the craft distiller actually the experience? By focusing on the experiential aspects of craft, the tasting room, the distillery, the tour, the community, the brand as it exists in the local environment, the people, the stories, the local perception. These then become true points of differentiation, especially in younger demographics who are valuing the experiential nature of these things at a value higher than the product price would justify. Now we are talking value proposition. Both a major benefit to craft producers, as well as a curse. The benefit is extent of the penetration in your local addressable market. You can offer "experience", and the major commercial producers can offer bottles on shelves. The curse, how far can you extend the reach of this market? Suppose that depends on how much of a destination you can create, how far you can extend the influence of the experiences you create. Can you control the "experience" provided by a retailer 250 miles south? Perhaps not. That doesn't mean you can't be successful, but does it mean you are now on equal footing with the other non-local brands? There are people that can afford to take the last train to whiskeyville, but we're talking about a very small number of people. Compare this to the number of people in your local market that can take part in your experience, just by dropping in on a Saturday? It would be interesting to see if this translates into actual business success over the next few years. Is success correlated to the size of the locally addressable market when you are experience focused? If you placed the same distillery in an exurb and an urban location, which would do better? If we are talking about the value proposition of the product, it's irrelevant, they are on equal ground, if we are talking about the value proposition of the experience, it might be another matter entirely. If your model is micro, I see no path to success that it's incredibly focused on experience first.

It would be near impossible for a newcomer to be able to pull off that kind of workflow project, they just don't have the context and experience necessary. It's probably how most of us would approach building our second distillery though.

I don't keep my house that warm..

Most important wrist strap ever.

We have one of those bright yellow flammable cabinets, Justrite. They are a pretty standard item and most Fire Marshall’s are familiar because any paint shop, machine stop, etc would be using them for flammable storage. You can get them large enough for 2 55g drums, we have a 90g cabinet that's nice for storing smaller volumes/containers. I believe they need to confirm to NFPA and FM requirements - they will have the big approval decals on them. It's only a couple bucks more for the self-closing doors.

As for cuts, your nose knows. Don't bother trying to work off proof or head temperature, it will differ from still to still, and wash abv.