Silk City Distillers

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.

18 hours ago, Still_Holler said:

Right now, I heated for 4 hrs with no water to dephleg and my kettle temp is 170 F but my column temp is only 78 F.  I heated it fast and then as I approached 160 I cut the heat way down but kettle temp is still slowly creeping up.  I would like to get the heads out with kettle at 170 (altitude adjustment of -3 F) then run on dephleg and higher heat to get hearts.  It seems like long time for column to heat up but I guess I'll have to be patient, possibly shut heat off for a little while.  

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.

8 hours ago, klattig said:

So you don't do any treatment to reduce the acid of the distiller's beer? 

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.

We run single pass on a 4 plate and can easily vary final product proof anywhere from about 135 to 160 by adjusting the reflux ratio and/or output speed.   We can can also exceed 160 pretty easily.

It’s not really possible for us to do a whiskey spirit run from low wines with 4 plates.  We do it for rum and it’s difficult for us to get the final proof under 170-180.  There is enough passive reflux to keep the plates loaded and active, so even with the dephleg off, it’s still running high.

You clearly cater to some very tall distillers.

H-B Durac or VeeGee are the most common you'll find.  The eDrometer is not TTB approved for gauging, which means you still need the appropriate glass stems.

Interesting color and location.  You are sure that's not oil from the gear reducer?  Can you confirm you are actively leaking vapor during distillation?  It would be quite obvious.  Given how dark that is, the location of the gear reducer, it's possible that you are leaking oil from the output shaft seal of the reducer.

Sometimes when it’s really hot or I’m in a rush, I’ll fill the target fermenter up with some cold water and set the setpoint low the night before.  Then during mashing, use the cold water fill a bit to get to malt mash-in temp, and after conversion is done, pump in the rest.  If I combine this with the jacket cooling, I can usually cut an hour off the start-to-pitch time.  The other benefit is pumping cold water in from the fermenter, vs using the fill tap, is I can pump at 10x the speed of the water filler.  I can also drop the water temp to way below tap temp.  You’ll be dealing with a pretty heavy mash if you do this.

Looovvvve mashing in the winter.

If you *really* want pink.  Consider vapor distilling the strawberry and use a stable commercial carmine for coloring (with label disclosure).  Color is an important part of the experience and enjoyment of eating and drinking.  You can control the color to get exactly what you want, and will better batch consistency.  You would be using all natural products to do it.  This isn't any less artful or craft, in fact I would argue it's even more so.  It'll yield a better product, with a better perception and experience of the product, with better long-term stability, and happier customers.

Why? It's probably going to be easy for you to keep it red on the store shelf, but it's going to go brown in the liquor cabinet at home.  I don't know about you, but I tend to keep bottles around a while.  A consumer that buys a premium product only to find it's gone brown?  Sorry that's not appealing, it's "gross" and it "went bad".  Probably not going to be a repeat buyer.  It's one thing to be able to sell it out of your tasting room, and explain to the customer that the product contains no natural color stabilizers, needs to be kept cool and dark, and consumed as quickly as is reasonable, but you have zero control once that product leaves your hand.  I wouldn't want someone judging me based on a muck-water brown spirit in a bottle, because someone left it in a hot car in the sun for a week.

Yeah, that's a sticky wicket.  Stabilization of natural colors is a tough problem without simple solution.  This isn't just in distilled beverages, this is across all food and beverage products.  Find a simple solution to make natural colors as true, bright, and lasting as artificial,  and you'd be a billionaire.

The red in strawberries is because of a class of chemicals called anthocyanins, attached a paper that has good background with some strategies on how to extend shelf-life.

Cortez_et_al-2017-Comprehensive_Reviews_in_Food_Science_and_Food_Safety.pdf

Probably the easiest is going to be ensuring absolutely minimal oxygen exposure, which is going to require you to purge tanks and bottles with CO2 or Nitrogen.  Eliminate all exposure to light.  Store as cool as possible.  Use small amounts of Citric or Lactic acid to drop pH and enhance stability.  EDTA as well, but now you are getting into the realm of needing a food scientist to help develop a protocol.

I've heard red is particularly challenging, since it's so unstable and easily goes from pleasing red to off-putting brown in just a few shades.  Alcohol does nothing to preserve the color.  Cochineal/Carmine used to be the go-to natural red, but even that's got a negative connotation these days (apparently people don't like to eat bugs).  If you've ever eaten a packaged food product with red strawberry puree in it (think strawberry yogurt), you've eaten strawberry puree that used carmine to enhance the color and provide longer-term color stability.  Starbucks strawberry frappucino?  For a long time it was carmine - until people flipped out.  I'd rather eat bugs than artificial red dye, but that's just me.

About two years, zoning issues and state licensing delays were the two main factors.  We paid rent for nearly a year with no income.  Be sure to budget for delays like this, I'm glad we did.

Caveat, this assumes you have some way to separate liquid from solid.

Depending on your volume, Rubbermaid Brute trash cans work well.  The nice thing is they stack up well, so they don't take up a ton of space.  Lots of our local breweries are using these.  Two people can comfortably lift them into and out of a pickup.  Good for smaller farmers who don't necessarily have forklifts, or reconfigure their bucket loaders to take off totes.  They have lids, which is nice, but they tend to go flying off the back of a pickup.  The handles are sturdy and they seem to hold up to pretty rough abuse.

We also use smaller poly barrels with locking rings, these were used food grade drums that we procured pretty cheap.  This is really useful during the warmer months, as you can lock them down air-tight.  If you need to store your spent grain indoors, it helps to have a way to not have to deal with the issues of open tops (stink and fruit flies).  Our farmer loves these in the summer - since with the lock rings they tend to stay a little fresher longer, but hates these in the winter, since when it starts to freeze, it's impossible to get out (the barrels taper to the top).