Silk City Distillers

Explain a little more about "filter until clear" - It's coming off the still cloudy? Or are you mascerating post-distillation? If you are clouding right off the still, you stand no chance.

The used barrel demand from the craft brewers is changing the dynamic a bit, it seems there is currently insatiable demand for fresh dump whiskey barrels. Up in my neck of the woods, you can easily sell fresh dumps for half the acquisition cost. Have no issues getting rid of second use dump rums for the same price. Anything in the smaller 5-10 gallon range, you could probably find local craft brewers that would pay you a premium over the craft breweries, the local home brew shop was salivating at the prospect of reselling for us. I've also gotten calls from people making honey, maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, cold brew coffee, that all want used bourbon barrels or their products. These guys would pay a premium as well, since they are specifically purchasing used barrels to be able to say bourbon barrel aged on the label.

Anyone using wine as a flavoring ingredient in a distilled spirit specialty (greater than 2.5%)? Just running through the regs, wine is considered a blending material, and in a distilled spirit specialty may exceed 2.5%. Just wondering what I'm missing.

Best part of owning an ice maker - so much ice. Worst part of owning an ice maker - cleaning the ice maker.

Budget for mistakes, because every mistake seems to cost $5,000. It doesn't matter what it is, it's probably going to cost $5,000 to make right. Figure that you, or your contractors, will make a few mistakes along the way.

Rinse the still on the off days? Don't bother.

You got me on a chocolate kick. Have you seen this product, designed for brewers? http://www.cholaca.com/brewmasters-cacao-nibs-alternative/ http://imbibemagazine.com/cholaca-chocolate-beers/

Oh oh oh, I am misunderstanding I think, the end result is not distilled, you are draining the product from the boiler. So yes, you've made a large soxhlet, very cool.

Thanks Odin, that's helpful. Is the resemblance to a soxhlet extractor intentional or coincidental? I can't see all of the plumbing to see if it works in the same manner. Generally though, that much carry over I've only ever seen with higher vapor speed extraction. Some very interesting things happen when vapor speeds are high enough to begin carrying over non-volatile flavor compounds, a technique used commonly in the extraction of botanical oils. But, if you are working like a soxhlet, that shouldn't be the case. Boy, Hazi, where do I start with that? I was gifted a jar of some "very fine" hazi, wow was it rough. Not just in tails (it was visibly cloudy at 110 proof), but the heads cut? What heads cut. I told the person, you've got to be fooling with me. How do you simultaneously be happy that this person smuggled some back all the way from Hungary for me to try, but not have the heart to tell them it's absolutely awful!

Odin, Following your work on the extractor - why the turbidity in the color in the distillate? Is this being done in conjunction with masceration?

Somewhat related. If you've never read up on the fermentation of cacao beans as a part of the manufacture of chocolate, you owe it to yourself. The microbiology of it is incredibly interesting, and very much related to what we're doing. I've been dying to get my hands on raw beans and ferment them in conjunction with a grain mash.

I know you didn't really mean what you typed there, or it came across in an unintended way. We all know the customer is queen/king and their opinion is gospel. But, when the customer genuinely feels that a "produced by" product is better than a "distilled by" product? Certainly, you might educate the customer on what the differences are. But, you really aren't trying to argue that a substandard "distilled by" product should get a pass because it's "craft produced", are you? The product needs to stand on it's own merit first. Agree on the fake craft pushback, but what about the headwnds generated by the crap craft pushback?

(trigger warning for those prone to that sort of thing, this is intended to be provocative). I don't think making your own flavors and concentrates is incompatible with craft spirits production. If takes considerably more skill and craft to make your own flavor concentrates, than to single pass distill a "finished" product. So what about using someone elses? Trigger existential crisis? Currently working on a very low-temperature vacuum distilled cucumber concentrate for gin. I think it's far superior to putting cucumber in a gin basket, or macerating with cucumber in the final product. There are some very very interesting problems with making this concentrate, caused largely by the high sulfur content in cucumber, but these are solvable. It's much easier to control the final flavor profile and drive higher batch-to-batch consistency. But you know what I learned? This is really hard. Or vacuum distilling citrus to produce deterpenated extracts with significantly highly flavor and aroma "fidelity", one significantly less prone to oxidation. It's amazing the difference deterpenating citrus makes. The aroma and flavor is incredibly distinct, they don't cause the spirit to cloud. On the flip side, for some botanicals, it's the opposite, and it's the terpenes you want to keep. Or maybe just one of the terpenes, and you need to distill to get it. The big difference between the natural extracts coming out of the good flavor houses, is this kind of thing. Their ability to extract and purify a specific flavor is better than yours. The sophistication of their "craft" is far beyond our "craft", and what's really ironic is that their processes, in many cases, is very similar, albeit with a higher level of sophistication. It seems a little silly to poo-poo the flavor houses as being anti-craft, when you are calling someone dumping some (probably lower quality) botanical in a drum of ethanol, "craft".

Find a local chemical supplier - we buy 50lb sacks of USP grade Citric for $97. It's pretty cheap as far as cleaners go. Bonus works great for acidifying mash.

Small amounts of citric don't do much, 10 minutes won't do much. The above recommendations are really solid, we do the same. PBW and Citric. Hot citric works better than cold.

I love the funk, but that's not a common one. Ropiness and slime in fermentation is also common with Pediococcus. In fact, nearly always in brewing settings. The wild card, as you say, is the sugarcane. Leuc. is found in vegetative settings. Lots of those microbes fall under the lactic acid producing umbrella, but are genetically different.

What's your average temperature and humidity?

Or just label as "Produced and Bottled By", and skip the pouring through the still entirely.

So in one day, they can produce more than all the craft distillers do in a year?

If you are using RO and building up your mineral profile from scratch, why not just correct it there? You need more alkalinity. Calcium carbonate (chalk) or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or both. It's likely whatever you are adding is simply resulting in too low a concentration. Salts don't make it though distillation. What concerns brewers here is irrelevant to us. Baking soda is cheap and easy, you can add it proactively. In the quantities you might use to manage pH crash - it would make a beer very salty. Chalk won't completely dissolve unless your water is high in co2, but don't worry about it, as fermentation will take care of it.

1000 liters electric? How much power do you have in your facility? You are well outside the realm of water heater elements and standard 240v 200a service. Heed the warnings, you are being warned for a reason. In 1000l volumes, scorch just one batch a month, and in a year you are halfway in cost to a fit-for-purpose still. When you scorch distillate, it's not a fault, it's garbage - and completely non-recoverable.

Are we talking about clean, or are we talking about cheap? Wood is a polluting and wasteful energy source.

Does your product condenser have triclamp fittings? If so, circulate your cleaners and acids in reverse through the PC, and feed from the boiler drain. Flooding plates in reverse flow is pretty effective. Last step is to thoroughly rinse, leaving only water on the plates. For day to day cleaning, you can use a non-caustic cleaner like PBW first, followed by a rinse, then with citric acid to brighten the copper, followed by a final thorough rinse.

I think this was already implied by the other comments, but, you shouldn't need 2" piping on the feed or output. I would imagine 3/8 to 1/2 ID tubing would be more than sufficient. It's the difference between what looks like $200-300 in triclamp spool and fittings and $20 in tubing. Oh, and you need submicron filtration after the carbon.

Talk to Matsunosuke Higuchi at Higuchu Matsunosuke Shoten. http://www.higuchi-m.co.jp/ He was very helpful - his export pricing very good.