Silk City Distillers

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.

1 hour ago, Roger said:

or the customer is so dumb, they deserve to be deceived. 

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.

Scale tanks have all sorts of problems, it's not a panacea.

They regularly drift, meaning the displayed weight is not accurate.  If you have visions of putting 1000 lbs in a tank, and coming back in two weeks and seeing an accurate weight, sorry.

Impossible to re-zero without dumping contents, unless the tank has an integral lift to unweight the load cells (I've seen this).

Permanent hose and wiring connections on the tank become problematic as they throw off your tare and calibrations, they may need to be disconnected for weighing and zeroing.

For a while I thought about fabricating and selling universal flat bottom tank scales.  For example, for standard Letina, Marchiso, etc wine tanks.  4 legs, stainless frame, integral load cells, integral level, and a lip to keep tanks centered.

101 gallons and up need a permanent measuring device.

All of the CFR references to scale tanks refer to tanks on scale beams or load cells.  Not tanks sitting on scales.

But really, a 200 gallon Letina tank sitting on a floor platform sounds pretty permanent to me.

We gave a 400 liter tank sitting on a 1000lb base.

Speaking of Ebay.  If anyone is anywhere near Puerto Rico - This is an unbelievable deal:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mettler-Toledo-2888-1000-lbs-DECKMATE-all-Stainless-Portable-Scale-/262926057121?hash=item3d379d3ea1:g:5lwAAOSwDmBY5ksZ

Mettler Class III Indicator, stainless/sanitary deck base, 1000 pounds 0.2lb accuracy, explosion proof/battery powered.  You'll probably be dead before you break it.

This is a $5,000 scale.

Can you tell I like scales yet?

Every distillery should have 3 scales.

Yes, get out your pocket book, you should have 3 scales:

Scale #1 - Sized for the maximum amount of spirit you deal with in Production.

Scale #2 - Sized for the maximum amount of spirit you produce in Processing.

Scale #3 - Sized to check weight a filled bottle for verifying filling accuracy in Bottling.

If you deal with similar weights on a day to day basis in Production and Processing, than the same scale would suffice.  But if you are working with totes of GNS in Processing (needing a max capacity of at least 2000lb), and producing 50 pounds of distillate at a time out of your still, you probably want two different scales.  What is a good accuracy when dealing with a tote is not a good accuracy when trying to proof 50 pounds of distillate.

If you deal with small volumes in production and processing (under 10 wine gallons), keep in mind 19.186 above, this will all but GUARANTEE you need three scales, since you will not find a high capacity scale with enough divisions to accurate read to the hundredth place.  Generally, this kind of scale is going to be under 100 pounds maximum capacity.

The third scale is for checking your bottle fill accuracy, and it is going to need to be accurate to the gram.  We use a 2kg x 1g scale which works perfectly for us (750ml is our largest bottle, and the glass is a little bit over 900 grams), but you are going to need to know your bottle glass weight and volume to determine if 2kg is sufficient or not.  You weigh a bottle, tare it, fill it, then check against the table.  Allowable fill variation is pretty wide, so 1g accuracy is enough.  You can find inexpensive high quality scales for this, and it is significantly easier than attempting to verify bottle fill volumetrically.

You can find my bottle verification check weight chart here for 375 and 750ml: 

Generally, legally I mean, Legal-for-Trade is typically determined by your State Division of Weights and Measures.  Usually, just having an NTEP scale in place doesn't automatically mean you are Legal-for-Trade - this usually requires state level registration and regular inspection.

How many distilleries are registering their scales with their State, and having state inspectors come out to provide a Weights and Measures seal on a regular basis?  The CFR we are talking about are all Federal requirements, Legal-for-Trade is a State requirement.  Not to mention, the rules for Legal-for-Trade will differ, sometimes SIGNIFICANTLY from state to state.

Call up one of the suggestions above, buy a NTEP scale - not because you need NTEP, but because you want the quality associated with it, and the confidence of knowing you can trust it.

If you can spring for it, go 1000lb x 0.2lb - as it will give you a little bit more accuracy when working with smaller volumes.

Just keep in mind 19.186 - which means you can't weigh 10 wine gallons or less on the 1000lb x 0.2lb (or 0.5lb) scale.

§19.186   Package scales.

Proprietors must ensure that scales used to weigh packages are tested at least every 6 months and whenever they are adjusted or repaired. However, if a scale is not used during a 6-month period, it is only necessary to test the scale prior to its next use. Scales used to weigh packages that hold 10 wine gallons or less must indicate weight in ounces or hundredths of a pound.

And keep in mind the definition of package:

Package. A cask or barrel or similar wooden container, or a drum or similar metal container.

Modular is a nice way to learn.  You can start with pot still distillation - arguable the easiest.  Then move on to trays, where now you add the complexity of operating the reflux.

I wouldn't ever recommend perf plates for a beginner over bubble caps.  Cap trays are much more forgiving and have a wider effective operating range.

Stilldragon - everyone else just copies them.

You do realize this is illegal, right?  And your screen name appears to be your real name...

Ok, I'm sold.  Next purchase on my list.  Given the ER deductible on our insurance is $1500, seems cheap enough.