Silk City Distillers

The other tip I'd share - clean the inside of the outer sleeve tube with a little lab tube brush to ensure there is no build up/deposit on the inside of that tube, causing it to stick, just rinsing/soaking doesn't do it.

The sleeve and shaft are both very, very smooth, but you can see polishing from the wear (nothing that looks like a scratch or galling caused by foreign material). it was definitely the top seal causing that little bit of binding. Just the tiniest amount of lube made a world of difference (even after I wiped it off with a dry paper towel), but will need to see how it plays out in use. The direction of that top seal makes a difference in the play. I assume the open gap faces down towards the tip (solid up) and not the other way around. I thought Haynes Lubri-film Plus tasted the best (yes, I tasted a bunch of them, I mean least/no taste and no odor). I have a teflon food-grade lube that I feel like was a little smoother, but it had a very faint odor. The Haynes is also FDA/NSF H1, Kosher, and Halal. I didn't bother with the food-grade silicone spray, suspect it wouldn't last very long, like you say. I've got a very very smooth action post lube. Going to break down the rest, give them a good scrub, and re-install. I did get a new nozzle assembly from TCW a week ago to replace the one that was giving us the most trouble (it was sticking open too, which was a mess). Post lube, new and old were running very similar. Worth noting, even the old nozzles have new rubber that's maybe a bit over a year old.

Michael did me right on numerous occasions. TCW is a great resource. From turning me on to the Graver haze filters, to modifying my Mori to have completely variable bottle height!

I can understand maybe not having access to natural gas in a rural area, but why not just burn fuel oil in a steam boiler? Got to imagine in BC farm country there is plenty of untaxed diesel (heating oil or off-road diesel), and I bet it's a whole lot cheaper than electric or even propane to run a distillery on. There really isn't any cost difference between a good electric bain-marie and steam jacketed still, and the payback on steam is probably less than 2 years.

Closed off lab area with a sink, ample counter/work space and cabinets to hold everything above, comfortable/ergonomic work chair or taller drafting stools, ample storage for samples and sample bottles. Safety glasses wouldn't hurt. Fume hood. Laptop. Lots of outlets (like every foot or two along the countertops), good lighting. Air conditioning. Fire extinguishers. Cute set of cleaning brushes for all the glassware, drying rack too. Decent radio (Sonos with Pandora or something good like that). What? Am I dreaming again?

Are there any lubrication requirements for the Mori filler nozzles? We usually just break them down, clean them, and re-assemble. Never really thought to lube them as I imagined the liquid being filled would provide enough lubrication on the metal/o-ring surfaces. Recently started to get some friction as bottles were inserted, almost feel "sticky" except I just cleaned them. We've put a lot of miles on the machine, so it could just be metal/metal wear on the nozzles. Noticed at TCW @MichaelAtTCW that there were some lubricants listed under the suggestions. Is there a recommended set of lubes and locations? The top cup seal seems like the most obvious point for lube. Teflon food grade grease? Silicone? Is is recommended to lube the metal surface of the shaft (metal to metal). So many questions, I just want filling nirvana back.

Thanks, helpful. Scanned through bottle offerings and didn't see a whole lot. I wasn't sure if that was real availability challenges (meaning, custom bottles required), or the shorter-term supply chain issues for bottles. Obviously, plenty of options on the wine bottle side, seems like many using stelvin for spirits are using Bordeaux style bottles.

Where are you putting the screen, and how large is it? You mention your fermenters are closed top, so I assume you aren't talking about a false bottom. 40 mesh, 400 micron, is going to capture A LOT of solids, especially if you are roller milling anything and leaving husk intact. You'd need to pump through some kind of intermediary tank (like a lauter tun), for this to work.

Looking to attack another price point for clear spirits, wondering if anyone using ROPP/Stelvin with a semi-automatic capper that can throw some pointers my way. What equipment? Anything I need to know about ropp/stelvin sizing? What mistakes shouldn't I make? Are you seeing faster throughput/easier workflow than corking and sealing (we are using a CCR corker, manually applying a shrink, then shrinking). Am I overthinking the potential cost/time savings?

Stateside, we distill on the grain because we have little other choice when working with grains like corn and rye, which do not lauter easily. Malt is an interesting one, because there is a choice. Personally, I think on-grain processes result in more grain character carrying through to the distillate (probably obvious right?). If you are planning on using distinctive malts (roasts, etc), there may be additional benefit in enhancing some of those flavors on grain. I hesitate to call off grain cleaner, but that’s the direction my head is leaning (less-characteristic). The other big factor off grain is whether you are distilling with yeast. Again, keep in mind you don’t have a choice on-grain, the yeast always comes for the ride. For off-grain, this is a pretty big impact, and you can vary how much yeast you pull over to the still. Off grain, no yeast, is going to be fairly mild/non-distinctive, but may yield a more palatable young whiskey. A lot of folks talk about negative impacts due to tannin from the husk, personally I’ve never found that to be the case. I’ve distilled malt mash bills both ways (we have a brewery next door), and it’s not the biggest standout. Given I’ve hammer milled malt to flour, if there was going to be a real negative impact, I’d notice it.

The only enzymes that will help this are the viscosity related ones like beta glucanase. There are products that contain others in addition (Dylan’s se, hemicellulase) that work really well. We have a jug of ViscoSEB if you need some to test with.

Cool little rig, that design looks familiar from forums from a decade back when the hobby community was experimenting with small scale continuous. Everyone had problems with small diameter columns, because it was easy for foam to find support at the walls and climb, or at least not collapse. Video is neat - but damn that sugar wash is crystal clear.

There is definitely a benefit to having the anti foam well mixed and suspended. We have had far better results adding it to the mash tun before fermenter pump over versus in the still. I’m not sure an oil base would work in a similar fashion though, given a tendency to separate. Was chatting with someone a year or two back and we thought it might be interesting to use a metering pump to add a tiny amount of antifoam into the column feed. How are your co2 levels? Are you fizzing? Have you tried pumping over in the fermenter to degas?

Yeah we tore out huge sections of concrete slab for plumbing and drains, I still kick myself over not putting some tubes down.

Sometimes you gotta say it three different ways so they listen….

I know there is some lit around this, but I haven't done any kind of thorough review. But what's clear is, higher proof isn't always better. It's different, could be better, or could be worse. Just did some quick google-fu and found this one. Clearly in this case, the optimal extraction is a mix of ethanol and water. Using only pure ethanol yields a significant reduction in yield in comparison to water, or the 70%.

Just a peanut gallery comment on this one. The flavor profile of your extract may change depending on the ratio of water to ethanol of the solvent and of course your specific botanicals. A year or so back we were working on a fun little project, a continuous vapor extraction gin still. Essentially, we were vaporizing ethanol and water as direct injection into a reloadable botanical basket. We used two pumps, one for neutral, one for RO water, so we could vary the vapor composition on demand. The big difference between this approach and a batch still behind it, is constant vapor composition, as opposed to the ratio shifting from ethanol to water. I certainly didn't expect as significant a difference in the flavor composition of the distillate (when proofed to bottle strength), it was pretty easy to vary the ethanol concentration on demand at any point in the basket extraction (start to finish). We initially thought we would just inject ethanol, that was totally wrong, in fact, extraction could best be described as only being partial in this case, so there must have been some number of water soluble (or steam extractive) components that were critical. It wasn't until we added water and could play with the ratios, that we were able to match the flavor profile of our batch extracted gin. We realized this on a whim (accidentally even), I poured some RO into the ethanol tank at the tail end of the basket to purge the hoses/lines. We were amazed at what we got, an incredibly milky/louched distillate (literally, it was like white paint). When added to the distillate, it easily dissolved clear, and brought the flavor profile much closer. Yeah, granted, this was vapor extraction and not maceration. However, I've done plenty of azeotrope and lower proof maceration-based extracts with my rotovap, and there is a difference.

Cabot/Norit? They are the best in the business, and will sell you a 40-50lb bag. Not cheap, ranges from $7-12 a pound. Carbons like PK1-3 (peat, what they recommend for vodka) and GAC1240PLUS (coal) are widely used in the spirits business. SX Ultra (powder) for decolorization. Cabot ROX 0.8 is a fantastic carbon as well, ultra high purity. http://www.cabotcorp.com.co/~/media/files/product-datasheets/datasheet-norit-rox-08pdf.pdf We have a local supplier that knows their stuff, General Carbon in NJ - https://generalcarbon.com/industries-served/distilleries-activated-carbon/ - They've built some huge spirits filtration plants down in the Caribbean.

Reminds me of the old Chem 101 experiment around supersaturated solutions - many did this with dissolving sugar in water at higher temperatures, which resulted in supersaturation at low temps. Drop in a sugar crystal and poof, out comes all the extra sugar - which will not dissolve again unless reheated. No idea of these kinds of supersaturated mixtures can occur here. We say “oils”, but it’s a lot more complex than that (botanical terpenes for example). If terpenes and other substances can form supersaturated solutions with ethanol/water - you could see a scenario where slow proofing keeps the solution stable, but if they were to precipitate back out, they won’t redissolve. The slow proofing theory holds more weight if what we are talking about are meta stable solutions.

Thanks for the commentary on reflux ratio Alex. I asked because I thought it was a bit low. Most small distillers I know would gladly trade run time and energy for higher purity distillate with a smaller footprint (hence, higher RR). We talk about efficiency, but it’s seldom given the weight it would in a large commercial setting.

What’s your rationale around the reflux ratio of 1.5?

Yeah, understood. I was under the impression that brandies distilled from wines with sulfur dioxide often saw h2s and other sulfides formed from so2.

Take a stroll through the literature on Copper Sulfate Pentahydrate treatment in wine as well, it might be effective for you, but you'll need to redistill. It's the equivalent of forcing copper reactions chemically. You can use more than they do in wine, but again, you MUST decant the distillate off any precipitate and redistill, Copper Sulfate Pentahydrate is poison in the amounts you'll need to treat low/high wines. https://vinlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Vinlab-Copper-Trial-and-Addition.pdf It's a much more targeted approach than carbon, which is just a sledgehammer in this situation.

Shame you couldn't blend in some beer...

It's very difficult to provide a dosage recommendation, since there are two factors at play: 1) How much nutrient do you need to reach optimum? Refined sugar requires far more nutrient than a grain fermentation using backset. 2) How concentrated is your yeast slurry? I'd say a good starting point for a slurry is 2x your yeast pitch weight for molasses based fermentations, and 3x your yeast pitch rate for more refined sugar fermentations. So, if you are pitching 500g of yeast, pitch 1000-1500g of slurry, and go from there. Tell-tale signs of nutrient deficiency for rum ferments are slow or sluggish fermentations, stalled fermentation near the end, and sulfur aromas in the wash/distillate.