Absinthe Pete

I don't know much about CIP and I do have questions as well as I'm working on a CIP system right now. What I do know is placement, or my understanding of placement. Basically you have a spray ball, as see in the link below, for each area. So you have a spray ball for each plate in the still, one for the boiler and then one for any other area, such as any gin baskets or reflux coils and so forth. The balls can be fixed or rotating. I think for distillation you want the rotating balls. What I need to know is what kind of pump? I think you need 50 PSI? Then you need some sort of return line from the bottom of your still and a heater to heat up the solution, I guess it's a closed system? http://cgi.ebay.com/HOLDREN-BROTHERS-INC-CIP-SPRAY-BALLS-SPL-SB30-/250781224305?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a63b9cd71#ht_500wt_922

I can build you one to spec depending on the size, but I'm in San Francisco I'm sure you could find one closer to you.

I again agree, but months ago I was starting to think about other businesses and a lot say "Founded in blah blah blah" and that got me thinking. Because most of those businesses have not continuously been operating since the year they listed. I don't want to deceive the public and won't be putting a date on at all, but it just brought up some interesting thoughts to the issue.

Agreed, that's why I asked. Thanks. Tirador, it's going good. I'll be posting some pics of the still on here soon.

So I'm working on my business cards to start some marketing. When can I say legally or even ethically say Established by or Founding by on my business marketing? I mean let's say I've been distilling (legally through work shops and friends distilleries) and have been making and adjusting recipes and planning on opening a distillery since 2001. Can I say that. Now I don't care if the law doesn't care when you say Established by, as that could just be some marketing tool, but I also want to know from folks here if it's ethical to say so. I don't want to mislead the public, but have thought about opening a distillery and working on that sort of stuff since 2001. Thanks. P.S. My still is Officially finished just waiting on some gaskets so I can do a pressure test. Will post pics when it's all shiny.

KKbodine, what kind of corrections did the TTB ask you to make, I'm just curious.

I keep on the lookout for them all the time. If you need some let me know how long and I'll give you a price, be prepared it will not be cheap. It's heavy and copper is at an all time high.

Sorry Sold, I'll remove or have the Admin remove this when the deal is actually done. Thanks.

By the responses so far I was going to say, "I don't know if I'd come off as rude to someone who might be helping out industry, but I'll play both sides.". Then I re-read the post a few times and I'd have to agree with my fellow ADI members. Dude, if that is all you are including in the book as far as micro distilleries, what you have on that ONE page, then you are not even close to publishing a book on micro distilleries. That's as if you are writing a book on ant farms and you cataloged the one you have in the backyard.

It's $550 for everything not including shipping. Shipping weight would be about 85 pounds.

LOL, I've got a ton of emails "sorry it's not working out" I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL THE CONCERN, that's why I like out little community, people watch out for each other. Just to clarify I haven't stopped my project I just decided to go with a bigger column, it's actually almost finished and I should be able to get into my distillery in a couple of weeks. Then with a little luck I should have a product for sale by June or July. This was originally sized for a 220 gallon boiler, but this would work for anything from 100 to 200 gallons. I did have some help with a thermal engineer on checking my specs on the condenser I built. It should cool anything from 300,000 BTUs and down.

Ok, thanks for the info. I remember reading a long time ago one of the main Still manufacturer websites about it making automatic cuts and was just wondering. I am going to put a temperature actuated valve on my reflux condenser anyway. I'm not going with the dephlegmator anymore as I've changed column sizes.

So on almost every professional still I've seen it has some sort of Temprerature Actuated Valve, usually, from what I'm told, it's used to distinguish from heads to hearts and then to tails. So the ones on the professional still what are they used for? And how do they make the cuts? Thanks.

I totally forgot about the all copper bubble plates I made for this column, they are for sale and fit inside of the column. They are $200 for all three. They use an O-ring compression system. They are complete except for the actual bubble cap. It uses a 1 1/2" standard copper plumbing Cap. You'll need to drill holes or machine slots in the caps and drill a hole in the center for a screw. The system works with a threaded stainless ring, which are included.

I'm selling an 8" x 29" Copper Column Project that I've been working on for some time. Due to various reasons I'm selling it for cheap. It is an 8" copper tube type L, the wall thickness is about .20", it's heavy. I'm selling it for what I have in it as far as materials go, which is $350 not including shipping. Due to the high prices of copper scrap right now there is $175 worth of scrap just for the column. I will provide the CAD drawing I have for this column and for the flange bolt hole patterns. The flanges are Tig welded on and are strong but not water tight, they will have to be silver soldered to seal them. The flange that bolts on has a standard sanke keg neck which is compatible with a 2" Tri Clover fitting. I will include some of the stainless parts I made to make the sight glasses as well as the tube notched copper rings that could be soldered onto the column for the sight glasses. It also comes with the O-rings for the flanges. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. I will not leave this on for long, maybe a weeks or so, after that I'm going to scrap it.

I don't have any answers, but I do have a question I've been wondering about; I hope I'm not budding it. Can a microbrewery make any beer they want and sell it, meaning does a microbrewery have to have formula and label approval for each and every beer they make, because it sure seems most microbreweries come out with special brews all the time.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're talking about, but I'll see if I can explain what I'm reading. You said someone said heat will damage distillate? That's ridiculous, how do you think the distillate becomes distillate, it gets heated into a vapor. The reasons for keeping the distillate at a consistent temperature is for more accurate readings of your alcoholometer, that is without doing a compensation calculation. You actually want the distillate to come out warm to hot-ish as it will flash off some bad stuff, a little, as it sits and cools. For cooling water just have it coming out warm to hot-ish. Usually I teach people to have it below 150F. As long as all the vapor is getting knocked down your good on cooling water exit temp. You can hold a mirror to one of the exit ports on your still, where the distillate is coming out and see if it fogs up; that way you'll know if you still vapor coming out.

Thanks for the responses. As for the height I've been able to physically measure other professional stills and that's where I got the number for the distance between plates.

So I'm nearing completion of my large still and now I'm designing the bubble plates. The large professional stills I've seen such as Holstein, use one large bubble cap instead of multiple bubble caps. What's everyone's opinion? The column is 12 1/2" ID 36" tall with three bubble plates that are 6" apart. This still will be used for making whiskey, absinthe, bourbon, rum and the like. That's why I'm using only three plates to give a little separation. So one big bubble cap or multiple smaller ones. The large bubble cap would make construction easier. Thanks.

Do you have to have a brandy license to do this? I thought that was the only way to have tastings? I would tend to believe St. George as I've been to and have tasted at their distillery many times.

What I don't understand is, NOBODY in this day and age would ever click on a link, especially when it has porn in the title, or read spam, it's usually deleted immediately. So why do the spammers bother, I mean are there enough idiots on the web to sustain their business, by clicking on a random unknown link and give them your credit card?

I'm not in business yet, but I have a little experience with taping boxes. Basically, how far are the packages going? If they are being delivered by you or a distributor I think the cheap clear packing tape will do. If they are being shipped by UPS or FedEx then I'd say the expensive clear packing tape is good, but as I said you'd be surprised at the cost of dam packing tape. Now this will probably work if you are only doing one stripe down the center, so it looks clean when it arrived to the customer, as opposed to tons of clear packing tape all over the place keeping it closed. The best method is buying a packing tape machine dispenser, the manual kind. It has a water bath and a roll of that brown pre-glued tape. You pull a length through and it moistens the the tape and you apply it directly to the package. I've seen videos of the company that is the largest supplier of that stuff and they do a comparison, there is no comparison. When applied properly the brown glue tape is literally 50 times stronger than ANY clear packing tape. I'm not sure how much the rolls are, but the machines new or used seem to be really expensive. It's not that complicated of a design but I guess they are worth it. My brother bought one used and beat up a couple of years ago when a store was going out of business and sold it on eBay for like $90. I would invest in one of those, get it as cheap as you can off eBay. They also make fancy ones that have a couple of set points so when you pull the handle, like normal, it will deliver the length you need. Obviously you set it to how long you need it before hand and then every strip comes out the same length. These ones usually have different set points so you can have preset length and don't have to guess at how long they are every time.

What is DSP-MO-16?

I can't answer but I'd image that anyone who has that knowledge would be better off if you gave, at the least, a range of pounds you need to hold as there are literally tons, no pun intended, types of grain storage available.

Don't take my word as the end all be all, get a second opinion, but in my wood shop I had to ground for static electricity the plastic hose for the dust collection system. All that was required was wrapping bare copper wire around it for a foot or two and attach that to a metal object.