delaware_phoenix

chlorine, chloramines, fluoride compounds

I was looking at several RO systems (manufacturer web sites) and they say you have to remove the chlorine before the RO system. Charcoal filters apparently can remove the chlorine, but apparently the chloramines are a different matter.

I'd be interested is simply removing the chlorine, chloramines, and fluoride compounds from the water as the mineral content of my water is very very low.

However, my question is HOW OFTEN are people doing these procedures? There seems to be the implication that gauging of this kind must be done several times a day: When product is first distilled, when product moves from production to storage, from storage to processing, from processing to bottle, before blending, etc. A lot of gauging!

I don't know about anyone else, but gauging is required at all those times. I think the CFRs list nine specific transfers or actions where gauging is required. If you don't gauge your product and determine its volume (either by having accurate volume scales or by weight and using the conversion factors in the Gauging Manual), you won't be able to keep the records that are required of you. 27 CFR 19 W discusses much of the reporting requirements, though other sections do as well.

Are people just using hydrometers and thermometers and that's working for them? Or do we really need daily proof measures to the hundredth decimal place, like I'm hearing at the expo?

I can't speak for others, but my hydrometers and thermometer are all I use, as well as a scale to weigh the spirits.

I distill most days, so I determine my production gauge every day. When I withdraw spirits for bottling, they are gauged otherwise you won't know your proof in order to reduce to bottling strength. Similarly for all the other times when gauging is required.

Maybe some day the TTB will show up and tell me I'm doing it all wrong.

Hi Erik,

Glad you're here.

If you ever get out my way definitely look me up.

Early on after the third time the response was "use flour paste works great!" when it was clear that the problem could not be solved by their suggestions, I gave up on them. Sorry, I've moved on.

It's perfectly legal to have tax-paid alcohol. The pharmaceutical industry uses large amounts of beverage/USP grade alcohol (not denatured). I don't think they even need a special permit, they just have to pay the tax.

Delivery of high proof alcohol should be possible to a business at a business address. It won't come FedEx, or UPS. It'll come on a big truck, from a shipper authorized to ship and transport hazardous materials.

As folks have said, Everclear is about as good as you'll get in the regular store.

TTB license was the easy part. Under 60 days.

My alembic is working now. The cause of the backpressure was:

A marble sized clump of clay/dirt that was stuck in the lyne arm at the bend leading to the condenser.

Today I ran the last of the trash batch used for testing the still and it ran fine. So I have a functioning piece of equipment. In spite of some deficiencies (imo) on the design and manufacture of this water sealing alembic, there aren't any vapor leaks., and no vapor pops through the water sealing channel.

And my mechanical wizard friend was able to remove the 1/4" insert in the connection between the lyne arm and condenser, so I now have a nice 1/2" straight connection for the vapor.

What about the other side of the equation, tails?

My operation is basically GNS+botanicals, distilled, so a little different from many folks. For me tails stay in the processing account, so I report them on the quarterly inventory as "unfinished spirits". And I keep track on my individual production logs (I have a report for every distillation I do) the volume and proof of tails in and out into each run, but I don't track every milliliter like I might do for taxable spirits.

Maybe a TTB inspector will arrive some day and tell me I can't do that. But so far...

If the builder doesn't want to make more, would he be willing to sell the plans so people could have one made for themselves?

I guess if had been able to spot some of these problems when I first got the still I probably would have done that.

Not knowing there were going to be these problems I had a custom heating mantle made for that boiler. And given my low level of confidence in the manufacturer at this point, I'm not inclined to fight the battle of sending the existing unit back, in the hope that they'll be able to make a unit that will fit the heating mantle. I guess dealing with the problems I have is easier for me, and might be less costly right now.

Sorry this took so long to put together. It's something of a novel. All the pictures are linked to my site rather than embedding the photos inline.

Problems with my alembic

My alembic is a 35 liter water sealing system. I haven't been able to do much with it as for the longest time I was waiting on permits. I did a couple runs, or more accurately tried some runs.

I want to say that I know a number of people have these units and are usually happy with them. They are handmade and so may need minor adjustments, such as a bit of solder around the water inlet on the condenser. I have a 5 liter alembic and for it's size, it runs fine. But for a production size still I didn't want that style and so became interested in the "water sealing" alembic due to it's lyne arm instead of swan's neck, as well as the larger diameter opening to fill the boiler.

The first problem was the bottom of the alembic has 4 dings in it from the inside of the pot and the metal is of a much thinner gauge than the sides or the top. The dings shouldn't be there but they won't be a problem in running. The thinner metal at the bottom concerns me quite a bit. My little 5 liter "standard" alembic isn't like this.

Picture of dents in the bottom of the boiler:

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/bottom1.JPG

The second problem was the worm coil had an upward bend in it. This little bend created lots of backpressure and it ran very slowly (maybe 5 ml/min) and stuttered. Also, significant pops on the mash as well vapor pops from the water sealing system.

A friend was able to gently bend the coil. To him it was obvious there was an upward path. You cannot believe the problems this caused.

The next run was better, but vapor pops from the water sealing channel continued while the run rate was almost equal to the 5 liter. And then I noticed along a seam on the top of the alembic where the two components are joined. There was a puddle of alcoholic liquid that had condensed and vapor escaping from it. After shutting down that run I tested the top. In this photo where the lid is upside down, on that flat surface you could pour water and have it stream out on the outside of the alembic. I sent the top of the alembic to a friend who brazed the seam on the inside and soldered on the outside.

Here are links to images before I had the seam worked on:

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/Assets/images/alembic/A.JPG

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/Assets/images/alembic/B.JPG

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/Assets/images/alembic/C.JPG

And images after the repairs:

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/helmet_inside.jpg

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/helmet.jpg

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/helmet1.jpg

The inside seam still isn't the best, as it's not a complete seal between the two pieces of metal, but vapor doesn't escape. I'll be using a mixture of rye flour and pure cold-pressed linseed oil to seal that better, both inside and out.

On the next run, I didn't have any obvious leaks, but I think there's vapors escaping into the water sealing channel. More on that below.

There are four problems as I can see, imo. If someone with more knowledge of the physics of gasses, especially within distilling equipment, wants to share their knowledge, I for one am very interested in learning. Maybe some of these things aren't problems.

1. The top of the alembic does not sit properly on the boiler.

2. An inner flange seems to be placed incorrectly.

3. The connection between the lyne arm and alembic is not smooth.

4. The connection between the lyne arm and the condenser contains a "pinch point" where the piping goes from 1/2" ID to 1/4" ID and back to 1/2" ID.

1. The top of the alembic doesn't sit properly on the boiler. In comparing the pictures from the company web site and my unit, it seems that on my unit the top does not sit as deeply as it should. I know the lip of the top is covered by only 2 or 3 mm of water. It's simply not possible to push the top down more tightly on the boiler. Having such a small amount of water means having a not very good seal and also you have to frequently recharge the water sealing channel.

The rim of the alembic isn't very even because it's out of round, both horizontally and vertically. The horizontal wouldn't matter so much if the helmet sat deeper onto the boiler. The vertical problems means that even though the top sits tightly on the boiler, you can rock it back and forth (ie up and down). So you can make it tight on one side, but not on the other.

I'm not quite sure of the solution to this problem.

2. There's an inner piece of metal, I'll call it a flange, but that's probably not the correct name. I'm not sure of it's purpose. The diameter of the boiler opening is 13 1/4". The diameter of the flange on the alembic is 12 1/2". That means there's a 3/8" gap all the way around the inside of the boiler. If this flange is supposed to meet the sides of the boiler, it won't do so. All it seems to do is create a place that vapor can go and has no escape except through the water sealing channel. This is the source of the vapor pops, imo. It doesn't help that there's only a little bit of water covering the rim.

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/helmet_measure.JPG

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/boiler_measure1.JPG

If this "flange" met the rim of the boiler, this would provide a partial seal, and provide smaller space for the buildup of any pressure between this flange and the outer rim of the alembic. This is the way the standard alembics work.

Here is a rough schematic of the layout of the alembic and boiler:

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/alembic_drawing.jpg

Basically vapor gets up in that little pocket of space and once enough pressure builds up, the vapor will find it has the easiest escape out through the water sealing channel. And too, some vapor may condense and fall into the water as well.

3. The connection between the lyne arm and alembic isn't a good transition. On the inside of a "standard" alembic you can see how nice an smooth this nice. The vapors are led by physics on only one path, up into the swan's neck.

With the unit I have, this isn't so. This is another place for tortured geometry and the gasses to be confused about where to go and not having a simple path to lead them to the condenser.

This isn't a great photo.

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/pot2lyne.JPG

This may not even be much of a problem.

4. On the little 5 liter the inside dimensions of the plumbing connection between the swans neck and the condenser are the same. 1/4". This isn't the case with this unit. And from the pictures on the manufacturer's web site, it certainly looks like it shouldn't be that way either. At least the 1/2" ID of the condenser coil should be met by a 1/2" ID lyne arm. That's my opinion.

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/lyne2condenser1.JPG

http://www.delawarephoenix.com/alembic/lyne2condenser2.JPG

Once again, this may not be much of a problem. 99% of my problem could be the top of the alembic and it's not fitting well with the boiler. Maybe that's all the problem. Unfortunately, fixes on my end aren't too easy to do.

Some of these things I wasn't sure if it was a problem or not. All along I presumed that the manufacturer had made the product correctly and I wasn't using it properly. I'm not convinced of that any longer.

I never got a response to my initial inquiry that the alembic didn't sit very deeply in the water sealing channel. When I had the leaks in the helmet, I was told to use the cold pressed linseed oil and rye flour paste to seal the leaks. "Works great." It may well work great, but to my way of thinking the product wasn't tested at all by the maker.

I'll do what I can to get the alembic to work well enough to make my product. I'm still confident I can accomplish that one way or another. Hope springs eternal.

I'll have to post something tomorrow or the weekend. I want to take a picture or two to help explain things.

Just so people know, not everyone got this wonderful service and quality product. (<- points to self)

I may well be the extreme exception, but I did want to post in the interest of full disclosure and honesty.

http://www.novatech-usa.com/Products/Alcoh...rometers/6613-R

I don't know what the hazardous material might be, but many use lead as the metal for the weight.

If you need to have your hydrometer calibrated, I suggest calling the customer help/order desk to specifically make that order. And that will take some time because they need to ship the hydro to the calibration service, and then to you. They may be able to recommend a calibration service near you.

If this hydrometer is being used for proofing spirits for tax determination it needs to be calibrated for maximum accuracy.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I wasn't thinking about that yet. I don't have to do those things for my state, so you're several steps ahead of me there.

Obviously, if you need approvals/registrations/whatever from a state agency, accounting for those time lags is needed. Another juggling act. But the UPC folks don't care if you have two barcodes for one product.

Has the state said anything about how to coordinate a barcode upgrade? Seems like that must have happened in the past.

Agreed about red tape. This business seems to have more than it's fair share.

OK, it is more complicated as there is an application process, and if I remember it is based on annual sales. I fuzzily remember the application. It probably had a lot of questions that didn't apply to my business.

Is this where you folks have been already? Does this help?

http://barcodes.gs1us.org/dnn_bcec/Default.aspx?tabid=186

I got two bar codes direct from GS1 for $150 total ($75 each). If you need lots of bar codes, then become a member and you're good to go. If you just need a few, then buy the few you need for $75 each.

http://www.gs1us.org/

Am I missing something?

If you print your barcode directly on your label, you'll need to print new labels. Getting another barcode is easy.

And if you're doing enough business to stock major stores like Wal-mart (do they even sell liquor?) I doubt the $75 is going to cause you to break a sweat.

Forgive me for intruding in the discussion, but NY does something similar to what Don describes. It wasn't planned that way, but that's the way it worked out.

There was the original craft distiller legislation that Ralph Erenzo was instrumental in initiating and seeing through to completion. Craft distilling exists in NY because of him. He was also the one who introduced the farm distiller legislation and saw that to completion. For those who can do that, there are advantages in reduced fees, expedited licensing, as well as tasting and retail sales opportunities.

I don't see any reason why Washington state can't have both kind of licenses.

Thanks Paul G for explaining the different measurements for psi. That was certainly one of the things that was confusing me greatly.

So a still in an of itself is not a pressure vessel, right?

Just so people know, standard atmospheric pressure at sea level is 14.696 psi.

Yes indeed! Good luck. With perseverance and determination, some luck, You Can Do It!

If the sellers were interested in publicly posting their prices, they'd be on their web sites.

I think there's far too many variables as well, especially quantity purchased, and transport costs.

jmo.

The TTB regs say a distillery can't be located within a dwelling.

And personally, I wouldn't want to locate a distillery in a building containing dwelling(s). How would you feel if there was a fire and people lost their home and belongings, or worse?

Your local zoning regs will be much more restrictive.

You're going to have to call. It's the only way to establish a business relationship.