glisade

Our rye fermentations foam alot, Fermcap helps but still some foam over but nothing to worry about other than a little loss of product due to foam. Though we also pitch at about 70F and hold fermentation to usually under 80F.  Fully attenuates in about 5 days.  Other than foaming everything runs fine during distillation for us. Does your wash boil at the right temperature based on calculated or measure wash ABV?

TN. No age restriction.

12 minutes ago, Georgeous said:

well we needed to have at least 50% volume in pot so that is reason for dilution. Yes i probably did not need to use the column but just wanted to try it out. I am still needing to learn how to use a deflag. 

I see, thanks for the update. A smaller still would be ideal to practice with dephlegmator operation but overall it's pretty straight-forward. I could send you some info on basic deph operation if you'd like.

1 hour ago, Georgeous said:

well we added it back to the still along with about 30 gallons from another batch topped it with water to bring volume up to 400 gallons. Pulled a sample and tested with my Snap51 and it was 17.87%ABV distilled it using two plates and no deflag for refluxing. and pulled off about 5.25 gallons of foreshots and heads stopped collecting at 80 proof. We ended up collecting 490lbs / 64 gallons of 118 proof sparkling and crystal clear. 
Question, how many of you actually use deflag for making bourbon?

I'm not sure I understand the point of using plates without using the dephlegmator. You are creating some passive reflux with the plates but it's not controllable and you can't really do any sort of heads compression. Also, why would you add water to reduce wash proof but then add passive plate reflux to increase the output proof; couldn't you have not diluted your wash and then ran your still as a pot still and gotten a similar outcome?

7 hours ago, Georgeous said:

so again i am coming from thumper to column in my expansion. i watched literally 20+ videos this weekend for column distillation. From home distillers to pros. i seen and read a lot of mixed thoughts like silk city wrote he used to do 45 minutes in the column before turning off the dephlegmator and going to column and thus adjusted his schedule. So i watched a real boring video but really educationally done that basically says it can only rectify so much then will pass to condenser on its own. We have 18" column with 5 plates. going foward will avoid stripping runs and use the column and adjust the plates as needed. So before i charge my still with water and my low wines, my questions:

1. how many plates to use knowing i am starting with 100 gallons of 37.7% + 200 gallons of water

2. which plates to turn off if using 2 plates, the three from the top of column or the three from the bottom?

3. How long to rectify, or just let it go?

Thank you all for your responses. i read every word and am keeping a journal of process

hopefully one day we will be the ones paying it foward to new distillers graduating to big systems

 

So for 1. if you're charging with 300 gallons at ~25 proof and want 135 proof off the still? With two plates your hearts should start above 170 proof according to water-ethanol equilibrium curve. One plate should give you a start of about 160 proof. I distill with a starting wash of 8% ABV and use one plate and my total hearts proof is about 130 proof.

I think every distiller should know and understand how to use the water-ethanol equilibrium curve. This alone can be used to answer many of your questions...especially for a column still.

11 minutes ago, twalshact said:

Pictures?

Sorry everything is social media now but here's a couple photos in whiskey and gin basket configuration. Both use same pot, condenser and mantle.

I built a modular 2 liter glass lab still that has a "whiskey" reflux column, gin basket, etc.. from components from: https://www.avogadro-lab-supply.com/category/Distillation_Glass/c105

and using the heating mantle from: https://pelletlab.com/product/heating-mantle/

Not enough sugars and "sweet" congeners extracted from barrel aging? Many people relate sweetness to smoothness. I've done this with a blind vodka tasting: the more sugar you add (up to the legal limit for vodka) the "smoother" they said it was. Nobody actually said it tasted sweeter but it was smoother.

2 hours ago, Welshbrew said:

Problem is moving to 100 and 200 litre sizes. It will be much colder in January than July. The maceration will take longer due to the ethanol mix being colder.

 

For partly this reason is why we don't macerate but put all botanicals in the kettle during distillation. Seasonal affects will be minimal with this method. Have you considered going with this method instead? Of course using a gin basket will get rid of seasonal affects as well but I doubt you could do that with your alembic still.

I had a pink gin at a previous distillery. It was a gin aged in a used red wine barrel.

I've used both the Xpress volumetric fill and (currently) the enolmaster. I like the enolmaster over the xpress fill. I find the biggest advantage is you don't have to fill 4 bottles at a time. So you can constantly bring bottles in and out of the enolmaster. Since I usually bottle alone this helps keep a consistent flow because you can also increase or decrease pressure. And when you get down to the bottom of the bottling run you can just use it to bottle one at a time until you finish. I also like the stainless steel filters it comes with...and it's inherently explosion proof since it uses a vacuum pump so no product goes through the pump. I can fill, add closure and shrink wrap about 100 bottles/hour by myself with the enolmaster.

This is one of the cheapest places I have found for stainless steel sanitary drums, I assume you mean drum and not barrel (as in wood barrel). They are local to us so no shipping needed. I can't comment on the lining but would be suspicious and wouldn't use it until I really knew that it would not affect my spirit.

http://www.bubbasbarrels.com/catalog/stainless-steel-drums-and-accessories

We've had something similar happen when we said our Malt Whiskey was finished in used beer barrels. They rejected that and said I needed a formula. I submitted a formula for a Malt Whiskey finished in used beer barrels and FONL came back and accepted the formula BUT said now it's a DSS and the statement of composition should say: Malt Whiskey finished in used beer barrels.

From my experience, anytime your product goes slightly outside the typical Class definition then they want it to be DSS. You may get stuck with a DSS but maybe you can write the statement of composition as "xxxxx Liqueur finished in whiskey barrels" So maybe "xxxx Liqueur" may get you close to the original liqueur name. But now you'll also need a fanciful name.

I use PBW and bring it back up to near boil and let it soak for a bit. It's always taken everything out.

But I've also done something similar to Silk City but used rice and it works pretty good too.

Finding adequate help is a common complaint, at least here in TN, when the distiller's guild members meet. Most distilleries I know are operated by the owners themselves until they can grow enough to hire someone or find someone worth hiring. You should learn as much as you can whether you work in production or not. That way you'll know if someone is actually good or just full of BS.

7 hours ago, Huffy2k said:

In my dreams I dream of submitting 2 bottles of Pappy, poured into my own bottles and entered into the under 2 years category, just to read the tasting notes from the so called "experts" that point out the faults of small barrel aging...

I can dream can't I?

I would LOVE that! Please do it and photograph the evidence..the only problem is it would cost you thousands on the "pappy black market" to even get the bottles.

herbco.com

sfherb.com

mountainroseherbs.com

We use two 330 gallon totes as fermentors and put cooling coils into them to help keep temps relatively stable. These coils from Bubbas Barrels will fit inside the standard opening: http://www.bubbasbarrels.com/cooling-coil

I had Bubbas sell me just the coil with straight stainless lines, no triclamp or hose barb. The coils sit in the tote with the stainless lines poking through the tote screw lid then I run lines to a glycol chiller in parallel. I added an exit CO2 port in the back of each tote and temp gauges on each. I also added a thermowell to the back of one and put an Inkbird temp sensor into the thermowell and have the glycol chiller turn on and off based on the Inkbird temp sensor point. We go into the fermentors at about 75F and the wort usually doesn't get much higher than the lower 80s...BUT we also have some A/C in the distillery and keep it about 78-82.  So it's a combination of the two that keeps it stable. The coil alone is very undersized for this amount of wort..coil is 3-4 bbl and it sits in 10bbl of wort. But we're not trying to make a 68F ale....

Silk City is right though and to me this should only be a startup/temporary solution.

Two things you should try first before filtering (and I'm surprised a particle filter would even remove the oils):

1. Increase the proof - add more (neutral) base back into it until it clears.

2. Dilute with the same proof base - this will keep the same proof but may dilute more flavor

I make gins with a lot of botanicals and flavor that are sometimes on the edge of louching but you'd be surprised how little flavor loss you can have through dilution or increasing the proof. 

Of course what indyspirits says is quite valid as well, though I take a very small heads cut with my citrus forward gin since most of the big citrus flavor comes out early. 

Did you submit with the latin name? Always submit with the latin name. If you did, at least for Sarsaparilla (Smilax aristolochiaefolia Mill.) it's on the FDA Gras list. If you give the common name, they don't really know what it is or what part of the plant or species. 

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=172.510

You should run it  until you are sure you got all alcohol out i.e. the vapor temperature is reading 212F. Then maybe run a little longer in case your temp probe is not accurate. Also use some boiling stones, they can sometimes help with solids burning. 

All you are trying to do when you re-distill your spirit is to separate the alcohol in the spirit from any solids. Your main goal is to distill ALL the ethanol from the spirit and leave only solids and water behind in the proofing still. Once you extract the ethanol then you add only pure water to your distillate to get back to your original volume that you distilled (before adding any extra water to rinse the flask). Then you can take the proof with hydrometers and that will tell you the proof of your original spirit. The extra water to rinse the flask will not change the amount of ethanol you will distill.

Example: Start with 500ml of your sweetened spirit. Assume all volume and proof readings are taken at 60F! Make sure all 500ml gets into the still and use XXml of rinse water if needed. Distill until you have collected all ethanol, (until still temp is at 212F). Stop distillation and add XXml of water to get the distillate volume back to 500ml exactly. Now you've effectively replaced the solids in the spirit with just water but it has the same ethanol content and volume as your original sample. Proof distillate with hydrometers.

The key is to make sure you get all the ethanol out so you must make sure all the spirit gets into the proofing still and you also don't lose any through evaporation while distilling or you'll be under proof. 

Part 3 here: https://www.ttb.gov/spirits/proofing.shtml

It's not that hard and you can buy a nice little glass lab still for a few hundred $.

1 minute ago, bluestar said:

True for a true immiscible liquid system. Some oils in water obey this well. But many are slightly miscible, so they don't obey this rule exactly. And some are immiscible as liquids, but not as gases, and then this rule breaks down again. In the case of oils during gin or absinthe distillation, it is further complicated by it not be a two component immiscible system, since there is significant alcohol in the system, and the oils are soluble in the alcohol. So, oils that come across with heads are usually not showing the "steam distillation" effect, in which case they could raise, not lower, the boiling point. Actually, the oils coming across in the end of tails, as I described above, are much closer to "steam distillation" as you describe above. Usually, oil partial pressure is so much lower than the water in this case, that it only depresses the boiling point a small amount, and only small quantities of oil are carried with the water.

Ya totally agree. I just wanted to point out to the OP that no matter how he was distilling: steam distillation with just water and essential oil (immiscible) or alcohol distillation with various solubles (miscible) that he was going to get thujone. Basically, as long as the liquid mixture boils (immiscible or miscible) he's going to get all the components to come over though in different amounts at different times. And that the "magic boiling point myth" does not exist even with mixtures that don't combine.