FijiSpirits

On business plan. I used to do business consulting for startups here in Fiji. I had a client who wanted to grow things and everyone was telling her to “do a business plan”. She wasn’t sure why so she paid a firm in the USA $2000 to generate a business plan for her. Of course it was less than useless as it had almost zero useable data and wasn’t even founded on numbers she wanted to work off of. Of course she ignored the consulting advice as well. Yada yada yada... Flash forward three years and the opportunity has passed and she’s spent hundreds of thousands chasing some unguided dream in a tropical paradise and it’s no farther towards profitability The whole point of a business plan is to MAKE YOU go thru the data and process and market research so YOU will have an intimate and better understanding of the business you intend to pursue. Ive used growthink ultimate business plan template and it’s easy and well supported and worth paying for they also have a marketing plan template as well as other resources I’m not affiliated with them but it was helpful to guide me thru that process and had videos to help me grasp what I was doing and why Paying for their package with the videos and stuff is worth it in time saved 100x over https://www.growthink.com/products/business-plan-template Hope that helps

That’s great info, thanks! ive tried 6mm ceramic rashig rings in a 4” diameter column in the past but found it to slow the vapor down too much and seemed to run in a fully flooded state. Are they supposed to run flooded and do you find they have a detrimental effect on speed? comparing the prismatic packing, is it faster than ceramic or just more efficient at rectification or both? How large in diameter are the columns pictured?

It covers fine. A single 20l bucket will have maybe 1.5-3l come off in total volume during distillation. That leaves (realistically) like 3 gallons to cover the element which is typically about 3” off the bottom or less. I’ve done it dozens of times without issue. IIRC all you can fit in a 13gallon reasonably is around 11 gallons, so 5 gallons is almost half full If you are really worried about it you can always add some water to the wash during distillation. Two things tho that’ll make your life easier at this scale. 1- using 6 gallon or larger buckets makes life easier. 2- use ultra low watt density elements. It reduces foaming caused by cavitation during boiling significantly.

Good morning! what sort of packings do you use in your columns? How big are the random packings? Do they differ in sizes based on column diameter?

Bluebolt I should correct my previous statement. I had a 13 gallon boiler not a 26 gallon. It was perfect for the 5 gallon bucket ferments. I will say that scaling recipies from 5 gallon was a bit of a thing.

I started with a 13 gallon 4 plate column. Had zero problems pushing it. i did eventually add an element for 9kw total and it was nice to have the extra power. Since then I’ve upgraded quite a bit and use SD Procaps which are incredible in their ability to go super slow or super fast. I am am a fan of using the 4”x4” stainless spools as plate lifts. I just don’t need a bunch of windows. Really just want them at critical points. As to copper and sulfides. I’m not convinced it’s as important as some make it out to be. If your copper ain’t black at the end of a run, then you don’t have a sulfide issue.

We are currently running a 11 plate column still with 150l boiler

When and where can we get this? I’m working on automation now so this is timely.

Gotta neutralize that chlorine in the city water too. I found that aerating it for 24 hours usually does the trick if you don’t have another neutralizer. Ditto on the PH testers. That’s a big deal.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to use granulated charcoal and prewash it before putting it in a simple 4” x 72” column? have you read gert strands activated charcoal book? It’s like free online and super helpful. Not trying to be be a jerk but rinsing carbon like 7 times and agitating by hand then soaking for 24 hours in a bucket is super easy and part of commissioning the stuff anyway. I get no particulates with just a hold up screen and a piece of filter cloth tied to the spout. ALL LOOSE CARBON HAS TO BE WASHED. Even the “prewashed” stuff. It makes more powder in the bag just from handling. I seem to get the the best results from the coconut shell 12-40 mesh stuff. The anthracite coal based carbon throws a weird flavor for me. Seriously. Search the book and read it. It’s short. It’ll save you a ton of money.

Adam. I wasn’t picking on you exclusively. He has several threads where the majority of answers were snarky. It just got to the point where folks were being less than helpful for what could have been a relatively simple answer with added caveats. Weve all been there at the beginning needing simple answers to complicated questions. Now we can answer them “sorta” even if the answers aren’t 100%.

I don’t use grain but try to keep my potential alcohol below 10% and above 7%. Some things like honey or agave will will need to be closer to 5-6%. Whey will be 3-4% IME most guys try to keep it around 9% tho seems to be a happy spot for yeast in general. Then you might calculate your useable hearts at 75% of that volume. That should get you within reason. ps. Isn’t it funny when you ask a question and get a bunch of “non answers” like call so-and-so. Jebus. Just give the guy a ballpark. It’s just a business plan.

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to explain this all to me. So is the extractor powered by the still or separately powered? we have a setup working now but it’s still small. We are in the planning stages to upgrade and my long term goals include automation of as many processes as possible. I can forsee the 2000 filling the main need but it’ll be working most of the month. Maybe we could run aging over the weekends more or less unattended. I wonder if the masher could be pressed into aging service? This way I could mash or mix ferments some of the time and age the rest of the time. Do you make a fermentation automation system system where I could apply it to my existing fermenters and work with your existing software architecture? do you have an iPhone/iPad app for your system? my thoughts are that with a retrofit system and tablet/phone app software support (skip pc/Mac entirely) that you have the technology waiting to disrupt the whole industry. The one caveat is the Capex for entry into your technology.

Questions questions questions!! (And wow!! Cool stuff) 1. is the large extractor basically a Soxhlet extractor too? How is it loaded and cleaned out(do I climb up there and empty it by hand or can I dump it or flush it easily?). Is it separately powered from the still or dependent on the still for heat? Can it operate independently from the still? 2. I get the idea behind using one machine to mash ferment and distill but doesn’t that limit production if you can only afford one still? Am I expect to have 4 stills with a system like this? How does this play out in real life? 3. On the fermenter does it just monitor the ferment (gravity, ph, temps) or does it also make adjustments to temp and ph? Our ph adjustments are constantly needed so this is a big deal for us. Will it mix a ferment if we just dump ingredients in? How large of solids will it mix(just sugar or will it do grains and fruit as well?) 4. What is the process to switch from a vodka Column to a rum column? Just remove some or all of the helicoils? 5. Am I understanding that you use a low watt density electric direct heating as the base offering? What is the indirect heating method? (Steam, oil, shielded elements?). What are the power input requirements for both on a 2000? 6. Rapid aging feature. How would this work in a production environment? Would I require a separate still or machine just for this process? How long does the process take and how large are the batches? sorry for so many detailed questions. I have gone thru your blog and website but can’t seem to find these answers. Please forgive me for being technical-detail-nerd-guy thanks! Steve

We filter at around 82f ambient and haven’t had plugging or cloudiness issues yet. My process is to hand wash the carbon in a container before putting it in the column. Takes about ten complete rinses to get pretty clean and remove most of the floaters. Then we leave it soaking in water for 24 hours to hydrate. Once it is soaked it never leaves water. We fill the column then run water thru it to settle and rinse and final stuff out. Product is filtered thru a cheezy 10 micron filter cloth as a final precaution. We get no carbon in final product. I think the prewashing is a pretty big deal. A lot of stuff comes out during that process, even in “prewashed” carbon.

Honestly it would be easier to tape an electronic temp sensor onto the pipe above the dephl and learn to run it using those relative temperatures. You are gonna mess up a few runs. Accept that and just have fun. Remember to keep the steam vapors inside the still and the boiler temps below 215f tho. Don’t want any explosions.

monitoring the vapor temp exiting the dephlegmator is the most critical temp to running a column still. It’s kinda not really optional. Everything else kinda runs itself. You’ll want a boiler temp tho too. Monitoring water temps in a non recycled loop system falls in the category of “things I will probably never need to give a shit about” and “can be done accurately enough with fingers” 😎😉

IMO pull all that packing out of the column. It’ll speed up your runs considerably. Then dilute your low wines (stripped product) with CLEAN PURE water to 30% and run it thru again fast. Maybe pull off at 80-85%. NO CUTS Then dilute again with clean water to 30% and do a final run and pull off at 90%+ (temp corrected) or whatever your column tells you it’ll do with a reasonable take-off. this should get you some pretty clean stuff and speed up your runs if you don’t like the product after a run then run it again or carbon filter something i also do (maybe it works maybe it don’t) is clean/rinse my column after a beer stripping run and before a spirit run I’ve only got 11 plates just now and I can get 95% at 4-5l per hour from a 4” makes a decent vodka with one stripping run and one spirit run it does take some work tho and I am adding 5 more plates ASAP if ya ain’t got the plates then run it more times!! 😎

Nice setups!!

Back when i started I looked at both those guys heavily. I ended up buying the mile hi 4" 4 plate column setup but got the boiler controller and some supplies from hillbilly. In the end the all copper setup lost out to the modular mile hi. That all said, had still dragon been going at that point it would have been different. Now, still dragon seems to offer almost everything a fella could want. Two exceptions. First mile hi perf plates for the 4" are superior TO SD perf plates and easily keep up with flow rates on the pro cap SD for vodka purposes. Second, when it came time for a larger boiler, I sourced a custom design from china directly for a fraction of the cost of anything from SD or the others.

Pics of your vac setup?

Man I tell you. It seems like I've figured about every way possible to stick a raw brown sugar wash here Your thing tho I think could be solved on this batch by just watering it down. Maybe be split and top off or something similar. Once it's going again you could always add some more fermentables as it proceeds so you aren't wasting distilling time Seems like Ike a lot of backset.