MichaelAtTCW

Sorry if I derailed the thread, David, or intimated that any issues are the result of user error. Not my intention. Since we have Mori Fillers working well in hundreds of distilleries I was keen to hone in on why exactly it wasn't working for you. I've yet to find an issue that couldn't be root-caused and corrected. Still, it sounds like you're past that point and I totally understand. If you choose to sell your Mori Filler to another distillery I'd be glad to help you sweeten the pot for the next owner by providing a set of nozzle seals and o-rings free of charge to the new owner. Just have them reach out to me.

Hey David, Sorry you're having trouble with the fill levels. The fact that you mention you're also having fill level issues with the Enolmatic leads me to wonder if there may be something else going on. Perhaps with the glass? The Mori Filler—like all level fillers—operates on pretty basic principles, and fill level issues can usually be corrected once the source of the issue is found. To get accurate fill levels you need to have a tight seal against the mouth of the bottle. Overfills are caused because the seal is not adequate, and it can usually be corrected by lowering the nozzle cone, and thus increasing the tension against the mouth of the bottle. Underfills are usually the result of a blockage in the nozzle that's not letting air vent out. It can be corrected by disassembling and inspecting the nozzle to clear out blockages. Give me a call if you'd like to troubleshoot. I think I may have talked to you or your wife last year briefly.

High end compared to garden hose. Low end compared to your still. But about average compared to industrial hose in general. Industrial hose is not cheap, but you get what you pay for. GlideTech Distillery is tough as hell, reinforced with SS helices, does not impart odor/flavor, and is built to conform to a variety of sanitation and safety-related specs. If you can find cheaper hose that ticks all the same boxes—particularly as it relates to the unique challenges posed by safely transferring distilled spirits—let me know. I'll carry it. Industrial hose isn't sexy and you can't feature it in your tours like you can your still, so I understand why people just starting to outfit their distillery are surprised that something as "simple" as hose isn't $1/foot. But at the end of the day it's the only thing separating your product from the floor.

Depends on the version. There are three: The Gravity-Fed version doesn't use a pump. The Electric version uses the Flojet Quad pump. The Pneumatic version uses the G70. You can see the breakdown here.

Those little Flojet quad pumps actually come with a warning not to use them with any products that have a flash point below 100 °F. Here's a link to the documentation. An old Flojet rep told me people used to try and use those electric quad pumps for moving marine fuel. It didn't end well for someone, and now they plaster warnings all over the documentation to prevent anyone from trying to use it to move flammable liquids. The pump you're looking for is the Flojet G70, which can be grounded, and is rated for use with more volatile substances when used as directed in the documentation. As far as sizing the air compressor, these pumps don't take much to run. With air diaphragm pumps the most important factor to sizing the compressor is the CFM (cubic feet/minute) of air the compressor is capable of generating. The G70 only requires about 3 CFM. A cheap compressor like the kind you can pick up at your local tool store for $100-$200 is capable of this. Sometimes people even use tanks of compressed gas. The compressor will almost certainly be much, much louder than the pump itself.

You're not the only one. I know a number of our customers using hydraulic grape presses for extraction on grains, honey, and herbs for botanical extracts. Works great.

Guessing St. Pat's. They sell a Chinese 10" poly cartridge for $30. The $1 filters are probably double open end melt-blown cartridges. The problem we tend to see with DOE melt-blowns is that it's easy to push by them because their integrity hinges on how tight you're able screw your housing together, hence why some people complain about large visible particles making it through the filters. Since they typically have minimal (if any) structural support it is easier to crush them, so you can't overtighten the housings either with them. The only way to tell if you got it right is if your filtered product comes out clean at the end of the filtering run. That's why we recommend using the industry-standard Code 7 cartridges with a structural support cage. More expensive upfront, but there is at least more assurance that you are actually filtering.

I don't keep an eye on the used market, but I see a lot of old Jabscos come into our shop for a tune-up, and it normally doesn't take much to get the pump head in like-new condition—at most new seals, o-rings, and an impeller. I'd say a used one is a great investment if you can find one. Jabsco produces spare parts for their pumps going back 40+ years.

Conventional wisdom is that suspended solids will cause the impeller on a sanitary centrifugal pump to wear prematurely, and anything that restricts the inlet flow of a centrifugal pump risks causing cavitation, which will also cause premature impeller wear. The use of sanitary centrifugal pumps should generally be restricted to products with water-like viscosity (Skaalvenn's experience to the contrary). The best solution for mash is either a flexible impeller pump like our Jabsco SQN 20 or SQN 50, or an RPD pump. We've definitely been seeing more interest in RPD pumps like the Jabsco Hy~Line. Although they are much more expensive than a flexible impeller pump they have some big advantages: They can run dry They can be easily CIP'd They can run super-hot product through them (up to 355 °F when spec'd appropriately) You never have to change out the impeller The only downside with them is that they generally need a flooded inlet because they are not self-priming (much like sanitary centrifugal pumps). Waukesha pumps get around this by having metal-on-metal contacting heads which helps them pull suction and self-prime. However eventually the metal-on-metal contact wears down and the heads have to be rebuilt, which is $$$.

Looks like it's just a rebranded Bottle-Matic from Dispensa-Matic. We sell a lot of these, and our customers really like them: https://store.tcwequipment.com/products/bottlematic-ii-semiautomatic-labeler We sold the Primeras for a few years but stopped. The fit & finish of the Bottle-Matic were much nicer for not much more money, and the customer support from the US manufacturer is really great.

Our MiniMax Closed Loop Rinser rinses bottles with your own spirits prior to filling, and runs on compressed air. We've done some in-house testing of just blowing bottles with compressed air. What we've found is that air alone—even if treated—isn't very effective. Even at fairly high pressures, it tends to just blow the particles around, but they still remain in the bottle. Liquid is much more effective at rinsing. If you want to just hook up air, you can use our Rinser/Sparger and get the 'Sparger Only' option. Typically it's used by wineries and breweries who want to sparge their bottles with inert gas prior to filling to prevent oxidation, however if you just hook up high PSI air to the inlet , it will just blow compressed air into the bottles. My warning remains, though. It's not as effective as a wet rinse.

Flojet says their G-Series pump must be oriented with the ports facing down. My guess is that this helps with keeping the ports drained fully at all times.

We sell a 2 x 30" housing setup on a cart that can be used to go through a cheap pre-filter and more expensive final filter as @Skaalvenn suggests in a single pass. Most of the distilleries that we work with that filter are doing so in the 5-10 µ range, using the Graver QMC polypropylene cartridge. Then some go finer to an absolute final membrane filter like the ZTEC WB, if necessary. Some other distilleries have issues with colloidal haze forming, so they use a positively charged filter. Something like the GFC, or a plate and frame filter using DE sheets.

The reciprocating action of the pump can also create static electricity. The air motor should be composed of parts that are capable of discharging to ground. Pumps in our SimpleSpirits line adhere to this.

SCD is right on wanting stainless wetted parts. Some customers I talk to have trouble with using AODD pumps for mash unless you are religious about keeping them clean. Any gunk that gets stuck and "baked on" the ball valve or seats can prevent it from sealing properly, meaning you have to partially break them down to remove the offending debris. Otherwise the pump will chug and chug without moving anything. Some other styles of pump are less prone to this: FIP, RPD, or Peristaltic, for example.

We sell Ferrinox labelers with a square bottle upgrade. It's basically a tray with a pneumatic cylinder that pushes the square bottle through at a controlled rate to apply the label evenly. You can use the same labeler to do rounds or squares by just removing the pneumatic tray.

Getting a site shut down through Google is very difficult. The simplest tactic is to post information about the company with negative keywords nearby. "OakwoodBarrels.com is a Scam". That kind of thing. Post it on your blog, here, on other forums, etc. This thread is already the third result in Google when you search for "Oak Wood Barrels", and I'm certain that reading this thread has prevented at least some people from following through with a transaction. It's a dirty tactic, but effective as long as the sites you're posting to are considered trustworthy by Google and other search engines. A more direct option is to report abuse through OWB's domain registrar. Most domain registrars take abuse reports pretty seriously, as their accreditation with ICANN is on the line. Registrars always have policies about what kind of content they will allow registrants to host. Companies engaged in illegal activities are pretty near the top of the list for disallowed content. Oakwoodbarrels.com's domain registrar is ASCIO. ASCIO's abuse email is abuse@ascio.com, and their abuse phone number is +44.2070159370 The problem with a company like this is that as soon as oakwoodbarrels.com stops being viable, I'm betting they will pop up with a new name and a new website.

I'm interested to hear other folks' take on this. Requirements are usually set by local fire marshals or other local governing bodies rather than US-wide regulations. When you apply for permits to open a distillery you usually find out pretty quickly what you're required to use. Some folks we deal with seem to have a lot of free reign in choosing equipment. Others not so much. Some users have no one specifically dictating what type of equipment they can use, so they're left to make their own best judgments. The majority of folks I talk to just want the absolute safest (at the absolute lowest price ) Read up on Hazardous Location classification, if you haven't. Class I is most relevant to distilleries. Class I gets subdivided into divisions and zones. These divisions and zones say how often flammable vapors may be present, under what circumstances (normal use, equipment breakdown, etc.), and the zones that have the greatest concentration. So, once you have the classification you can purchase equipment that adheres to those classifications. Or, if you just want the absolute safest, you can go with Class I, Div 1 electrical equipment. Class I, Div 1 motors and enclosures are used in places like oil refineries or chemical processing plants where flammable vapor are present in sufficient quantities to represent a significant sparking hazard pretty much all the time. Of course, this equipment is also the most expensive because requirements to meet Class I, Div 1 are really stringent. A pump that might normally cost a few thousand dollars all of a sudden can top $15k if it's fully kitted out with a continuously purged enclosure, continuous fan cooling, thick-walled stainless bolted enclosure, etc. Air diaphragm pumps can sidestep the need to worry about Hazloc classification, but they can also present their own hazards unless specced properly. I see people assuming that all air diaphragm pumps are intrinsically safe because they don't use electricity. This is not completely true. Air diaphragm pumps could pose a sparking risk because they produce static electricity through normal usage. This is why we offer groundable air diaphragm pumps for distilleries. The mechanisms in the pump that normally build up static electricity can be discharged through the ground. Anyway, this just scratches the surface. I read in a recent ADI newsletter some advice from distillery architect Scott Moore, which I uploaded here. He recommends Class I, Div 2 electrical equipment in a classified area, particularly if proper ventilation is not available. But, as you can see from his "electric sombrero of death" illustration, it's a pretty nuanced subject. d9f54ab0-d8ec-4930-a02f-88ba5a60129f.pdf

I assume you're talking about the EPDM impeller. Yes, it's rated for 5° more than Neoprene. The downside is that EPDM has much poorer mechanical resistance than Neoprene, so the tradeoff for 5° of head-room is rarely worth it. From one Jabsco distributor to another, I would strongly recommend against using EPDM as the default impeller material on your pumps solely for that extra 5°. We mostly recommend EPDM impellers for applications where the pumped material has poor compatibility with Neoprene rather than instances where the extra 5° is make-or-break. When you're pumping hot material, you'll go through impellers quickly one way or the other. Either because your product is at or near the maximum operating temperature, or because you're using an EPDM impeller, which has poorer mechanical resistance than Neoprene. Better to simply let your mash cool a bit before transferring it. Ours doesn't have threads inside the connection either.

That's never a good sign! We've been selling the SQN 20 since the 70s, so we know that maintenance and readily-available spare parts should be top-of-mind when deciding on a pump. $200 savings up front isn't worth much if the parts are more costly and harder to find. Luckily the SQN 20 has easily available spare parts, and most customers go 5+ years before they need to do anything but change the impeller, which is not that expensive. A new Neoprene impeller is $77. Keep one on the shelf. I know Inoxpa. My main beef with European flexible impeller pumps is that they are generally a little more lax with their quality control than Jabsco. They are also generally made from thinner metal. The SQN 20 is made from cast and machined 316 stainless steel. Most of the European flexible impeller pumps I see are made from bent or pressed plate/tubing, so they're much thinner. Bending and pressing is fine for tanks, but flexible impeller pump heads are subject to a lot of axial force from the motor shaft. Wandering tolerances will lead to leaking or suction problems. I pulled one of the SQN 20 heads from our shelf and took a picture. See below. I think the difference is pretty apparent. It's burly little head. The motor on these pumps will grind themselves to dust before the Jabsco head gives up the ghost. My only caveat about flexible impeller pumps is that you must be extremely diligent about not letting them run dry, and if you are pumping hot mash your impellers will need to be replaced much more frequently. If you want to avoid these issues there are alternative pump options (RPD, peristaltic…) but none as inexpensive.

EPDM is similar in consistency to Buna, but is rated better with regard to ethyl alcohol compatibility. You'll find it seals way better than PTFE, which is usually reserved for low-pressure connections that have to rotate in-place (like racking arms). Your cheapest and sanest option will be to try an EPDM gasket before you write off Tri Clamp fittings. Particularly since 90% of the equipment you buy will likely use Tri Clamp for the liquid process ports.

We're introducing a new sanitary centrifugal pump coupled to an explosion proof Class I, Div I motor and NEMA 7 motor starter with a 316L head. It's all mounted on the carts we build. It's available in a high flow/low pressure or high pressure/low flow configuration. The high flow model pumps up to about 130 GPM at 18 psi, while the high pressure model pumps up to about 60 psi at 30 GPM. A few are already in the wild. Here's a picture of one: Hope to have more details up on our website shortly, but give me a holler if you have any questions in the meantime: 707-963-9681.

We have the 3/4" barbs in stock and of course our price is better than Southernhighlander The G70 normally comes with 3/8" barbs. Flojet makes a special G70 assembly for us with 3/4" barbs, because this is what most of our customers want.

Yep. I think I recall having this conversation with you. You're not too far from us in Northern California, correct? Give me a call. I should be able to set you up with the documentation. 707-963-9681.

To ensure you're comparing apples to apples: part of the reason the G70 is more expensive is because it uses conductive materials that allow the pump to be fully groundable, thus granting it ATEX certification for safe pump operation in potentially dangerous or explosive atmospheres. Air diaphragm pumps have a lot of rapidly moving parts that can cause static build-up and discharge unless they're grounded, making them potentially unsafe if used around flammable products or vapors. Most air diaphragm pumps are not designed to be fully groundable. The ones that are groundable usually broadcast it pretty loudly by proclaiming ATEX/UL certification, or something like that. Groundable pumps are also usually more expensive than non-groundable pumps, as you've discovered. I'm sure Yamada makes some groundable pumps—they talk about having select ATEX and UL certified pumps here on their website. I'd be surprised if the Yamada you're comparing with the G70 is one of them.