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PeteB last won the day on October 1 2023
PeteB had the most liked content!
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Website URL
http://www.belgrovedistillery.com.au
Profile Information
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Gender
Male
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Location
Tasmania, Australia
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Interests
Distilling, plough to bottle. Farmer.
Professional Sand and Ice Sculptor,
repairing water mills
Making biodiesel
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In my opinion a turbity meter is unnecessary for checking the finished product. I shine my phone's flashlight through the bottom of the bottle, if I can't see any turbidity then neither can the customer.
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For my information, what do you use a turbidity meter for?
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PeteB started following Rickhouse / barrel store flooring and Vendome mash cooker
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The reason these burn slowly is because the liquid ethanol is below a layer of pebbles. This layer does 2 things, it keeps the flame heat away from the liquid so keeping it cooler, and oxygen can't get down through the small gaps in the pebbles to accelerate the fire.
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From what I have found, ethanol is not classified as an environmental hazard in Australia, but in reality that would depend on the size and location of the spill. A flat concrete slab with coving(raised edges) that contains a spill would be a very dangerous situation. Have you ever seen a gas / petrol station area around the pumps like that? Imagine a fuel spill and your car is sitting in a pool of very flammable liquid. They all slope to the perimeter into a drain that goes to an explosion proof containment. Concreted barrel stores should be the same. 60% ABV ethanol that is soaking into gravel floor will, in most situations, be too cold to produce vapors any where near LEL (Lower Explosive Limit) whereas pooling on a concrete floor is more likely to produce LEL. If ethanol spills onto a gravel floor and catches fire it will burn very slowly. Ethanol fireplaces and fire pits in homes are examples of safely burning ethanol.
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No replies yet. A simpler question to answer, what type of flooring you have seen in barrel stores?
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I am having issues with local authorities requiring me to have a concrete floor in my new, smallish, 60,000 litre barrel store. I am in a rural location in Tasmania, Australia, and there are no buildings within 50 metres, and they are up a slope. They are requiring the floor to be flat with coving around the perimeter to contain any spill. That is creating a very dangerous situation. I wish to have a gravel floor so any spill will soak away, which I think is reasonably common in other parts of the world. I would appreciate it if any of you have information that I can present to prove my case for gravel. Cheers, Pete
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Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
Soap is made by my neighbor from olive oil and lye (caustic soda) no perfumes. Until a couple of weeks ago it was a stripper only. I am now adding a second column with plates so it should continuously do the cuts. I am altering the heat recovery system so most of the pre-heat is from bottoms. -
Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
There is a potential foam issue that I have solved very simply. I constructed an automatic dosing system, sounds complicated but it is very simple. Pure soap is a good antifoam agent, I suspend a block of soap in a wire basket at the highest point the foam is allowed, if the foam touches the soap it dissolves a small amount then the foam bubbled break and it drops away immediately. If no foam then only a very small amount of soap dissolves by steam contact -
Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
On a smaller version of the continuous I found the extra heat from the bottoms didn't contribute much to efficiency, and caused quite a delay in stabilising the system. I have a series of large hot water cylinders that the hot water feeds through, the final one is a heat pump type (for efficiency) There is a thermostat and pump on the bottoms heat exchanger. When the water gets to 80 deg C the water is pumped into the top of the final cylinder which means the heat pump rarely needs to work. Colder water, but still quite hot, is pushed out the bottom of this cylinder into the top of the next one etc. The hot water circulates through the cylinders heating them all. When still is running there is no need for the heat pump to boost the temperature. Plenty of almost free hot water for cleaning, mashing etc. -
Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
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Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
Can you see my hand drawn sketch of my continuous or you referring to another photo? It shows in my post but I will probably need to re-format it for others -
Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
SlickFloss couldn't download my photo, did it download for others? -
Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
Apologies to those who have been waiting for this image that I said I would upload over a year ago. Attached diagram of my continuous stripper. Not easy to understand from photos. The boiler is heated with a waste fryer oil burner, once it is running the heat is turned way down because of heat recovered from condenser. No cooling water required. This column now dismantled and will feed a 6 plate bubble cap, 6 inch rectifier. Preheating of the wash for the 2 column setup will be mostly from the boiler outflow. EDIT for clarity, boiler outflow is "bottoms" -
Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
I am following this with interest. Several years ago I built a continuous stripping still that is very energy efficient and doesn't require any cooling water. The output from this is then pot distilled to do the cuts. I am this week installing a 6 plate bubble cap column that should do the cuts continuously. The column is slightly modified "hot rodded" so I can draw off selected plates. There is a big energy saving because the vapour from the stripping column is not condensed and re-boiled. A regular pot with column that is run as a fill then empty batch production won't give consistent products off each plate. -
Going continuous? Contemplation of modification to distillation column
PeteB replied to SilverSwede's topic in Equipment
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