PeteB

I filmed this close-up through the sight glass, of a well setup grain bed on a lauter screen in my Son's brewery. See the small particles working their way through channels between the larger chunks of barley, they eventually get trapped after re-circulating several times. A very fine filter bed is gradually formed then the rest of the clear wort allowed to drain off. The grain bed is then sparged (rinsed) with hot water to wash out the last of the sugars. If too much vacuum is pulled on the bottom outlet the grain bed can collapse and the channels between the grains get squashed shut and filtration stops. Too fine a grind will not lauter well because the channels between the grains are too small

I don't use it any more for rye. It was very messy and took up too much space in my small mash room. Grain solids fed to my sheep without further processing. It needed pressing somehow to get more liquid out. Next experiment is to take some mash to local winery and put through their belt press, once they have finished current harvest. I still use the vibroscreen to separate fermented apricots and cherries to keep solids and especially pips out of the still. Does a fantastic job for that.

I finally worked out how to post the video of my vibroscreen (I hope) For my process it still left too much liquid in the solids. I was trying to salvage as much liquid as I could because this was pre fermentation

That is amazing how many barrels you can fit in that small space. I watched for about 1 minute and saw 6 roll in and they hardly took up any room

Please explain "ethanol blockage" You did try a couple of posts back but it doesn't satisfy my scientific curiosity.

Meerkat who wrote Alcodens is a regular contributor to this forum. He is working on a calculator for that problem. My suggestion for the moment is to record by mass exactly what you add, then add, then add until you get the correct proof. Next time you make a similar batch you should be very close first time.

The manually operated lift forks are great in a small space. I have one similar to the link above. Also good for lifting drums to syphon out.

Taste and nose the spirit regularly. Get the cubes/chips out when you think it has enough. Time taken will vary with temperature, variations in temperature and even air pressure to a small extent. If you think it has become over oaked then add some spirit. If you have some spirit that has been off the still for some time that would be better as spirit does mellow even without oak. Also if you are trying to rapid age I suggest you take a much larger heads cut. Those highly volatile compounds you remove are similar to the "angels share" that barrels lose over time. ie. the angels share is mostly volatiles you don't want, they get the trash.

It was black oily droplets floating on the surface that really put me off. The smell and taste of that was nasty. Not the bitter almond smell that is associated with cyanide but it could have been hidden under the other smell. Have run more batches since then and all good when no pips in the still.

Fork lift as above. Syphon over top of your raised tank or hose on tank valve. If you don't have a motorised fork or are short of room, a cheap option is hand operated one. See photo attached. Cheapest option is a bucket and funnel

Agree There are 2 tubes, usually the hot vapor spirals downwards through the inner tube and cold water travelling up through the outside, but they can be with hot vapor in outside tube and cooling water inside.

Thanks 3d0g. I will have to have a discussion with the distillery that told me not to get grain sparging too hot. I have a couple of video's on my phone of grain separation. When I work out how to reduce the size I will post.. One is through the window of a lauter tun, the other is of my vibroscreen.

You mean they boil grain, not at clear wort stage? I assume some Germans like that tannin flavor in their beers, I know I like it in my tea, but I have been told the Scots do not like it in their whisky.

Dehner is quite correct, with a more powerful pump as you suggested you could easily do some serious damage. From the photo's I guess your screen has a diameter of about 5 feet, that is 2,800 square inches. A very good pump could pull a negative 12 PSI, that is about 34,000 pounds pushing down on that screen. It will collapse. Also there is 34,000 pounds pushing up on the bottom of your nice, thin bottomed, Latina tank and it will crumple like a piece of aluminum foil. (please post photos when you collapse the tank)

I know that a lot of USA distillers distill "on the grain". As many of you would know, Single malt distillers in Scotland only distill a clear wort. They do not want any grain husk in an water above a maximum of 80 deg C which is the hottest they will sparge their grain bed. Hotter than 80c extracts too many tannins.

Has anyone on this forum had experience fermenting and distilling pineapple juice? I have been offered 600 litres of frozen juice Any ideas for the best use for it? Cheers Pete

Has that ever been run? It is not a very energy efficient system as far as cooling water is concerned, but not a difficult fix.

The haze you describe above is what we call flocc in Australia. It almost always happens when diluting past about 46%abv All the distillers that I know just leave the diluted spirit undisturbed for about 6 weeks and the haze forms crystals (flocc) which settles to the bottom of the tank. Bottle the clear spirit without disturbing the flocc.. By doing it this way you have removed the minimum amount of oils etc that contribute to flavor. Or you could chill filter if you can't wait the 6 or so weeks but that is said to remove more flavor. Other possible causes of the haze are saponification or louching. I don't understand the difference but neither of those will form a flocc and drop out of suspension over time.

As Scrounge says cut the heat back as soon as foaming starts, then you should be able to increase again later. If your heat is way too high it can still foam even towards the end of the run when the protein issue should be well gone. I have a lot more foaming problem with 100% malted barley wash than my rye, least problem is with apple and grape wine. For anti-foam I use pure soap, about 2 grams per 100 litres

Loosen hose at filter and see if the pump re-starts. If it does then loosen hose at filter outlet then keep working through all connections. EDIT until you find a tap turned off!!) EDIT (Above suggestion for future problem solving, Dave just found problem before I posted)

I guess you have tried these loosen hose at pump inlet to check liquid getting to pump (the pump may need priming, is suction out top of tank or from tap on bottom?) loosen hose at pump outlet. Any flow? loosen or remove hose at filler inlet. Any flow? ( check that the inside of the hose is the same length as the outside, if the inside is shorter than the outside it won't work)

Malt is from the same bulk delivery as previous good ferment a few days before. Final gravity is usually very close to 1.000, 1.014 is way too high. I have only just started doing 100% malted barley, 7 batches I think, usually do rye. I have pushed the pH of a sample up to 5 with potassium hydroxide but I still cannot make the yeast start. Tested the yeast in a sugar solution and it took off really well. If I haven't found a solution by Monday I will distill it and just accept the low yield, but I would love to know what went wrong so I can learn by mistake.

I re-checked the mash temperatures and realize I was reading the wrong column. Strike temperature of water was 72.3 c and after grain added it was 65 c which is same as other mashes. I was thinking that Tom's suggestion of un-fermentable sugars might have been a possibility but that is now unlikely. A series of iodine tests for starch indicated complete conversion during mashing. Low pH is now a possible suspect. I have to get onto this quickly before "bugs" take over. The only thing I have that I could raise pH with is either Sodium or Potassium Hydroxide. Is it worth a try?? By the time I get something less harsh the ferment will be lost.

I think the video on pot distilling was very poor. My experience with pot stills is very different and I am sure it very different from the way Irish Pot distillation is done. There are 5 major points that make a traditional Irish Pot Still Whiskey 1. They use some un-malted grain plus malted 2. Not peated 3. Stills are simple alembic copper pots (no plates) 4.Triple distilled. 5. Aged for at least 3 years It must be distilled to no more than 94.8%abv Much modern Irish Whiskey is made in continuous column stills. Some newer whiskies are peat smoked Traditionally 3 pots were used. First is stripping still, second distillation cuts are taken, third distillation has water added before distillation. More cuts taken. There are many options for re-cycling the heads and tails, they could go back to same pot on next run or even back to the previous pot in the series. There is probably a common recycling method but I don't know what it is, but I recall reading it somewhere, maybe on this forum.

69c was immediately after grain addition I haven't done many 100% malted barley mashes but temperatures have been close to this before, but this may have been slightly too high. I will check with the local malt distillers tomorrow. (after 10 pm here now, not bed time for me yet as I am waiting for still to finish stripping run of a beautiful smelling gewürztraminer brandy in the making) Thanks.