PeteB

I'm not so sure about the term "Ground to Glass"! When looking at the topic notification on my small I-Phone screen I was thinking it was a newspaper headline where a farmer must have won a court case over "ground glass" haha Good luck with it, I believe that if you have a hand in more of the production chain it gives you even more of a reason to call your product "hand crafted". Customers will buy a bottle for the story behind it and hopefully will find the product worth a repeat purchase. "Paddock to Bottle" is often used, or even even "Plough to Bottle" is what I call my process. I can make a lot more money per day spent in the distillery than I can make on my farm, so I employ an extra part time person to do the farm work that I don't have time to do. For me, hiring a farm worker is cheaper than hiring a distillery manager. For you, be careful not to spend too much time on the farm at the expense of your distillery. There is a lot of farm work to do before you need---- " ---to find a corn shucker......"

Rich, I have just read an article on the Draytons explosion. I see why the inspector was so nervous. From what I understand it was a bit of an extreme situation, welding a tank containing 9,000 litres of 190 proof alcohol !!

That was a bit of costly bad luck getting that inspector Rich, but as you say it is peace of mind for the LPG risk (I think USA calls it "propane" in case some of you are confused.) I am not sure if you sure trying to say alcohol vapour is lighter than air! It is heavier (denser) than air ,Air = approx 1.2Kg/ metre3 , alcohol vapour approx 1.6 and LPG 1.9 therefore alcohol and LPG vapour will sink to the floor in still air.

What bureaucratic department made you do that? I guess that is one problem with a new building that can be sealed up almost airtight. My distillery is in an old horse stable, I pointed out my ventilation system to the building inspector and he said "that's just holes in the roof" haha

Will posted some info on this recently http://adiforums.com/index.php?showtopic=1645 IMHO if your flu from the burner draws properly it will suck a lot of the alcohol vapour into the burner where they will add very slightly to your heating. Under normal operating conditions if your still room has good ventilation then fresh air will be drawn inside, diluting the alcohol vapour and keeping it well below the critical concentration for an explosion. A still room without a flame in a flu, and with poor ventilation is more likely to explode with a chance spark from an electrical switch for example

The above discussion includes a lot of possibly cheaper options that are not GLYCOL with energy consuming heat pumps here is one more option if you have not already read it. http://adiforums.com...?showtopic=2265

I agree, that would be the safest, and only need a smaller RO unit

I know what Absinthe Pete means when he says SF water has its bad days, we even get that in our cities here in Tasmania. I think it is sometimes happens when they flush sediment from the mains. IMHO do as the brewpub guy does. He has stayed in business for 15 years so it probably OK.

I agree with you Johnny. It has often amused me that some distilleries brag about the "natural" water they use, and claim it is part of their success, but most that I know use RO so all the "nature" has been removed. I have never tasted it, but I have been told that RO water from a sewer will taste the same as RO water from a crystal clear mineral spring. I use rain water collected from my roofs and I don't use RO or carbon, just filter to 2 microns as I bottle. I say if you don't NEED to use RO or carbon then don't. You are trying to craft a product that is unique, a different flavoured water should help.

Thanks for the explanation Matt. I figured most of it out from the photos except the steam injection, and the dry barrel which I have not heard of before. Preheating the mash as you cool the vapour is a great for energy reuse, and saving time. Would love to see you down here in Tasmania. Email me pbignell@belgrovedistillery.com.au Could catch up before then if you are going to the ADI Conference in Kentucky.

Hello Matt, that looks a very interesting setup, quite a big output for its size, and a short downtime. Can you please describe the different parts and how it works?

The haze you are referring to is mostly clumps of polyphenols. Polyphenols are part of the flavour profile. If you filter them out, at whatever micron, you will remove some of the flavour. In theory, the slower the spirit is cooled the larger the clumps or 'crystals" will be, and hence a coarser filter will achieve the same thing. The Brandy in question may have been chilled too rapidly and many of the clumps could have been too small to be filtered out.

I asked a similar question a few months ago. If you click the following link you can read the replies I received http://adiforums.com/index.php?showtopic=1948&hl=&fromsearch=1

Coop, Am I right in assuming that if you did a very fine grind it would take too long to settle out?

I have never used corn, is it always fermented grain-in or is it lautered? With lautering the grain bed becomes clogged if ground too fine. I assume you usually don't lauter so what is the problem with grinding it extremely fine

I got one off Ebay about half price in very good condition.

For a simple open circuit steam injection what are some specific negatives? As you may have noticed, on a different thread, I am considering a steam injection into a small continuous still. As far as I know that how they all work! What would Coop's inspector think of that?

If it only went around once it would not be an issue, but in some closed circuit applictions the water/steam could be going around in circles for months. Small amounts of steam are usually lost and this is made up with new water which contains small amounts of solids, so they build up along with dissolved metal, and as Miller said there are often chemicals added to prevent rust for instance.

So does some of the same steam recirculate around your still, then get injected into the mash? Slightly off subject here, but does it have an overpressure cutoff?

I imagine there are at least 2 grades of steam. There is the stuff that goes around and around in a closed loop transferring heat from one place to another. This would slowly become contaminated with metal and oxides etc. You would not want to inject that into your product. Then there is an open circuit where water is fed into a boiler and steam comes out, no recirculating. What is the difference between this system and a hot water heater? I am sure your steam guy would say it is OK to add hot water, so why not steam? What type of boiler do you have coop?

Load cells vary a huge amount in their accuracy. The ones in my platform scale are accurate to 50g or 100g depending on the weight on the platform. I suspect your question is really about the load bars you sit a pallet or tank on, with a cord that goes to a readout. Over the years I have had 2 sets of those that are often used for weighing livestock. Neither set was particularly accurate although quite expensive. I still use my latest set for weighing out my grain where I don't need to be quite as accurate. They are now about 9 years old so there may very well be better ones around now. Check out the accuracy and if you are happy you may be able to purchace several sets of load bars and leave under different tanks, then all you need is one readout that can be swapped around. Check that the readout can be swapped around and still give you the same weight when you go back to a bar with a load on it. My old set was good for that but not my current one.

TTB ---"as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color." I am sure there are a lot of artisan vodkas out there that have slight "character, aroma or taste" but they are all different. I am certainly not a lawyer, but could you look at it this way-- The word to focus on is "distinctive". What "note" is distinctive or unique about ALL these products that you can say that "note" belongs to vodka? The only distinctive thing is that there is very little of anything axcept alcohol. I think the main rule to follow is TTB-- "distilled spirits produced from any material at or above 190° proof"

Hi Quirk, I could take a photo but I haven't worked out how to upload it yet. Will get to it later. The boiler was originally designed for a hydronic heating system fuelled with wood. It contains a mass of copper pipes to collect the heat. All I have done is lift out the grates that the logs normally sit on, and pulled out the ash draw and inserted a pressure jet burner. To run on wood again all I need to do is sit the grates back and swap the burner for the ash draw. I haven't tried it but I could probably put some of the grates back and run both wood and oil at the same time.

In Tasmania we could not get a license for a small still until about 15 years ago. Our rules are now fairly lenient. We can give or sell tastings at our distilleries, we can own a bar as well, we could accept investment from a bar owner, we can sell directly to bars and consumers, we don't need a middleman if that is what we choose. Also we don't have to submit a formula for approval if we wish to make another product Our main negative is the HUGE amount of excise we pay.

Hi Jonathan, Thanks for that response. Our government (Australia) was almost giving away photovoltaic solar systems last year but suddenly "pulled the plug" on them before I got one. With one of them on my roof I am sure my distillery would have had a negative carbon footprint. Although I believe it takes quite a few years to pay back the CO2 footprint that it took to manufacture the solar panels. I don't know how easy it is for you to get hold of waste fryer oil, that is the easiest way to take a big step into the green zone. . It does not need converting to biodiesel if you get the correct burner. You may be able to design your boiler firebox so that it can take various burners depending what fuel you have available at the time. I can run my hot water boiler with quite a range of oils or wood. Looking at my post #5 above, I think I have a better way to compare how green a distillery is with respect to CO2 emissions. Compare the Kg of fossel fuel CO2 released to produce a litre of alcohol.