SlickFloss

Hey man fuck yeah looks great! You just sit that on top of a steel tote or are you using it on a fork over a tote? I always hate leaving it on the forks because its just gross but just my own shit obviously tons of people on IG are doing fork dumps. We ended up getting a big barrel dumper but we still use our original a ton.

PM

Seems like an exorbitant price for an unproven system, website has a stylized artistic rendering reminiscent of a cut sheet but thats it and it has no details. No actual verifiable specs. No videos of unit running. No pictures of actual assembled unit. Here's your challenge chief. I'm Slick. I know how to crack a whip. Ill fly anywhere in the continental US on my own dime to run one of these, any product type anywhere in the world and live stream the entire thing to the community. I'd even pay for the grain and the totes and the overhead of any facility anywhere for me to come in and run a ferment of my own choosing they mash for us ahead of time and pay to TIB it back to my own facility for long term aging study using HPLC and GCMS. Personally I'm sick of "innovative" continuous column manufacturers taking advantage of novices in our community.... is that what this is? If not..... Let's see if your unit can walk the walk. Or maybe your talk is just overkill. Shots fired. Let's Dance. Slick.

Personally I think it’s brilliant. A fun quirky little story that has a lot of beautiful little life lessons woven in…. Seriously just a rabbit hole of a story

Podcasts stuff you should know, key in the lake (whiskey podcast), bourbon pursuit (tater podcast), 538 politics podcast (models elections for us politics), serial, S-town is a great first season podcast incredible story check that one out for sure

a few issues here with the theory depending on inputs... What's your wash? If its grain nope (even grain slurry lautered nope) you do not want that to go through packing and that could cause catastrophic failure under the wrong circumstances (hard to tell this for certain with no prvs listed but if they're not listed because they don't exist kablooey). Several design issues probably at work here against you on thermal efficiency hard to pinpoint them without eyes on actual while operating but if the system is already thermally inefficient it won't be able to put out the output needed to maintain equilibrium (and thus progress the run) while adding negative energy (wash). Reboilers their analogs and competitors etc operate on the absolute keystone of an efficient, variable, and nimble heat source (Sparges, LC Hxs, Beerheaters, Coffey stills, doublers, etc). If you're not a slurry in theory possibly but it would need to look wayyyyyyy different to allow the run to progress and realistically with your Hx system as is its not possible. But in theory right you could introduce wash as reflux above the packing with the right steam throughput (which you cannot currently generate). You'd also have to deliver it at appropriate temp and rate without destroying vapor flow given your Hx system. Probably wouldn't save you time. You'd be better off investing your time and energy in upgrading your elements, or perhaps reconfiguring (with what you got OR what you can get) your still set up in it's entirety. WHAT YOU COULD DO if you changed your elements and gave yourself a mechanism for 100% reflux (honestly though just buy a new still 14 hours is bullshit you could build a better still) is remove the packing entirely install a worm tube through it then replace the packing (pack it in daddy). Start the still up on water (your new elements on your new boiler I will help you design and build for free will get you moving much faster) then introduce your undiluted gns (yikes haha) to the system by feeding through the worm tube into the boiling kettle. All in all it would be so much easier to just build an entirely new system you don't have to continuously feed for your batch run. Hope you don't take this too disparagingly, keep thinking like this you're on a good path. You've got the gumption and instinct for it, you should consider building your own stripping column. Also, if you can do anything (capitalwise etc.) you can always try insulating.

Kruasen and particulate aren't always the same thing. If a ferment is at a wonky temp it can suspend solids that otherwise wouldn't be and could make people feel it was still Krausened. Krausen is usually at a temperature and period of the ferment where the yeast are working efficiently and optimally. It normally wouldn't indicate a period of stalling or slow activity but one of comfort if that makes sense. All ferments can be sped up by increasing the temperature and/or manipulating gas levels but there is always consequences on carboxylic acid and ethanol "output"... it's just up to us to decide if those are consequences we want or not. Cheers, Slick

Ryes a fickle bitch bro we cook a mother fuck ton of it. Are you sour mashing at all or all sweet mash? Any enzymes used (Alpha, Gluco, Viscosity, Protease...) If not using enzymes are you using rests to your advantage for these activations? Using oil is not realistically a viable solution IME..... also it sounds like you're running a HF is that the case? If so I think I know where you got your info. In fermenter oil may marginally help but really not enough to justify use, but it will do nothing for continuous distillation as you will likely see foaming inside of column. Also, from a technical standpoint, how does using corn oil affect your spirit designation with TTB? Commercial antifoam is used by most all of the big boys because it consistently works with little to no caveats or "...if I's.....". No flavor difference to my knowledge and experience. Your solution to the foaming is one I cannot get behind from a commercial manufacturing basis. Low beer gallonage on ryes is a poor decision from a flavor standpoint specifically in continuous column distillation operations because it has less than optimal "favorable" phenolic development. I will tongue in cheek respond to your questions because obviously I wouldn't recommend it. 1. None 2 Neglible for AF, probable for "Corn Oil" 3 Antifoam is minimal addition to mash and requires little clean up Corn oil will leave residues 4 Corn oil will leave residues that need to be cleaned from your tanks or they can provide ammunition for bacterial metabolism

Hell yeah!

TIB everything to yourself at your new address. Hire Captain to do its he's one of my favorites!

IDK anyone except the usual suspects unloading aged barrels but stuff comes up on here often so keep cruising the for sales and keep your post here active and towards top. Middlewest spirits is sourcing a lot of white dog right now. We would be able to help source white dog next calendar year if its of interest, but were not selling aged goods at all. cheers, good luck. NBM

Yeah operator should turn still off. If your power fails how would a second pump help unless it was air driven or manual etc? Or unless you have a genny. But if you have a genny why do you need a redundancy for power failure? SOPs presented and explained to authorities coupled with proper training should be enough for your local municipalities. Realistically size scale and scope matter too. How big is the still and how many square feet is the facility and how high is the ceiling?

are you talking like a pre manufactured electrical probe being bent to a non original shape or using copper tubes with steam as an element and installing those at bent angles? I have done the latter successfully, not an electric element guy so can't be of any help there

Unless you have some absolutely crazy gnarly set up the likes of which the industry has never seen or maybe a wicked vacuum set up realistically as soon as you lose steam generation your still is going to stop producing vapor rather soon after. Almost immediately. Valves of all types can be purchased to fail open and closed. Keeping safety in mind during facility design is great.

What'd this look like a steam jet into a line and just pump mash through it? One of my operators was doing fuel etc they had a continuous cook process that involved two liquefaction tanks. Metered filling the tanks and they'd pump one into the other, by the time mash was exiting second tank it would be ready to ferment. Never stopped filling tanks and fermenters. One always filling one always draining to still.

Yeah this is probably gonna be a mo and a half. before we talk depghs lets talk process piping. Is it set up for you to be pumping reflux from each column's sump back up to the top tray of the column before it or dopes everyone drain back into the kettle?

as I mentioned I can only speak to my very early version and it sounds like they’re trying to design our some of their early flaws. Hope that extends deep into the column. I don’t really want to get too deep on the internals of Johns column on a site where a lot of people are scraping data to rip off still designs. If you’d like to Pm me privately on how to build a column feel free to PM me but again I’m not going to go into Johns IP, but I also think there are designs better suited for exactly what you want to make (whatever that is) than a HFs design and would love to discuss still customization and fabrication in depth With you or anyone cheers Slick

Raschig sells all type of rings and random assorted packing otherwise get rednecky on it throw some Siprox in there call it a day. Have ran to ridiculous proofs using Siproax in (not my) a still dragon

Thats how we have our big pot yeah, like I said I can zip you some pics of underneath on Monday when I'm back on the floor. We have two traps right off the bottom of the jackets. It's nice because we can use the traps to bleed condensate pre start up to cut down on hammer (mechanical wear). We run high pressure mains with reductions for each individual piece of equipment, we have a gauge before the ball valves for pressure with a bleed off of it. We will bleed the main before start up until the pressure stops hopping before proceeding with firing the still. You're also going to want a pressure gauge on the prv of the jacket itself if its in your budget and not already on there. You can watch that as you run to tell you how hard you can push at beginning of run. Pressure will still be low as long as still is receptive to energy, as it build resistance to steam pressure will slowly raise as the still starts to stall pre boiling point. When the pressure begins to drop back down (still becomes more receptive to steam again) its indicative of you boiling and heat energy passing through as vapor. If you're looking for absolutely the most precise control on the steam a needle valve works super well but is overkill for most operations. We're really happy with our big and little globes. I'll send you a video of our whole set up on both our pots on Monday not just the traps underneath. Hit me in the PMS with your phone number its easier for me to text a video than come on here if you're okay with that. Slick

You’re gonna want a condensate return pump with a trap off the still itself but you shouldn’t need one between the valve and the still unless everything’s all fucked up… probably two actually I can send you a picture of ours when I’m stateside again if you remind me. Don’t neck down your steam coming in because you’ll want a fuck ton more therms to start your run than you’ll need to end it and necking down always comes to bite people in the ass later, especially in colder climates or people with ring mains running multiple pieces of equipment (like a still and a cooker at the same time). I’m sponsored by spirax Sarco love me some blue valves can’t contractually recommend any other brand, wouldn’t if I could ; ) lmk bro! We do a lot of consulting!

Absolutely 100 buddy! disclaimer I can only speak to our machine which is heavily modified from others of the same version, so I’ll try to stick to basics and as delivered operation in order to accurately convey the premise. So running an HF you would want to do two runs if you’re making your own GNS or one run if your redistilling sourced GNS. Your first run would be mash through c1 with your solenoids set to enable functionality in c2 and c3, which at the end of the day are really just one large split column. Vapor would leave c3 and enter the demethylzer to be cleaned up. In the Hf dm set up you feed 3/4 of the way up the column as a hot liquid, you distill your heads out the top and reflux the booze and heads you want back down the column to the sump where there’s a heating coil. Anything down in the sump revolatilizes from the coil there and seeps out into the final product condenser from the port on the back of the unit about 1/8th of the way up the unit (very near the sump). A lot of tinkering with your heads condensor cooling flow rates and c3 controls will get you to azeotrope out of the product out. Untuned it will likely be right around 160-186. Assuming you were able to tune and pull azeotrope (or you’re redistilling sourced GNS) it’s now time to make gin. Dilute your GNS down to 8/9/10 abv and re run into column 1. It’ll go through the same path but this time in gin mode your solenoids will be set to send it to the gin basket instead of the dm. There’s two gin baskets on the back you can switch back and forth on for multiple recipes or larger runs of same botanicals. Can tune the proof to hit desired flavor profile of extract all at one, don’t reccomend azeotrope though. There’s a very easy modification where you can swap some plumbing out to bypass the final product hx directly to gin basket and then through the final product condensor. It’s simple but it’s aftermarket, this allows for gin single pass. Given the extremely limited amount of copper in the original design of the one we purchased I’d recommend modifying to add additional copper or just doing the two runs for additional copper contact. So to answer your actual question gin isn’t going through the dm in my unit as delivered by them because it’s already been distilled once through the dm, and botanical extraction is in second pass. I do have a bypass that enables the functionality you mention though. just my .02! If you’re building a continuous still holler brother I love this shit and we can figure it out. If you’re just curious head to Montana John will let you run one of theirs he’s a great dude.

No your good and it’s totally applicable not a highjack. I think they say not caustic because it isn’t sodium hydroxide.

Is it a jacketed still or a column or a steam element? What size still? What size boiler? What’s your input and what do you want as your out put?

Sell it to hydrite

I’m assuming you tried ultra pur. What about bardstown bbn co? middlewest spirits has been incredibly active in sourcing lately but I don’t think it’s aged inventory