Raw wheat, enzymes, mashing

[needmorstuff]

When using enzymes with raw wheat do you have to hold the mash at a specific temp for an extended period of time?

I am looking for a vessel to mash and ferment on the grain and don't know if it needs insulation to hold temp..

[adamOVD]

Yes. Wheat flour can gel at 140F, but the coarser you mill it, the hotter you will need to cook it, and then you will also need to do a conversion rest with your enzymes around 140F. I rest over an hour, but times will vary, depending on agitation, thickness, temp, ect. Rolled wheat is already cooked.

[needmorstuff]

19 minutes ago, adamOVD said:

Yes. Wheat flour can gel at 140F, but the coarser you mill it, the hotter you will need to cook it, and then you will also need to do a conversion rest with your enzymes around 140F. I rest over an hour, but times will vary, depending on agitation, thickness, temp, ect. Rolled wheat is already cooked.

Thank you, so to maintain temp will I need an insulated tank? They are surprisingly uncommon for some reason around the 400l mark. Maybe I can get creative with hot cylinder jackets or something.

[Silk City Distillers]

You shouldn’t need an insulated tank, I think you’ll be fine.

[needmorstuff]

44 minutes ago, Silk City Distillers said:

You shouldn’t need an insulated tank, I think you’ll be fine.

super! thanks @Silk City Distillers and @adamOVD 

[Golden Beaver Distillery]

@needmorstuffjust my two cents here.  Based on all your recent posts, I really recommend you take the 6-day distillers course at Moonshine U or any of the other distilling programs available around the country.  You need to see and get some hands-on experience in a distillery before you spend your money on equipment. The courses aren't cheap but the money you spend on them will save you money in the long run by avoiding buying stuff that you don't need or just plain wrong for what you want to do.

[needmorstuff]

12 hours ago, Golden Beaver Distillery said:

@needmorstuffjust my two cents here.  Based on all your recent posts, I really recommend you take the 6-day distillers course at Moonshine U or any of the other distilling programs available around the country.  You need to see and get some hands-on experience in a distillery before you spend your money on equipment. The courses aren't cheap but the money you spend on them will save you money in the long run by avoiding buying stuff that you don't need or just plain wrong for what you want to do.

that sounds like a sensible approach. I am however operational already in the UK, I currently make Gin using bought in neutral. My step into the world of vodka and rum will be slow and gradual. The equipment I will buy mostly now decided upon. But sure mistakes will be made, not too costly as the tanks i will be using will mostly be small ticket items in the hundreds of $$ range, not tens of thousands. You see my pot still is only 300l and my vodka column 100l, so that dictates a lot of things, plus the space i have to work with kind of fills in the other blanks for me.

I only have 66sqm of space, this is due to the amazing building i will occupy and is not negotiable (I will get a storage unit elsewhere for general purpose storage of glass/cardboard etc.)

My Fermenters will be 400l

My spirit tanks all 400l

I am going to use plain SS 304 tanks and as I now know I can ferment and distill on the grain and don't need to insulate for the mash, the requirements of those have fallen away.

 

 

[Golden Beaver Distillery]

6 hours ago, needmorstuff said:

that sounds like a sensible approach. I am however operational already in the UK, I currently make Gin using bought in neutral. My step into the world of vodka and rum will be slow and gradual. The equipment I will buy mostly now decided upon. But sure mistakes will be made, not too costly as the tanks i will be using will mostly be small ticket items in the hundreds of $$ range, not tens of thousands. You see my pot still is only 300l and my vodka column 100l, so that dictates a lot of things, plus the space i have to work with kind of fills in the other blanks for me.

I only have 66sqm of space, this is due to the amazing building i will occupy and is not negotiable (I will get a storage unit elsewhere for general purpose storage of glass/cardboard etc.)

My Fermenters will be 400l

My spirit tanks all 400l

I am going to use plain SS 304 tanks and as I now know I can ferment and distill on the grain and don't need to insulate for the mash, the requirements of those have fallen away.

 

 

You can make fermenters out of IBC totes...which are stackable if you have a hand-lift/picker. 

We're limited to 125 gals of spirit (MAQ) in production, so if those spirit tanks are 50/55 gallons, you maybe setting yourself up for exceeding whatever limits you have in the UK (Fire Code).

I'd loose the desk...again, might be a fire code issue as it blocks the doors plus takes up potential production space.

Using folding table(s) during bottling may open you up for more operational space, too.

I recommend a small mash tun. Cooking is important and although you can "heat and steep" your grain, your yields will be better if you can cook and hold temps.

Just my two cents...good luck

[needmorstuff]

9 minutes ago, Golden Beaver Distillery said:

You can make fermenters out of IBC totes...which are stackable if you have a hand-lift/picker. 

We're limited to 125 gals of spirit (MAQ) in production, so if those spirit tanks are 50/55 gallons, you maybe setting yourself up for exceeding whatever limits you have in the UK (Fire Code).

I'd loose the desk...again, might be a fire code issue as it blocks the doors plus takes up potential production space.

Using folding table(s) during bottling may open you up for more operational space, too.

I recommend a small mash tun. Cooking is important and although you can "heat and steep" your grain, your yields will be better if you can cook and hold temps.

Just my two cents...good luck

re mash tun, I could get creative, hot water cylinder jackets etc. to hold temp. thanks for the other pointers!! much appreciated.

I was considering using HDPE 200l barrels for fermenting, but they are fugly and my "distillery" viewable from my bar through a glass window.

[Golden Beaver Distillery]

29 minutes ago, needmorstuff said:

re mash tun, I could get creative, hot water cylinder jackets etc. to hold temp. thanks for the other pointers!! much appreciated.

I was considering using HDPE 200l barrels for fermenting, but they are fugly and my "distillery" viewable from my bar through a glass window.

Consider a small used cheese vat and get an electric steam generator from @Southernhighlander 

[SlickFloss]

Do you have head space above? you need to build up. you don't have enough room for all the activities you want to do. I would clear some floor space too, as earlier mentioned ditch the desk. You need space for a pallet jack to wheel around in there, you're not going to be able to move tanks full of liquid your self. Also, you may want to get one fo those slime line almost a fork lift (idk the name or term to describe them). Without a lot more context this looks like a lot of hosing and pumping, which is fine, as long as you have the space for it, you're going to be dumping a lot of hose. And doing a ton of stripping runs. Packaged spirit out is a concern. Hopefully you can use gravity to your benefit here and build a mash tun above your fermenters, but then youre carrying your grain bags...... you are choosing an arduous path my friend!

 

 

[needmorstuff]

13 minutes ago, SlickFloss said:

Do you have head space above? you need to build up. you don't have enough room for all the activities you want to do. I would clear some floor space too, as earlier mentioned ditch the desk. You need space for a pallet jack to wheel around in there, you're not going to be able to move tanks full of liquid your self. Also, you may want to get one fo those slime line almost a fork lift (idk the name or term to describe them). Without a lot more context this looks like a lot of hosing and pumping, which is fine, as long as you have the space for it, you're going to be dumping a lot of hose. And doing a ton of stripping runs. Packaged spirit out is a concern. Hopefully you can use gravity to your benefit here and build a mash tun above your fermenters, but then youre carrying your grain bags...... you are choosing an arduous path my friend!

 

 

Nothing good in life comes easy 😉, but yes I have ambitions but not much space.

 

Headspace is 3.2m

I know what you mean re slim down forklift, I have one in plan.

Yes, I am planning on pumping liquid around a lot.

[Golden Beaver Distillery]

14 minutes ago, needmorstuff said:

Nothing good in life comes easy 😉, but yes I have ambitions but not much space.

 

Headspace is 3.2m

I know what you mean re slim down forklift, I have one in plan.

Yes, I am planning on pumping liquid around a lot.

One more thought.  Have you calculated your estimated weekly production and potential revenue off that production? Seems to me that although you can make spirits in that space, it may not be enough to sustain a business.

[needmorstuff]

here's the lifting thing https://www.bigdug.co.uk/handling-lifting-c22/lifting-c5797/lifters-stackers-c722/electric-stackers-with-adjustable-forks-p16226

I already have  a sustainable gin business that runs out of a much smaller space, this is to add vodka and rum to my sku's and scale the operation up from a 100l gin still. Plus i want to get back to what I enjoyed during my hobby days - fermenting, creating new product from grain, experimentation.

As we all know, making it's the easy part - selling is the hard bit 😉

To add some perspective on why we are compromising on space.

The space in my diagram has my bar next to it with a viewing portal to the distillery, and on a wider perspective the building occupied (or will be) on a daily basis by 500 people, on weekends there will be music events. Also directly behind me a 600 person event space.

So it's a ready made captive audience for the bar and the brand, yes we could have gone into a unit on an industrial park with 5 or 6 times more space but it would just be that, a tin box in the middle of nowhere. Here we have a real chance to grow the brand on a daily basis with little effort and capitalize on ready made footfall. Plus the building is a mill form the 1800's that has bags of character, it is simply stunning.

We will have to acquire space elsewhere for storage but this is our licensed facility to start with.

[Silk City Distillers]

I really love putting casters on things, lets us be far more dynamic/flexible with arranging workspaces, or moving more occasional use items out of precious main floor space.  We still have our semi-automatic bottling line and packing tables on casters.  Working on a big bottling run, it's nice to pull it out into the middle of the floor, setup tanks and skids, and have plenty of room to work.  Also gives you flexibility to rearrange floor space far more easily.  Same goes for our smaller spirit tanks, most of them have matching skids to be able to move around, or have already come with casters.  Pumps all have long cords to be able to be used anywhere in the production area.  Obviously, big stills, tanks with cooling connections, these can't easily flex and be moved, but a lot can.

[needmorstuff]

4 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said:

I really love putting casters on things, lets us be far more dynamic/flexible with arranging workspaces, or moving more occasional use items out of precious main floor space.  We still have our semi-automatic bottling line and packing tables on casters.  Working on a big bottling run, it's nice to pull it out into the middle of the floor, setup tanks and skids, and have plenty of room to work.  Also gives you flexibility to rearrange floor space far more easily.  Same goes for our smaller spirit tanks, most of them have matching skids to be able to move around, or have already come with casters.  Pumps all have long cords to be able to be used anywhere in the production area.  Obviously, big stills, tanks with cooling connections, these can't easily flex and be moved, but a lot can.

This is just about the best advice I have ever received in my whole life @Silk City Distillers genius, simple and probably assumed, but utterly perfect. I think I recall seeing "dollies" as we call them when randomly browsing, but yes of course if integral even better.

[Triangle Distiller]

UK production in two locations versus USA production in two locations. Bottling in one or both locations within the country of production?