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Interest in Continuous Stills?


jheising

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  • 9 months later...

"Best" is highly dependent on many different variables.

My attempt at a fair evaluation of the contestants so far:

Jim Heising has a cool idea, but it is not actually for sale yet. (Sell me the plans, Jim?)

Dehner has a continuous stripping still, but only in his own distillery, so far. (Please correct if applicable, Joe. Plans for sale?)

Artisan has a fancy system, but no installs yet? (What's the status & price range, Steve?)

John McKee has a system that he's using. Might be the most expensive, although I haven't seen Steve's pricing yet. Too tall for my space.

I'm intrigued by the idea of a continuous still. At least for stripping. I'd like to build my own once I have a solid game plan for doing so.

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we've got a 30-40,000 case per year continuous vodka system going in at a distillery in Colorado. (1 case of 12x 750ml)

we have a slightly smaller continuous production system for Bourbon being set up in Kentucky right now.

we have some other systems (larger) that are earlier in the production cycle.

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post-4700-0-51729900-1405129363_thumb.jpI need two more heat exhangers and to attach the mini steam generator and my steam stripper is done. I will not be selling these, not enough time in the day to build another, but im sure you can figure out whats going on when i post more pics. Its set up so you can strip on the grains, if you're not doing that you can get by with raschig rings.

Abbott

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alright folks, here is a steam stripper complete, it uses mostly triclamp parts sourced from stilldragon.com, brewers hardware, auberins.com, and a couple ebay sources parts as well as several trips to the hardware store. Basically in a nut shell there are 3 condenser/heat exchangers, two of which are used to preheat the beer before it enters the top of the still, first is in the vapor path acting as a condenser, and the next is in the bottom of the still utilizing the hot spent beer, then it enters on the top. A perstaltic pump is what is used to dial the exact amount of beer entering the still. There is an additional condensor to knock out any additional vapors. The steam generator was the hardest to figure out, it has a solenoid valve controlled by a level switch sourced from auber. All of the parts are rated to 265 f, so at my altitude comes to about 25 psi, most altitudes are less. The plates i use are 26 dished plates, 13 x 3" dishes and 13 x 4" to 2" doughnuts that are dished as well, theres a great guy on ebay that will cnc them exactly to what you want, just ebay copper dephlagmater plates. Raschig rings will work perfectly fine. The glass tube came from sci tech glass. Ill try to get a full build list and better pictures soon. I dont want to take any liability in building these for people, so take all of this as a guide rather than a plan to build your own steam stripper, and dont ask me to build you one.post-4700-0-87517500-1406247777_thumb.jppost-4700-0-97417200-1406247768_thumb.jp

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I'll get a video, but it might be a couple weeks, I am going to head to wisconsin to drink beer and eat cheese curds, anyways, here is a breakdown of parts:


Steam Generator Controller $261.20 (tax and shipping not included)


Auber PID Controller SYL-2352 $46.50 Auber Enclosure Box W/ 40 amp Heat Sink B252015 $49.90 Auber 25 Amp SSR MGR-1D4825 $15.00 Auber Maintained Pushbutton Switch Green SW12 $7.98 3 x Auber Selector Switch 2 Position Maintained 2NO SW4 3 x $5.99 = $17.97 3 x Auber LED Indicator Green IND1 3 x $3.45 = $10.35 Auber Din Rail Mounted Circuit Breaker UL1077 2 Pole 25 amp $19.80 Auber Din Rail DINR $2.00 2 x Auber Leviton Round 120V Socket 5258SS 2 x $7.50 = $15.00 Auber Leviton Round 240V Plug L6-30P $14.80 Auber Leviton Round 240V Socket L6-30R $16.90 5 Feet 10/2 Stranded Power Supply Cord ~ $5.00 3 Pole Power Distribution Block Ebay ~ $20.00 Various Gauge and Colored THHN Wire ~ $20.00


Steam Generator $549.01 (tax and shipping not included)


SD Element Guard Kit $36.00 SD 4" - 2" Concentric Reducer $32.00 SD 4" x 12" Triclamp Pipe $60.00 SD 4" x 4" x 2" Reduced Height Bubble Tee $50.00 SD 4" x 2" x 2" Torpedo Top $50.00 3 x SD 4" Clamp 3 x $11.00 = $33.00 3 x SD 4" Gasket 3 x $1.00 = $3.00 4 x SD 2" Clamp 4 x $6.50 = $26.00 4 x SD 2" Gasket 4 x $.50 = $2.00 SD 2" End Cap $4.25 2 x BrewersHardware 2" Triclamp to 1/2" MPT 2 x $15.00 = $30.00 1/2" NC Solenoid Valve 120VAC Ebay Seller Valvesforprojects $47.95 Auber Liquid Level Control Switch FSW1 $10.97 2 x Hardware Store 8' 16/2 Power Supply Cord with 120V Plug 2 x $5.50 = $11.00 Camco 5500W Element $28.38 1/2" NPT Stainless Cross $4.40 Auber RTD Sensor w/ 8' Braided Cable PT100-L601/2NPT $45.35 1/4" FPT FPT MPT Tee $6.05 1/2" MPT - 1/4" FPT reducer $2.30 1/2" MPT - 1/4" MPT reducer $2.30 25 PSI Pop off Valve Ebay $11.90 0-30PSI Pressure Gauge Ebay $22.26 1/4" FPT High Pressure Needle Valve Ebay $27.90 1/4" MPT to 3/8" Flare Hardware Store $2.00


Stripping Column $1530.25 (tax and shipping not included)


SD 4" Sight Tower $140.00 2 x SD Torpedo Top 2 x $50.00 = $100.00 SD 2" 180 Bend $35.00 SD 2" Regular Product Shotgun Condenser 2 x $110.00 = $220.00 SD 2" Long Product Shotgun Condenser $135.00 SD Modular Parrot Kit $207.50 7 x 2" SD Clamp 7 x $6.50 = $45.50 7 x 2" SD Gasket 7 x $.50 = $3.50 2 x 4" SD Clamp 2 x $11.00 = $22.00 2 x 4" SD Gasket 2 x $1.00 = $2.00 3 x BrewersHardware 2" Triclamp to 1/2" FPT 3 x $15.00 = $45.00 Scitech Glass 4.5" Heavy Wall Pyrex Tubing $160.00 6 x Threaded Zinc Rod of 52" with Nuts ~ $15.00 2 x Threaded Stainless Rod with Nuts ~ $20.00 6 x 3/8" Flare Fittings ~ $12.00 3/8" Soft Copper Tubing 25' $25.00 26 Plates CNC'd by Ebay Seller automation248 $252.00 2 x SD Push Connect 3/8" MPT 2 x $3.00 = $6.00 SD Push Connect 1/2" MPT $4.00 SD Push Connect Hose $20.00 SD Push Connect Y $2.25 3 x SD Push Connect Needle Valve 3 x $11.50 = $34.50 2 x SD Push Connect ThermoTee 2 x $12.00 = $24.00


8020 Extruded Aluminum Stand ~ $400.00(I had the stuff sitting around from a previous project)


Cole Parmer Masterflex Peristaltic Pump with Hose ~ $700.00 (used on ebay, hose new from CP)


Total Cost $3440.46


You could do all of this differently for a few items, such as using raschig rings instead of dished copper plates. You could also use Triclamp Pipe instead of a sight tower. You could use 2 x 4's for a stand to cut down on costs. A lot of this stuff I had lying around, and a couple of the prices are estimations. In total it took about 40 hours of design time, which was free utilizing a couple engineers at my pops engineering firm, but had I paid I would guess $10-20k, and about 20 hours to assemble. The reason I built this is I have immersion water heater elements on my 500 liter SD 8" still and I only wanted to put low wines into the still with those elements. This also drastically cuts down on time, I can strip out 3000 liters of beer/wine with very little work, and do 2 runs in my 500 liter still rather than 6 runs of unstripped beer/wine. Have fun guys, I will post detailed pictures later today... possibly.


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I've been cross posting on the SD forum, I forgot to add this:

So my father's engineering firm designs numerous types of equipment like this for farm ethanol fuel production, steam stripping of wastewater and for pulling bio fuels from waste water to run turbines, lots of green energy projects. I wanted a minimal reflux steam stripping still that can handle grain on distillation, so I got together with a group of his engineers and put together this system built off of modular parts rather than contracting out a bunch of tig welding. I basically wanted to design and build something that could help out the rest of the micro distiller industry. Theres a couple guys building systems very similar to this, most of which have quite a bit of reflux, which i didnt want, the guys who make these are also charging around $10k. I wanted to give an affordable option to the industry as this can be put together for less than a third of that price, ill put together a build list and price it out. Im the kind of guy that likes to share knowledge, ill make enough money off the booze i make in my tourist town. Also my numbers on this system are vastly different than most as this system is at 9500' above sea level, my temps in the boiling of ethanol and psi vs temp of steam are so different that its going to take a entire different set of trials to get this dialed at sea level, I believe the biggest difference would be that the flow of beer that this system can handle at sea level is less, my steam generator can handle a larger psi at my elevation compared to someone at sea level, and ethanol requires a lower temp for distillation at my elevation, hopefully someone that lives at a normal elevation will build one and we can compare numbers.

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Update:

Turned it on today, first time the steam generator got flooded due to the float switch working too rapidly with the rapid boiling in the water. Drained and turned the needle valve to minimal flow so only a little water would go in with the rapid sensing the switch would make upon the solenoid valve. Called the engineer(my pops) and we decided we need to route in a water reservoir that would house the switch and valve. Fortunately I had a bunch of parts sitting around to build a reservoir using:

1x torpedo tee

1x short 4x4x2 bubble tee

1x 4x2 triclamp reducer

4x 2" triclamp to 1/2" npt

4x 1/2" npt to 3/8" flare

Some 3/8" soft copper tubing

The reservoir held at a non boiling temp for over an hour(telling me we could potentially crank this up to a higher temp and pressure of steam to allow for a higher flow rate of beer/wine to be stripped) and kept the water level perfect. At the top of the column on the still i was reading over 200 degrees, I was getting 15psi of steam at 250, with no problem and the system had reached its equilibrium. I dont expect any problem when i start pushing beer and wine through it, but i will update that when i return from vacation. So far i am very pleased and believe this design should fulfill the need for an economical steam stripper in the micro distilling industry.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey all, I have a quick update! After hiring more help at the distillery we've had more time to spend on the productization of the still this summer— I think we'll actually have a stripper to offer on the market come fall (or maybe even sooner)! Here is a recent video of the new (almost) production stripping section in action:

And yes it's running— that's all the noise it makes ^_^

Keep in mind this is just the stripper section at the moment. The next step is to finish the development of the rectifying column with heads/hearts/tails draws, but we figure we might offer this to begin with for those who just need a stripper. The rectifying column will just bolt-on to the stripping section when it's ready in the future.

The output you see there is 6% ABV beer being fed at around 3.5 to 4 GPH (yes we've increased the flow rate over the prototype!) and coming out at around 80-90 proof. We've also run it on ~10-12% ABV wine at similar input rates (although with much higher output rates than you see in the video) at around 110 proof out. I'll post another video later of it outputting a much more impressive stream at higher rates. At the moment we're measuring around 2% ABV in the spent wash drain, but we really want to see this closer to 1% ABV (what we measure in our prototype still), so we have a little more fine-tuning before we consider it ready for prime-time.

A couple of more specs on the system you see here:

  • No steam generator required. Powered by a single 1500 watt 240V heater.
  • No external water cooling required— condenser is cooled by incoming wash.

What's left to do:

  • Find a good source for copper raschig rings or SPP. Anyone know of a good source in the USA for small quantities?
  • Fine-tune to reduce lost alcohol in spent wash from 2% to 1% or less.
  • Develop a nice, clean wall mount and stand. Any ideas greatly appreciated!
  • A bit more stress testing to check for any long-term points of clogging or solids build-up.
  • Start building a much higher throughput version with 6" or 8" column and higher power heater.

Although there is a small amount of fabrication required, as you can see the still is made mostly of off-the-shelf stainless sanitary fittings; so in addition to finished stills, I'm also considering making the plans and parts list public and then just selling the control system (which is a lot of the special sauce).

Will keep in touch with everyone and let you know when we get closer, but I feel like now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel... Thanks for all your support and encouragement!

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So 5500 watt and not 1500? I looked at copper raschig rings and they were coming in at a couple thousand dollars to fill the column, which is why we went with dished plates, try them out, it probably slows it down more than raschig rings, depends how big the column is though, keep us updated!

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No, it is a 1500 watt (not 5000) band heater. As for the copper plates, it might be something to consider. Can you provide a more detailed picture of what they look like and your source for getting them made? Right now we are using stainless scrubbies, but I'd like to have some copper in the still. I'm also considering manufacturing some copper SPP in a small amount and just having a small catalyst section for it to run through.

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Looks like you guys are on the right track. I've also got a small stripping still I built about a year ago. It started as a 1500 watt system and would strip 3.5 gallons of wash per hour. It ran very reliably and stripped thousands of gallons of wash with a very high efficiency. Less than 1% loss in the stillage. Recently rebuilt it to run 2-3 times faster with 4300 watts of power. It's not as efficient yet, but I'm still getting it dialed in. The still itself is mostly made from off the shelf parts, but I built a somewhat complicated controller that uses three PID controllers that input temperature from multiple points on the column.

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