Today in the Shed

punkin

Looks a great area mate.

Kapea

My StillDragon has no eds. Is this something I should know about? Can I make do with 1ed? ;)

AZZA1984

@punkin said: Looks a great area mate.

Yep it is now, all day cleaning all most don. In some weeks will be ordering some parts. Can't wait.

mark85

So... Bought a 180 bend with a thermowell but the probe didn't quite fit. E mailed to ask why and am directed to the website where it says this happens sometimes, it just needs drilling out a bit to 4mm.

"Fine" I think to myself, "I'm crap at DIY but if that's all even I can probably manage"

So I get my drill out, find a 4mm piece and go in slow... 1/4" in and the tip of the drill bit breaks off!!! Disaster!

It's too far in to pull out with pliers so I take it round the corner to a local steel fabricator thinking he will fix my problem.

His exact words are "That's fucked. You're in the poo there mate."

FML :|

punkin

Are you in Australia mate? Not sure if i have another one in stock or not. I do know i am out of stainless thermowells but have some coming.

If you bought it from me please contact me and i will sort something out for sure.

mark85

Thanks for the offer buddy but I'm Europe, Iv left it with my local fabricator. Said he'd have another look later. This will teach me to try my hand at metalwork with cheap power tools 8-|

punkin

My suggestion would be to get a thermowell from SD Europe and have the fabricator cut the old one off flush and weld a new one in. Should only be an hour in it that way.

SDeurope

Very sorry to read about more troubles with that issue, @mark85. As already mentioned in the email, it's a well known problem, which usually can easily be fixed by re-drilling that hole, which is why we have it mentioned in all product descriptions featuring such a thermowell. Sometimes the probe just slides in, other times not at all. We've never received any feedback that re-drilling these holes caused any problems.

mark85

@SDeurope said: Very sorry to read about more troubles with that issue, mark85. As already mentioned in the email, it's a well known problem, which usually can easily be fixed by re-drilling that hole, which is why we have it mentioned in all product descriptions featuring such a thermowell. Sometimes the probe just slides in, other times not at all. We've never received any feedback that re-drilling these holes caused any problems.

No worries, I'm sure I was just pushing a bad drill too hard, il get it sorted. The guy who has it builds ships (or parts of ships...) for the army or something so it's in good hands. On a side note, I notice your stock of procap extensions on the Europe site is low, do you know when you will be getting more?

SDeurope

@mark85, indeed, there are only 8 pieces of that item left in stock, and there is currently no info when we will get them resupplied (it's a special case item, not necessary for regular operation of a ProCap).

grim

grim

Forklift molasses dump - so, so, easy.

Pushing the limits, 22 brix.

Two drums, 1290 pounds of high test molasses for 535 total gallons - used the expensive stuff too. Don't let the color in the photo fool you, this is light stuff, very clean.

First big trial of the Distilimax RM (aka EDV493).

FullySilenced

I always wanted to try the Malt Products molasses ...

keep us informed

grim

Doesn't hurt that they are 4 miles away.

FullySilenced

ha even more awesome

mark85

Im putting together a sweet crystal dragon set up with a hybrid piece for neutral. Doing it one order at a time (as the money becomes available to my monetarily challenged self)

Put some bits together from my first couple of orders and I'm doing a few hard stripping runs today on some all grain malted barley. These barley/oat/wheat ferments used to puke for fun on my old set up no matter how much I de gassed it but putting that big 510mm section above the pot helps a ton!

Also my little old Liebig was holding me back big time, used to take a total of 5 hours to strip 60 liters, now it's slightly less than 3.

Good stuff :-c

punkin

That is a huge saving in time. Great stuff.

CothermanDistilling

Last week or so in the shed...

Got the patio concrete done... nice, $2275 and 2 weeks (without permit), vs $5k for one half the size that took 7 months with a permit) trail walkers already think they own it on the first full day it existed:

dumped most of my bourbon wash after distilling 15 gal of the 60... went to mountains of Colorado to help aging step mom with lawn sprinklers, paint, re-screening, (wanted to visit @Telluride , but she was not well enough for trip)

had that wonderful tropical storm while gone, came back with lots of beer and liquor:

had a friend get me some special new Glarus beer this weekend:

went to the grand opening of the brewer of my last batch of wort:

Got an email that I was eligible for this as a rewards member, but first come, first serve, and raced there to pick it up... I am ready for a vacation from my vacation!

punkin

Great stuff. I am so looking forward to our business trip as the closest thing i'll be getting to a vacation this year...last year...or next year.
It'll take you a while to chew through all those bottles. B-)

AZZA1984

Getting there

AZZA1984

punkin

Drinking beer and watching Borat.

" When i first bought my wife, all was good, vagin was tight and she was strong on the plough.
After 3 years when she was 15 she grew hair on the chest and the vagin hang down like sleeve of a wizard.
How do i know car won't be like that?" :))

Smaug

Sleeve of a wizard! X_X

grim

Nuts that Sacha Baron Cohen graduated from Christs College Cambridge - you know the same place that Charles Darwin went.

grim

On the molasses - a few pages back.

Really really like the Black Pearl Select (International Malt/Molasses).

4 plates, half strip style - very very clean, very little funk, no pyrolysis products, no sulfurs, very few off notes. In combination with the 493 - this is probably the hardest set of cuts I've ever made. It was all so damn clean. This was not a dunder/bacterial run, straight yeast, uv filtered water.

The analysis I have states:

TSAI 68-75% Ash < 3.5

Haven't back calculated from total yield to estimate the actual sugar.

jacksonbrown

Half strip = 50%'ish RR? Pretty hard and fast?
What sort of nutrients?

grim

Strip half the wash, spirit run commingling the strip with the remaining rum beer.

The percentages aren't really 50/50, as we need to strip something like 60% of the volume, and then co-mingle - otherwise we wouldn't fit, but that's minor.

Lallemand Distilavite VM and DAP as nutrients.

jacksonbrown

Cool, cheers.
So how do you drive through four plates on a spirit run?

grim

Both hands on the wheel?

It was a pretty long run, given the strip and rum beer abv.

Reflux ratio higher than our single pass bourbon runs - ballpark 175 proof on the combined hearts cut.

Chock full of flavor, this is going right into used bourbon barrels at about 120.

rossco

This is the still method I use to make rum Grim. It comes out OK for me.