Oh sorry, I am stripping first. I take about 2000 gallons of fermented whey and strip it 220 gallons at a time. After that I do a spirit run through all 16 plates.

well that's an interesting question with the product i'm working with. I only get about 5 gallons of vodka per 300 gallon ferment of Whey. My yield is really low and it creates mozzarella in my boiler. Gross. I also have not been able to hit 190 on this still yet, so I have the smaller one for a finishing still. On my rum I did it came out pretty fast at 178. I really couldn't tell you the ratio and all that because I was just eyeballing it. You guys confuse me all the time with ratios, and tilt meters and stuff. Hell I never even measured PH before until I came on this site. Glad I did, but I'm just flying by the seat of my pants. I have Flow meters coming in for my Dephlegs and condenser so I can make it more of a science. I also have oil on the way to fill my jacket.

Hey guys and gals. I wanted to show all of you what we have been working towards since I joined StillDragon.org. I know I don't have StillDragon products but I have learned a wealth of knowledge from all of you and still am. I don't have anything against SD products and to be very honest I would of had a way easier time if I did go with them, but I got a to good to be true deal and it bit me a bit. One day I may upgrade for sure. Here are pics all over my distillery where we currently have a rum and a vodka we make from whey. We also focus on Craft/mixology type cocktails and have invested a lot into our tasting room. Enjoy and let me know if I'm missing anything, besides SD stills. The bar pics were taken on our soft opening last week.

Congrats on the silver and gold, Ryno. As Wisconsin, in the USA, is the Dairy State, I also am working on a whey based spirit. Have teamed up with the University System to assist in this project. We have had success fractionating the lactose with an enzyme and fermenting as usual. It seems the galactose is a loss at this time. Getting closer to being able to ferment both the glucose and galactose. We are using whey permeate (proteins removed) Hope to run a large 250 gallon mash soon. Curt Copper Crow Distillery

Boil the whey wash prior to fermentation to concentrate it and increase sugar to reasonable levels.

Also explore vacuum evaporation.

I believe this is how others are doing it.

There may be a possibility to use reverse osmosis to concentrate and remove water.

At the moment I dont have a Still but I do have our 300KW boiler which is used to supply the houses and cheese making . The boiler can go up to 95C Max temperature.

We are looking at fermenting Whey left over from our cheese making process which gives a very low % Beer as there is not enough sugar in it to get any higher and I dont want to add anything else to it as it will take away from the reason we are using it.

I did think about a continuous design, is it possible to adapt one of StillDragon's stills to do this?

Any tips you can share on fermenting whey? I haven't had much luck with finding yeast and I have access to whey that's currently being dumped.

100% Whey Vodka, pain in the ass but it sure is tasty.

There's a large dairy company in the west of Ireland that produce something in the order of 10 million L of pure ethanol per annum. I believe they were 1st in the field when it came to whey fermentation. They give away very little, here's all I could I find

fermentation is preceded by ultrafiltration to remove the whey proteins (a useful product in its own right) and reverse osmosis to eliminate much of the water. By this means, the concentration of lactose is increased. After fermentation, a wash of about 3.5% ethanol is obtained which is then distilled to 96% ABV, the maximum achievable in a column still.

In a roundabout way i guess i have.

@yurgle Reg is over in London right now receiving some well earned awards. Seems he not only makes a nice moonshine, but the best traditional style Gin in Australia and possibly yet the world as well.

SPECIAL REPORT: World Drinks Awards 2017

Lets wish him luck in the judging tomorrow.

I didn't notice either that our own @Ryno got a Best in Australia for his Sheeps Whey Vodka either. Another one done on StillDragon equipment.

Good luck also to Ryan.

@Robin123 The whey was used to make cheese, it's sheep's milk. SG is 1.030.

I've now split it up into three fermentations:

1. I've raised the heat on this one to 30C+
2. I've pitched extra Brett into this, so perhaps the yeast count was low
3. I'm going to add crushed lactase to this and pitch some Sacc yeast into it

I'm also looking at picking up some Kefir starter as I understand Kluyveromyces is present. So I may grow up a bit of kefir today with some organic sheep milk and then pitch that into # 1 or # 2 at end of day today.

My thinking on # 3 is that if I can split the lactose into glucose and galactose, Saccharomyces cerevisiae can break those down into ethanol (more the former than the latter). Just not sure if that defeats the purpose.

Perhaps @Ryno might have some input on either process.

Depends what your end goal is I guess? For beers you tend to keep the fermentation temp low but it shouldn't make much difference if you are fermenting it?
Depends where you are based? I used NCYC here in the UK but I ended up paying 120+vat and postage for 1gram!

Im still very new to all this so most is just guess work!

Are you using sweet whey? Aka what was the milk used to make?

Brett Anomala is supposed to be able to ferment lactose. Our yeast lab guy specifically said "Keep it under 30C", so I'm wondering why. He didn't have any specific experience with cheese whey, so perhaps that was his suggestion based on beer (for which they primarily produce yeast for). He also suggested perhaps the salt present in the whey might be inhibiting the fermentation.

@Robin123 So I'm guessing your fermentation was successful after all?

I'm not sure where to get Kluyveromyces, but I understand it's present in Kefir, so I'm wondering if I can buy a few Kefir starters and pitch it in?

Any other suggestions for how to get my hand son some Kluyveromyces in a pinch?

@Robin123 What was the result of this after all?

We're attempting to ferment 500L of whey using a Brettonomyces Anomala. We consulted with a yeast lab we use at our distillery and they supplied that in hopes it would work.

After 72 hours, nothing, sadly. Our starting gravity is but higher than yours and we did not pasteurize prior - just dropped in a dose of yeast, aerated and let it go. But nothing.

To try to salvage this, I'm think of dropping in some crushed lacteeze and using a Sacc yeast. My understanding is that we'll get half the yield, but it seems that the only viable option at the moment.

Hoping to hear more about what you found.

I don't see any reason to not use a good quality commercial flavoring if that's the kind of thing you are going for.

Butterscotch candy is flavored with it just the same, so why bother with dealing with the candy and all the other stuff that you are going to find in it (corn starch, whey, soy lecithin, etc).

I mean, really, is anyone macerating a banana cream pie in spirits? I'd probably respect it more if they used a high quality flavor, but watching them soak down a pie would probably be pretty funny. I can imagine the slogan now, a piece of pie in every bottle!

That cinnamon whiskey company is clearly doing something right.

Perhaps it's time the stigma about using flavors died?

Lucky for us, the Vaping scene has created access to some of the best flavor manufacturers in low volumes and at very low costs. In the past you'd need to buy at least a gallon through a commercial account, and it would cost a few hundred dollars. Now you can find really, really good quality stuff in at little as a few ounces, for a few bucks.

Ive ordered 1KG of lactose so will see how my yeast does with it once it arrives! my fermenting ( well supposedly fermenting) whey does taste Beery but i think thats probably down to the DME from the starter! I think I will run this through the still and see what comes out anyways? is there a possibility that the separated proteins are sitting on top of the yeast stopping it from getting to the lactose? ive started swirling the demijohns to see if that helps.

Most bigger companies use filtration to filter out bacteria and concentrate the whey but i assume that is more a cost thing rather than due denaturing during boiling. I am not that close as im on a island off the coast of scotland. I know brew lab can do analysis on samples so i may send them a sample to analyse and see what the deal is!

I don't think your pasteurization is causing this. In fact, there are numerous papers that talk about concentrating whey to increase fermentability by boiling and reducing (increased sugar content). It's really unlikely you are destroying sugars through pasteurization, and in fact, is probably beneficial as you are destroying any microbiological competitors.

How close are you to a university with a microbiology program? I would suspect that your starters aren't working. Your cultures may not be what you think they are, or there is a problem with your starter propagation protocol.

Whey cheese @ Wikipedia

Is it sweet whey?
How are you pasteurising?
My guess would be you're cooking the Albumin out of it with a higher temp batch pasteurising.