Heard a whisper that the new owner of SDAU was willing to talk turkey on The Standalone system he has in stock....

Mine was a a border collie / cattle dog mix. She was sharp as a tack. I long line trained her at about 6 months old and it only took about a week before she picked up everything. heel, sit, down, stay, jump up.

Only a few reinforcement training sessions. Her eye contact with me was genuinely one on one all the time. That said, she wouldn't exactly stay at my side and face the same direction as me when commanded to sit or lay down. She always wanted to get in front of me so that she could see my face to read my expression.

I never really minded that so didn't try to train her out of that habit. She was such a good girl that a single issue like that simply never bother'd me.

I think about her all the time. She passed about 10 or 12 years ago.

And yeah, she was otherwise a mean little bitch that had to round everything up that wasn't human.

I got me a couple of heelers to help bring in the cattle now, a breed from the other side of the world. These 2 are brothers. Their dad was a Blue heeler and their mom was a Red heeler.

The running style that we started with, is to charge the pre heater and the first chamber below with beer. This for expediency. No need to heat up additional mass. It just delays the time it takes to bring the still on line.

Turn the steam on at this point or even crack the valve open a bit while charging the top two chambers to get the still that much closer to running temp.

To get the thumper primed you can preload with what ever or wrap a wet towel around the bonnet to drop some early distillate out of suspension.

Each chamber has a thermometer but imo the only temps that matter is the preheater liquid temp and the bottom chamber temp.

We initially settled in on using 150ºF for the preheater liquid temp and 212ºF for the bottom chamber temp as our indicator that it is time to transfer liquid downward. 212º at thr bottom chamber of course ensures that we are not sending alcohol down the drain.

We did experiment with a 160º preheater temp but the spirit was more acrid and everyone agreed that the 160º was not optimal. That particular temp recommendation came from one of the craft industry figures btw. Makes me scratch my head sometimes.

In any case, the team on the floor has deviated from that 150º transfer temp and now more heavily relys on sensory awareness since they now have a good handle on the sequencing for the liquid transfer. Initially it is a little intimidating because if you forget to open the correct vent the chambers can pull a siphon and suck everything down to the bottom chamber. So the bottom and next chamber up end up completely flooded with zero head space for any kind of vapor disengagement.

So the priority initially is just to learn how to drive the still. Anyway Im not sure how many times they've run the thing now but they seem quite comfortable with its operation.

The distillate is really amazing. The spent beer smells nothing like batch effluent. Not at all stinky like stinky tails. And heads are not at all astringent. Fact I don't really know how anyone can even really make a heads cut at all if they are being honest with themselves. Maybe its just a ceremonial act to placate the "No Heads" purists that would rather drink thin insipid spirits? Conjecture intended.

In any case, any heads is simply not harsh and can without hesitation be added back into the feed imo. Any "excessive" heads constituents in the distillate from this still I feel would age out beautifully once in the barrel and laid down for a proper rest period.

Once everything is hot and you get the liquid transfer timing down, it only takes about 3 minutes to start drawing off distillate again once the steam is turned back on.

A complete turn over clocks in at ≈20 min or so. So by the time the beer in the preheater migrates to the bottom chamber and out the drain we're looking at 20 minutes.

This system is nothing more than a vertical double retort with a reverse process flow. Rather than the feed stock starting closest to the heat source, the feed stock enters the system the farthest away from the heat source. That's it. Period. Nothing mystical operationally speaking.

The best analogy for characterizing the flavor of the spirit is to think about an Italian Sunday Gravy. A pasta sauce that renders down and fills the house with an amazing aroma. When you first put those tomatoes in the pot and throw some heat at them they smell wonderful. But the more you let them cook down the better it smells,,,is the way I think about how this still works.

This here.

Its just a little bit bigger that the prototype. The prototype is 18" D x 24" H per chamber.

This one here is 24" D x 32" H per chamber. This one here is set up to process up to 500 gallons per shift.

Just bumping this thread as there have been other discussions on other platforms.

1. Chambers a bit larger the the first iteration so that we can get through 500 gallons in a single work shift (assuming you have an adequate boiler). These things are steam pigs btw.
2. Increased the height of the of the stand piping in order to reduce the risk of syphoning during liquid transfer.
3. Elevated the thumper to eliminate the risk of pumping Chamber 3 liquid into the thumper.
4. Added an HX to the liquid transfer vent manifold to ensure zero vapor escape during liquid transfer if venting does not get extended to the exterior of the building.

The custom flanges that act as the deck for the thumper. This also significantly reduce the footprint despite the chambers being larger than the original model.

Thank you Punkin, we expect to open the online store on 1st July. If anyone is in need of items before this time then send a message my way and we may be able to assist.

Snap 51 now sold.

For anyone who is a heavier user of their Buchi, you might start running into an issue where the speed control knob is erratic, changes speeds regularly, or drifts around.

There is an internal potentiometer that is a very easy fix, and it's a readily available part - Bourns PCW1D-R24-EAB503L - $10

This is an easily damaged part when these things are shipped. All it takes is a good knock to the control knob and that's enough to start causing issues. If you are looking to buy a used one, if the knob is missing on the unit, I will guarantee you the pot is damaged and will cause problems.

It's pretty quick and easy to disassemble, remove the board, and desolder/resolder the new potentiometer.

If you thought the outside of this thing was impressive, wait until you see the interior build. Clear why this kit cost thousands of dollars when new.

The package price is lowered to $30,000 and the boiler price is now $12,000.

Hello, I’m interested in DMA 51

• 1 New 380 StillDragon steam jacketed distilling tank, 8'' column flange, with included agitator motor and agitator prop
• 3 each used 5 plate 8'' Crystal Dragon column sections
• 18 each new 8'' copper plates for ProCaps
• 216 each new copper ProCaps with flow director
• 3 each new 8" x 8" x 3" Copper Sight Glass Union Tee with Spray Ball
• 3 each new 8" x 8" x 3" stainless steel Sight Glass Union Tee with Spray Ball
• 1 each new 8" Stainless Steel Dephlegmator
• 1 each new 4" Stainless Steel Product Shotgun bundle with Parrot Mount
• 15 each used 8'' Stainless Steel perforated plates with down-comers
• 1 each new 8" x 2" Bowl Reducer
• 35' of red and 35' of blue pex type hose
• Miscellaneous 2'' triclamp pipe lengths and bends, gaskets, and hoses
• 1 each used 4 head bottle filler RV-25
• 1 each used electric bottle heat sealer Cirio Germano model TT ECO
• 2 each new poly 150 GALLON ACE ROTO-MOLD 45 DEGREE CONE BOTTOM TANK - FLAT TOP with lid and stand. CB00150SASS

Selling as a package. $35000.00 plus shipping cost.

I can package and pallet for shipping. Shipping cost is additional or set up by the buyer. This system will need all safety devices required by your local codes.

Located in the Pacific Northwest.

OPTIONAL

• 1 each Parker 103-7 Kompact boiler with blow-down tank. $12500. This boiler was installed and then not used for its intended purpose. It has very low usage. I will sell the boiler separately if it does not sell with the still equipment.

rslick@inlandstandardequipment.com

Anton Paar Snap 51

£1,800

Current price is £3,872 + VAT from Anton Paar

Anton Paar DMA 35

£1,400

Current price is £2,960 + VAT from Anton Paar

In excellent condition in their storage boxes.

Thanks @grim, after some more research, I cleaned the area by hand and used some 12% peracetic acid. All looking good now

Get another qualified welder. He needs to both pickle and passivate the weld. Did he at least purge the welding / vessel. I have seen so many bad weld conditions.

Hey everyone,

Not trying to hijack the thread here but I'm dealing with a fruit problem as well.

Each year I make a winter seasonal gin - after distillation I do a maceration dehydrated apple and dehydrated cranberry. After pulling the bags out of the gin, we filter through pad filters and then a 0.2 micron column filter (part of our enolmatic bottling machine). Everything looks good when we bottle.

Last year, after a couple months, I started to get some particulate forming. This year it happened after three weeks.

For the folks who know more about such things, am I dealing with a pectin problem here?

Thanks in advance.

@punkin thats funny. I am going to put in 10 whiskys into London Spirits Competition just to take up some more space in my shed wall. I am picking up the medals to get offshore export contracts. The whisky market here in Argentina is really particular. On the run book I have almost all of my grain bills for my favourite recipes, the top 15 anyway. So I am managing to reproduce those quite closely. Although I havent done much distilling this year as I was sick for a while. But I am back from the dead so thats a good thing. Thanks again guys.

Well. I sorry I haven't been on line for a while but this is another post. Last week I won the best distillery in Argentina again for a second year in a row. I submitted 30 entries and won 20 medals. I won 4 double golds 7 golds 7 silvers and 4 bronzes. Thanks again for all the advice that I have picked up on this board over the years. My total medal count right now is 51 medals, not including the two best distillery awards.

As a funny side story I made a bunch of vodkas and some moonshines with my two 6 plate StillDragon glass columns. I did a barley wash, a rye wash and a wheat wash almost at the same time, and did a stripping run via a pot still run first before passing them through the column still. I took some high ABV runs with little flavor and called them vodkas and then ran the run out to 40% and called them moonshine. But I did all three runs in a row and I was super busy so I kind of forgot the exact procedure. The Wheat moonshine got a double gold with 98 points and for the life of me I cant remember exactly how I did it.