iStill One

[Odin]

More information on using the iStill One, for the pro distillers that use them:

"Since the iStill One runs on natural gas, it uses oxygen. As do you and your co-workers. The amount of air and oxygen inside your distillation hall is limited, therefore you may need to ventilate.

If you buy an iStill One and let us know the size (height, width, length) of your hall, and tell us with how many people you work there, we will calculate how much “old” air you need to ventilate out of the building.

An exampe. A distillation room that’s 4 meters high, 5 meters wide, and 12 meters long will need around 160 m3 of fresh air per hour. That’s with 4 people present and the iStill One on full throttle.

If you think 160 m3 per hour is a lot … well, it actually isn’t. That fan you have in your bath room is probably capable of 80 m3 per hour already. And a 30 centimeter diameter industrial fan system, that will cost you around EUR 350, easily ventilates out 2,000 m3 per hour."

And some of our advice on where to place fans, etc.:

"Do you live in a hot climate? In that case it may be wise to install the fan relatively high up in your building. That way you get rid of warmer air, that rises up, and cool your room at the same time. Living in a colder climate? In that case the ventilation system can be placed lower.

For your fermentation room, a ventilation system that’s placed lower has certain advantages. CO2, produced during the fermentation process, is heavier than air. I assembles on the floor (if you have no system to “catch” CO2 right of the fermenter), so you may want to ventilate it out via a fan placed closer to the floor."

Coming over to Florida in just 3 weeks from now, to assemble & test & run the first USA iStill One!

Odin.

[Odin]

More information on the iStill Pump. We developed the pump so pro distillers can easily transfer washes, mashes, ferments, low wines from our Masher to our Fermenter to our iStill One.

It has a 2 inch inlet and a 2 inch outlet and can transfer up to 9,500 liters per hour. The iStill Pump handles liquid temperatures up to 90 degrees C and can deal with particles up to 1.9 mm. It runs on 230v, +/- 10%, single phase. Nice iStill design. Pictures later this week!

Odin.

[Odin]

This just came in: a water stop ... and some 5 test tubes with 3 types of rye and 2 types of genever. From my good friend Henk, master distiller & owner of Nes Distillery over here. One happy weekend coming up!

Odin.

[Odin]

We just watered the garden with the iStill Pump. We attached the pump to an iStill 250. We filled the iStill 250 with 250 liters of water. How long it took us to empty it? To water the garden? ... under 20 seconds. We are posting a movie tomorow. You will love it.

Odin.

[olddog]

I dont know how you are getting away with this Odin. Your posts seem to be blatantly promoting your products. Others have been banned for less.


OD

[Odin]

Hi Olddog, I thought that was no problem, since it is in the craft distiller part. But if you or any others take offense, for sure I will stop posting there as well! On the other hand ... please know we don't sell to hobby distillers.

Regards & respect!

Edit: I just contacted the mods and asked them to advice me. if they feel I do something wrong, I will stop right away. In all honestly, please know I contacted Uncle Jesse about posting about pro equipment in the craft distilling section and he was fine with it. That was before I started posting. I will await the reaction of the mods and will not post before they give me an okay on this.

Odin.

[Brendan]

Not being a mod, I'd only be guessing...but the craft distillers section is only a relatively new part of the forum, so previously as OD mentioned, things may have been different.

As you say, you are not selling to hobby distillers, and this is the section where I would imagine would be appropriate as craft distillers make money from distilling...

Love your work Odin, and am fascinated by everything you and your crew come up with. I must admit when I first read the title, I pictured some new release from Apple

[Jimbo]

Brendan, agreed. Odin's been spanked before and sent here, Craft Distillers' forum, for any mentions of commercially available stuff for sale. He is doing as requested. Its ok fine to namedrop on yoru stuffs in this section.

[bearriver]

This shows how HD is expanding it's reader base . I don't think having (ADI type) threads are going to hurt HD's image at all, provided they fit the forum section rules...

[Odin]

Thanks guys, for the clarification and for the support. Darn, promissed you that iStill Pump movie. It is ready, but video and sound don't match. My son is working on it right now. Hope it is finished later tonight!

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

Just had a beer with some guys from Australia. They just arrived at the hotel and we will do a few runs together, tomorrow. Probably gonna be our first iStill One customers in Australia.

On Monday I will meet a guy from the north of my country that wants to order the iStill Distillery.

On Wednessday visitors from a Dutch genever distillery will come by.

On Saturday I will fly to the States to build up the first iStill One over there.

About a week after I come back Bushman will visit us. Dinner, drinks, and some distilling together. Looking forward to that one!

The day after I had the privelige of doing a few runs with Bushy together, I will leave for a meeting with some 120 UK based distillers. Show off my equipment, have some talks on gin manufacturing. Some drinks for sure as well!

After that meeting I will hang around with the ADI management team for a few days. We will visit some distilleries together. ADI honorary membership and stuff.

And after that, back in the Netherlands, an Irish poitín distillery comes over to the iStill Center. They ordered our stills (and more) and will get a training day to familiarise themselves with our stills.

That same week a delegation from Scotland will fly over for another complete distillery set-up. The management team as well as the investor/owner.

Not sure what the week after that has to offer, but it will be more fun for sure!

Living my dream.

And loving every minute of it!

Odin.

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

Just had a beer with some guys from Australia. They just arrived at the hotel and we will do a few runs together, tomorrow. Probably gonna be our first iStill One customers in Australia.

On Monday I will meet a guy from the north of my country that wants to order the iStill Distillery.

On Wednessday visitors from a Dutch genever distillery will come by.

On Saturday I will fly to the States to build up the first iStill One over there.

About a week after I come back Bushman will visit us. Dinner, drinks, and some distilling together. Looking forward to that one!

The day after I had the privelige of doing a few runs with Bushy together, I will leave for a meeting with some 120 UK based distillers. Show off my equipment, have some talks on gin manufacturing. Some drinks for sure as well!

After that meeting I will hang around with the ADI management team for a few days. We will visit some distilleries together. ADI honorary membership and stuff.

And after that, back in the Netherlands, an Irish poitín distillery comes over to the iStill Center. They ordered our stills (and more) and will get a training day to familiarise themselves with our stills.

That same week a delegation from Scotland will fly over for another complete distillery set-up. The management team as well as the investor/owner.

Not sure what the week after that has to offer, but it will be more fun for sure!

Living my dream.

And loving every minute of it!

Odin.

Odin, I've been wanting to ask, where in Jersey are you setting up the iStill? I'm local, and would love to visit it . Maybe even see it built, if they allow .

[Odin]

Not up to me to invite you! Especially not during building it up. And - my bad - it is Pensylvania, not New Yersey! I am sure when she's up and running and the distillery opens its doors, they'd love to have you over. And since we changed a few things on design ... you will be amazed. Can promise you that!

Odin.

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

Not up to me to invite you! Especially not during building it up. And - my bad - it is Pensylvania, not New Yersey! I am sure when she's up and running and the distillery opens its doors, they'd love to have you over. And since we changed a few things on design ... you will be amazed. Can promise you that!

Odin.

Hey, no worries. I figured I'd get that response due to confidentiality. It's just cool that the first one getting built is so close. Perhaps when it's all going, they'll let you tell us which distillery it's at, So that we can visit it .

Hey - Jersey, Penny, York, Deley, and Mary - we're all here, crammed up on each other. It's all the same.

Have a safe trip!

SCD

[Odin]

Thanks! First one will actually be in Floriday. Second one in PA.

Doing a superfast strip run and then a superfast finishing run with the Aussies was great! Who knows, we may be opening up an Australian iStill Center soon.

Finishing up that last run as we speak. At 75% power input, pissing out like 4.5 liters per hour close to 97% on our 2 inch diameter training rig.

Jeez', I just see in my agenda that the next client is coming over tomorrow, Sunday, at 11 o'clock. Well, at least it gives me time for breakfast!

Did you guys see the movie on the iStill Pump yet? It's on the website. I am very happy with the results. We attached it to an iStill 250, that was filled up with 250 liters of water. The pump cleared the iStill 250 in under 20 seconds. Funny thing is ... the outlet tube on the iStill 250 is one inch in diameter, not two. Connecting the iStill Pump to the 2 inch drain of our fermenters, mashers or the iStill One will double that speed. That's 250 liters in under 10 seconds or 1,500 liters in a minute. This means the pump can fully charge the boiler of an iStill One in under one minute.

We did some more tests and fed the pump system with grains & water. No problem. It dealt with it without any trouble. Makes sense, since it can deal with particles/parts/grains up to 2 centimeters (0.8 inch?). Okay, never affraid of doing something stupid (hey, that's what testing is about, right?), we then just pushed the intake tube in a bucket filled with 25 kilo's of unmilled, fresh, dry malted barley. The pump dealt with it. Sucked the bucket dry in a few seconds. But do not aim the outlet tube at your dog or wife! Or maybe do. Turns the darn thing into a weapon. Aim, shoot, kill.

Odin.

[Odin]

Some pictures of our newest iStill One. With new manholes and a casing around the stirrer's crankshaft ...

Picture of the iStill Pump coming up in a few minutes.

Odin.

[Odin]

iStill Pump and hoses ...

[Odin]

Just back from the Jacksonville area. Amelia Island, to be more precise. I arrived on Sunday, together with one of my engineers and we put the iStill One together that very afternoon. On Monday the gas guys, the electricians and the persons installing the chimney (through the roof) came by and did their work. Monday afternoon, we fired the iStill One up. Charged with a failed 3% rum wash. A 1,000 liter (260 gallons?) charge at that. Failed due to too high fermentation temperatures. But it was what it was and that's what we had to use.

The goal? To make a rum in one go, at relative lower power input. And amazing things happened!

We fired up full throttle, so at 75 KW. A bit less, actually. More on that later. It took a few hours to heat up. Around 3 1/2 hours. Due to us tinkering around with fans and stuff, and due to the very low ABV of the molases ferment. Temperature in the boiler rose from 25 degrees C to 85 degrees C. And pretty much from that moment on, we saw the gas temperature in (which we measure at the bottom of the dual columns) go up. Funny to see how heating up that first part of the column draws both energy from the boiler and from the top. Temperature in the boiler and at the top of the column start to cycle downwards a bit ... until temperature in is around 65 degrees C. From that moment on boiler as well as inlet temperatures go up. And so does the third thermometer probe: the one at top of the column. Column heat-up took another 1 1/2 hours. We programmed the alarm to go off when the top temperature reached 77.5 degrees C. Just under the boiling point of ethanol. And when the alarm did go off, we lowered the power input to around 50% or 37.5 KW. That's >250,000 BTU's during heat-up and around 125,000 during the hearts run.

In my iStill 250, with managed reflux (LM), we can get very low heads temperature. Around 77 to 76 degrees C is not exception. But the iStill One, with passive reflux management, was totally of the charts. First shots came over under 30 degrees C! That's pretty much pure aceton. And even though we ran at 37.5 KW, these first shots came over in drips. Top temperature stayed stable, until the dripping was done. We then saw the temperature at the top rise a few degrees, to the next component. And that component was also taken in drips. After that the next component, etc, etc. Drop rate increased the nearer we got to ethanol, and when we hit 78 degrees and a bit, the iStill One started to produce she started to piss out seriously. Think 30 liters per hour, starting at 65% and slowly dropping. We could collect as deep as 30%. That's where she stops pissing like an elephant after a beer drinking contest, and that's when tails start to come over.

The actual run took something like an hour and a half. It gave us two liters of fores and heads at 96%, and around 42 liters of rum hearts at 55%.

Next day we took another ferment. This one wasn't finished yet. Guesses were it was around 7%, based on readings (always difficult with molases). Heat-up time, with the stirrer set slightly faster, took 3 hours instead of 3 1/2. Column stabilization took one hour instead of 1 1/2. Fores and heads came out in seperate fractions again. Total fores and heads cut was just under 2.5 liters. Hearts started to come out at 70% and at 35 liters per hour. That's not in stripping mode, but at lower power input, with the goal to make a rum (or whiskey or brandy) in one go. Unfortunately we had to stop that run early into hearts, because of a lack of cooling water. With this size rig and power, you don't want to fool around with hoses for cooling, you want plummed lines. We took the shortcut anyhow, because the plumming wasn't ready and we were there for just a few days. When cooling water ran out, we had to stop.

We tried both rums fresh of the still. Taste was amazing. Very good, lot's of character. The second run was cleaner and better tasting, the first one had a very pronounced rum character, probably due to an excess in heads and tails because that ferment died.

Translating this to a whiskey set up: charge the iStill One with 1,000 liters of 8% whiskey beer to give you (theoretically) 80 liters of 100% pure alcohol. Translate that to a 70 liter heart-cut and correct for 60% instead of 100%, and you will get around 110 to 115 liters. Each run with the iStill One, if you choose to do a one run approach, allows you to fill up a half barrel. Heat-up time is 3 hours, column stabilization is 1 hour. Production time, including the fores & heads cut takes 3 hours. Include an hour for charging the boiler and discharging it after the run, and you have an 8 hours work day. Spot on!

Odin.

[Tokoroa_Shiner]

Wow. That's some nice numbers there Odin. Always love reading your posts.

[ga flatwoods]

I guess one could readily say you get what you pay for! With automation it would seem the only physical work would consist of loading the ingredients in the fermented and bottling! Sweet.
Ga Flatwoods

[Odin]

Thanks guys! We also found a few things we still will improve. We will move the rod to measure boiler charge temperature to just above the agitator (bottom dweller design, remember?). The reason for this is that the skirt surrounding the gas burners was made shorter. For more oxygen to get to the flames. Now, the gas burners can disperse some heat to the side of the boiler. With the original place of the thermometer probe pretty much where skirt meets boiler bottom, that's not good. Hence the different placing. We could change that still for the iStill One that goes to Pennsylvania. For this first one, in Florida, we will make a different solution.

Other things we learned:
- With all cleaning sections in place and the catalyst installed, the iStill One can make a whiskey, rum, or brandy in one go;
- With perfect heads and fores control and physical as well as computer control:
- When it trickles, it's heads, when it stream it is hearts, when the streams start to break, tails arrive;
- We achieve the goal of 60% hearts cut, so there's no need to dilute prior to ageing and that is important for maximum taste transfer;
- Agitator just needs to do like 3 to 5 cycles per minute (that's 9 to 15 seconds per minute) on a clear wash or molases wash;
- For on the grain distillation continuous agitation is preferred (20 RPM), but it is something you can play with: if you want to age your whiskey longer, you may want to go down to 10 or even 5 RPM: heat build-up in the grains will trigger more maillardization reactions for (over time) an even more complex whiskey;
- Running the iStill One on a one approach whiskey, etc. is all about phase management. The phases are clearly distinct and help you manage your rig and run:
- Boiler charge heat-up (set alarm at 80 degrees C);
- Dual column heat-up (set alarm at 65 degrees C);
- Fores and Heads cut (set alarm at 77.5 degrees C - everything under 77.5 C is fores, everything from 77.5 C is heads ... as long as it drips);
- This is (77.5 C) where you power down from 100% power in to 50% power: stop the gas supply to the outside rings of each of the 3 gas heaters;
- Hearts: everything that comes out as a stream;
- Tails: when ABV dwindles to 30% and less: stream starts to break up: note temp in when this happens and dial that in as your end cut for future runs.

More things we learned. The iStill 250 is a much smaller unit, but already blows a 180 K Holstein out of the water. Imagine what the iStill One does. And especially: how much power it has and how much gas it uses (cheap though NG is), how much heat it develops (even though it is fully insulated - see pics of the column please), and how much air it uses.

Not something to play around with. Professionally installed water, gas, and electricity (20 bhp stirrer) are a prerequisite. Ventilation is essential. In two ways:
- The iStill One as an up to 250,000 BTU (maximum power) chimney. But you do not want to release spent gasses into your distilling room. You need a chimney to get the gasses out. In Florida, this was managed perfectly. The chimney worked fine. We measured CO2 build-up and had a continuous measurement of 0.
- The iOne uses around 200 m3 (200,000 liters) of air per hour. You cannot run a rig this size in a closed, non-ventilated hall. Opening the doors (counter) and installing a > 600 m3 per hour air intake fan are necesairy. The permanent fan was not yet installed in the building, but opening the doors (counter flow wise) and having two mobile fans in place worked okay.

More info to come, but for now ... some pictures of the iStill One and i250 set-up near Jacksonville. Here we go:

[Odin]

What's next? the iStill Masher. A 2000 liter, double jacketed, oil heated, water cooled mashing machine. Computer Aided Mashing. Dial in temps for strike temperature, for proteine rest, for starch conversion, for boiling, etc. When the temperature is reached, the alarm goes off and you know it's up to the next phase.

The iStill Masher (two already built, two new ones on their way) is perfectly alligned with the iStill Fermenter 2000. That's a 2000 liter water jacketed and agitated and computer controlled fermentation vessel. And that's set up to perfectly charge the iStill One. All products have drains that fit the iStill Pump, so you can transfer mash, ferment, stillige easily and without having to clean up afterwards.

The Masher is constructed to mash up to 2000 liters (500 gallons) in one working day. Just as the iStill One gives you like 110 to 120 liter of 60% ready to age product in one day's work.

I will upload pictures of the iStill Masher in about a week from now.

Regards, Odin.

[DeepSouth]

You might want to stop on by the ADI Forums and defend yourself. You have a few angry customers complaining. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

http://adiforums.com/index.php?showtopic=5457" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Bushman]

Great rebuttal, after meeting Odin and running the iStill I have got to believe his side of the story. Also I went to the person complaining's distillery website and anyone that claims their vodka is 18 times distilled and has a great flavor profile I have got to question. Unless they are infusing flavor on their last run I would think this would be very neutral in flavor. Just my bias thoughts.
http://adiforums.com/index.php?showtopic=5457&p=31137" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Soggy Bottom Boy]

Shysters(scheissers)/crooks are everywhere!

Uh-huh, ...yeah, ...sure, .....send me your proprietary code and schematics so we don't have to go through the bother of reverse engineering your product, to make it so much easier to steal your tech and start producing and selling our "version" of an automated distillation system. It will save us many future headaches if you would be so kind as to do that for us.

.......WOW!!!

[Odin]

Steve's ADI post (and on other forums) was not very nice. I replied and showed him for what he really is: a fraud and a thief that has costed me close to 15 K.

I understand our work makes some greedy and others envious, but that's not my problem. Rancid posting about us "not delivering" is though. And if there is an issue, just contact us directly and we will deal with it.

Do we have issues? Yes we do! We have people running rigs that are tailored for 400 volts (+/- 10%) run them at 300 volts to 500 volts. Yeah, that damages things! We also have people calling and telling us they get messages on the computer that the run is automatically stopped because of a lack of cooling water. And when I ask about water pressure, they say: "Water pressure? We just put the inlet water hose in a bucket. Really? Do we really need a pump?" Or here's another annectodical story: a guy calling us and telling me he never had issues with fruit flies ... until the iStill 250 came in! So ... it must be my fault. I am not kidding you. Here's another one. "Odin, my rig tells me that it stopped automatically because the column flooded. How is that possible, I didn't do anything wrong! So ... your iStill must be wrong!" I meet him a week later and notice his fingers are burned. I ask him "how come". He says: "So I am doing a run with the iStill 250 and I forgot to put feints in there ... so I open the top manhole - during the run - and put them 96.5% strong feints in there!" And I say: "so you burned your fingers, opening the manhole while a run was going on?" "Yeah," he says, "and since they got burned already, I decided to add the 96.5% feints to the boiling 30% low wines anyhow!" Yes, and that's when - flash boiling these feints - he didn't just burn his fingers but his arm as well. Imagine ... you put 96,5% (bp of 78.2 degrees C) in a mixture that boils at 90 degrees C. So I asked him: "and then the iStill told you you got column flooding and you called me?" "Yeah," he said, "that's what actually happened."

Automated distilling does not mean that you can cut corners.

No problem. Part of the deal, maybe. But Steve is a jerk that still has to pay for over 2,000 USD in parts as well as for two computers. He also cheated me into invest over USD 7,000.- in one of his courses, because 30 to 40 people would come over, and that 3 times per year. Do you know how many showed up? Just 6! O, and he is running a 220 volt configured rig at 110 volts ... and blaming me for not getting what I promisse? Darn ... some people are just too ... well, let's leave it at that.

I am happy to inform you I am just back from: 1. America; 2. London. I assembled and tested the first iStill One to Florida just weeks ago. And the iStill Pump. And an iStill 250. The pump was good. The i250 was great ... but the iOne was ... of the charts.

We loaded her with 1000 liters of molasses ferment. Put the agitator at 2 revolutions per minute, fired up the > 100 bhp gas heaters ... and heated up in 2 hours. After that column heat-up (and fores/heads stacking) took another hour. From that moment on fores/heads came off. Drip per drop ... from 30 degrees C onwards. Every volatility at its own boiling point. Amazing. Just 2 liters of ultra concentrated fores & heads ... and 35 liters of rum hearts at 60% per hour after that. We drank it fresh from the still and taste was great.

We have a winner here, with the iOne. The i250 already outproduces a 180 K Holstein, but our newest and biggest unit does that times 4.

So ... who is near Allentown, PA? I will fly to NY in just 5 weeks to build up another iOne and i250 and iPump. I will visit One Eight Distilling in Washington as well. And Cap May Distillery in New Jersey. But on Saturday the 22nd of November I plan to have a few drinks ... hopefully with a few of you!

Ah ... and we will be flying over to Australia soon as well. We are selling two complete distilleries over there. iOne, i250, fermenters, mashers, everything. So I hope to be meeting with some of our Australian members soon as well!

London. We visited the London Craft Distilling Expo. I was a judge on the gin contest. We visited some distilleries together. And we made quite the impression with our stills over there. What's next, exposition wise? I will keep you posted!

Best thing that happened to me, these last few weeks? Meeting Bushman and family in Amsterdam. Visiting a distillery. Grabbing a bite togehter. Doing a few runs together the next day. Bushman is a nice guy. You already know that. He is also a very warm, intelligent and good person. I consider meeting him a privelidge!

Glad to be back on HD after weeks of just TOO much work!

Odin.

[Odin]

Thanks Rock. Much appreciated.

Odin.

[Odin]

Great rebuttal, after meeting Odin and running the iStill I have got to believe his side of the story. Also I went to the person complaining's distillery website and anyone that claims their vodka is 18 times distilled and has a great flavor profile I have got to question. Unless they are infusing flavor on their last run I would think this would be very neutral in flavor. Just my bias thoughts.
http://adiforums.com/index.php?showtopic=5457&p=31137" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Just reading your write-up, Bushman. Steve's lying here as well. He does not distill 18 times. He can't. He has a 150 gallon gross capacity Holstein boiler that can hold just 75 gallons of fermented wash. He has two columns that together provde 18 plates, but there's not enough ethanol in the boiler, even after charging it with low wines, to load all the plates he has. The columns (16 inch I think) are just to wide and too big. He can only get to 7 or 8 redistillations and a maximum of 90%. Even then he has to prime the plates of his Holstein, the ones that he actually can use, with water, using the cleaning in place system, just so he can create any kind of reboiling activity on those plates. Distilled 18 times? No, his vodka is distilled only 8 times. And after that it is carbon filtered extensively.

He also runs Chicago's 5 star vodka. A GNS that he redistills in South Bend. Not in Chicago, but in ... a completely different State all together. But they are claiming it is Chicago made. Another fraud, now that I think of it ...

Okay, back to the good stuff. I will post a design picture of our iStill Masher shortly.

Odin.

[Odin]

As promissed. A design picture of our iStill Masher. Sorry Steve, without the automation ...

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

Now with the picture ...

And there's more news. We will introduce a new touch screen computer in just a few days time! That's the new computer to our BIG units, like the iStill One, the iStill Masher, and the 2000 and 3000 liters fermenters. Touch screen, interactive visuals, new temperature connection plugs. More pics coming up ...

Regards, Odin.