iStill NextGen

[Odin]

And here is another still delivered to the USA ...

Regards, Odin.

[Fart Vader]

If I didn’t know any better I’d say that looks like a wooden box to me?

[Odin]

Odin.

[Odin]

Not sure if you guys celebrate fathers day over there, but here we do. I got treated on water charts, chocolate, and cigars. Ah, and one of those floating key hangers. Hm ... looks like boat-ownership is coming closer ... and it is. We have a boat on offer and the technical check (boat inspector hired by us). He'll look at the internals of the boat. How everything is installed. That'll take two hours. After that, the boat will be taken out for a spin and all systems will be checked. After that the boat will be lifted out of the water so that the "underwater-ship" can be checked. Prop, ruther, keels, paint, metal thickness, etc. Very excited & fingers crossed!

Odin.

[The Baker]

Happy Father's Day.

In Australia we have to wait a bit, until the first Sunday in September.

Geoff

[BusyHive]

Hi Odin,

I just joined here, after reading this thread and following your journey here as well as your website blogs. I'm simply amazed how well you've done in bringing the iStill to market and how well it's done. Congratulations!

I'm only reasonably new at distilling, but reading your story has inspired me to learn as much as I can about the craft and to hopefully in the not too distant future open a craft distillery of my own. When I do, it will definitely have an iStill.

If iStill has any courses coming up in Australia I'd definitely be interested.

Cheers,

John

[Odin]

Thanks John, for your kind and inspiring words!

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

Almost done with final assembly of four more big size distilleries:

https://istillblog.com/2020/07/01/big-in-the-usa/

Regards, Odin.

[Yummyrum]

Odin , I’m looking at what appears to be an LCD display panel on your istill .

How hot is it up there ? , I’d imagine that poor electronics is doing it hard .

[Odin]

Thanks for asking. It is room temp up there. The LCD screen hangs on a bracket that hangs on the legs that are connected to the boiler. So there is no temp creaping in. Still and brackets and legs are handwarm max.

Odin.

[Odin]

Very proud to have Bedlam Vodka as our customer. Congrats on your continued success, guys!

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 87652.html

Regards, Odin.

images.jpg (12.05 KiB) Viewed 4336 times

[Odin]

The iStill Glossology is here!

https://istillblog.com/2020/07/03/istill-glossology/

Regards, Odin.

957cee6249eec269d4b227120bfb4e5d.jpg (10.67 KiB) Viewed 4312 times

[Odin]

Introducing the 100 and 200 liter iStill Hybrid Manual:

https://istillblog.com/2020/07/09/istill-hybrid-manual/

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

The iStill Stylus has arrived!

https://istillblog.com/2020/07/14/istill-stylus/

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

We are expanding Assembly Hall 3 with an additional 100 m2 / 1,000 sf so we can put up an iStill Mini assembly line. Today we started with adding the stairs and a pallet docking station. Here are some pics:

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

Stairway to heaven ...

[Odin]

I'll be vacationing with the family in law in Hungary, the coming few weeks. We have been working on an app and a bluetooth thermometer. App is ready, probe goes through it's third reitteration as we speak. I expect the final unit ready for final testing next week, so that's what I'll do while away. Really looking forward to firing my i100 up and make some vodka!

Odin.

[BusyHive]

Enjoy your vacation Odin!

The app and BT thermometer sounds interesting. Will this be something that iStill will sell as a standalone unit, or part of an iStill?

Cheers,

John

[Odin]

It will be available with a triple pricing strategy:
- Most affordable (part of) the purchase of one of our manual stills;
- Slightly less affordable for other craft distillers;
- Much more expensive for big alcohol.

This way we can basically have big alcohol pay for craft distilling.

Odin.

[Odin]

The new iStill Bluetooth Thermometer Probe is ready! It works together with the StillControl app we developed. The goal is to help the craft distilling industry by introducing an affordable toolkit that improves run consistency and makes distilling and oversight and control easier overall. The probe, on a second to second basis, informs the app about the temperatures inside your distillation column. In the app, the distiller can choose his or her cut points for heads, hearts, and tails. Based on the readings of the probe, the app shows run progress and warns when another cut-point is near.

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

Wanna know more about how we use the golden ratio?

https://istillblog.com/2020/07/30/the-golden-ratio/

Regards, Odin.

[gwizard]

The new iStill Bluetooth Thermometer Probe is ready

Hey Odin, not a dig, but a serious question.
Everybody here seems to be telling people not to run by temperatures, but this is exactly what iStill does. You do auto cuts based on temp, right?
So, how do you explain the discrepancy between what you do, which obviously works great, and the "sage" advice of many on this forum?

[Odin]

Excellent question! Here's my motivation and explanation of the direction we took.

There is a difference between homedistilling and craft or professional distilling. From the hobby perspective, many take the road of attempting many recipes and going for something they like, which in the end (if you do not use an objective model) is pretty subjective. From a professional perspective (and this is posted in the "craft distillers section") most producers make a few recipes only, but make them all the time.

Another difference is that most homedistillers are their own consumers. But for a professional distilling operation to succeed, the goal is to attract first buyers and turn them into returning customers. For this to happen the product must be good (or at least the story must be), and it must be of consistent quality. Where I, as a homedistiller may enjoy one of my rums and think it is pretty good, I might then make another batch and - even though it is different - still like that one as well and contemplate how/where/why it is different. But from a professional stand-point that experience and those thoughts would mainly be part of recipe development and never of actual production runs. Recipe development leads to standard operating procedures that allow me to make good quality product consistently and reproducably.

How do we get to consistency and reproducability? Via control of the process. Alcohol production and (for the craft distiller even more important:) flavor production follow a set of rules. Stress out the yeast in certain directions and you'll get different flavors. Cut later or sooner, and you'll end up with a different product. Just two examples.

My goal now became to find those rules, find ways to measure them, and finally find ways to control them. Finding the rules, measuring them, and being able to control them allows the distiller to gain total control over both the alcohol production and flavor production processes. He or she can now design any product with its desired flavor profile and make it over and over again consistently. As an example, we have learned that temperature of fermentation can have a tremendous impact on esterification. How much and where. What temp is optimal now depends on how much esters you want and where you want them to shine. Think fruity, sweet flavors vs. rooty, earthy flavors for instance.

For distillation, there are basically five ways to "measure" and gain control and reach reproducable objectivity in spirits production. More or less. The first method is to go by taste and cut where you like. It is not objective and not easy to reach consistency this way (which is not an issue on a hobby scale). The second method is to go by ABV and use a parrot. More objective than taste, if you control not just distillation but the steps prior to that as well. The third method is to use temperatures. I like to use temperature because it is the most objective one. ABV shows alcohol percentage and output, where temperature indicates alcohol make-up and it can be measured during the run phase, so it is still open to manipulation. But both still suffer from influences of air pressure changes (think weather) that have a huge impact on boiling points and cuts. A professional run done on a traditional still can - depending on air pressure - easily take 20 minutes longer or stop 20 minutes earlier. Imagine that you run by ABV alone: you now collect maybe 40 minutes of tails in your run. Or you stop 40 minutes too early and miss out on certain flavors and production potential.

This is why most professional stills, on a craft distilling scale, are ran via a fourth method, where ABV and tasting are combined. The distiller now uses two sets of tools to end up with a better guess at where his cut needs to be. Taste experience and the flavor library in his head tells him one thing, and the ABV tells another thing. Hopefully they give affermative confirmation, so the distiller knows what to do.

I want to take the guessing out of craft distilling. I think it is essential for craft distillers to achieve that in order to take the battle to big alcohol. As a craft distiller you do not have the economies of scale the big boys have. This means your pricing will be higher (and/or your margins will be lower). That means the fight needs to be wan via taste and flavor. Good and consistent, where "consistency" is a prerogative to quality. How to achieve this? Measuring by temperature gives me the solution I was looking for. But it was not easy. You need temperature measurement that is 0.1 degree accurate. Now many probes claim they can do this, but they often forget to mention the systemic variance that easily adds 1.0 degree. So it is "accurate" to 0.1 degree if you accept that systemically it is still off by 1 degree, but at least by 1 degree plus 0.1 all the time. First set of solutions meant that callibration (multiple point) is needed.

Second issue was air pressure. We had to invent and then build a digital air pressure sensor that automatically and on a per second basis measures air pressure and compensates the cut points that are dialed in. Imagine that developing such an air pressure sensor is a +100k project. And developing a computer with probes and automation and software for automatically executed cuts is a +1m kinda project. But on a pro scale it pays out. Especially if we migrate to the fifth way to gain control over the distillation process: a combination of tasting and the abovementioned innovative temperature control. If fermenting is done in a controlled manner, if you follow a standard operating procedure, on a test run you can decide on your cut points using both tasting and temperature. If you now dial in those temperatures in your - say - whiskey program or gin program, you can, from this moment onwards, if you use the same SOP, make the same product over and over again. Objectively and without having to continuously taste it (even though you still off course can). Next-level stuff, because it brings quality and consistency and reproducability to the craft distilling scene.

I designed the probe and app to further help distillers out. Where the computer/plc/air pressure sensor control unit easily costs 10 to 20k, just to manifacture, the probe and app will give objective cuts management to distillers at a fraction of those costs. The big difference between the computer set-up is that it does not just measure, correct, and warn, but that it actively MAKES the cuts, by opening and closing certain valves. The probe and app just tell you what to do but don't do it for you.

Regards, Odin.

[Fart Vader]

Very elaborate answer Odin.
Well done.

[gwizard]

I reckon that was more answer that I was hoping for, thank you for elaborating, although now I have more questions

In my day job, I am software engineer specializing in automation development. So when you speak about software, sensors and control, I totally get it. Air pressure was a nice touch, solves elevation and boiling point differential. Doesn't solve wash ABV, if you want to go full automation though, but I guess operator can dial that in when they start the run.

Have you considered creating a central operation software module to pass data between fermenter and still? Like, fermenter auto measures gravity, then calculates abv and passes that data to the still for more precise operation.

[Odin]

We call that Central Station. A whole distillery of mashers, fermenters and stills is managed from one computer (or from the main still). Temp, pH, SG ... It was another very big project that I don't even want to put a number on. But we have it since close to a year now. It is part of the standard equipment list of our stills from 500 liters and upwards. Means you can add mashers and fermenters for later expansion and run 'm as one integrated system.

Odin.

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

Very good explanation, Odin. Thank you very much. I'm really glad the question was asked, and you took the time to explain the differences, and the path. This is what we mean when we say that it all begins with taste, not end. You have to program an operation based on what you first have learned and decided on, taste. Then do the exact same thing over and over, including measuring the air (which is something even I never thought you would have to take into account!). As a home distiller I an so grateful for the ability to not be bound by an SOP, and to use my senses to build my ever changing art. You also very well reflect the amount of work you have dedicated your life to in the advancements of craft distillation. Thanks for that as well.

Thanks Odin.

[Odin]

iStill introduces StillControl and it might revolutionizes the craft distilling industry once more! How? By making temperature based cuts and product consistency and reproducibility achievable in an affordable way.I think that is an essential step for craft distilling to take the fight to big alcohol producers ...

https://istillblog.com/2020/08/05/stillcontrol/

Pictures and a probe/app install vid in the above link.

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

Wanna see the iStill manufacturing process?

https://istillblog.com/2020/08/06/manuf ... s-istills/

Regards, Odin.

[Odin]

Did a vodka run with StillControl. Here is some footage:

https://istillblog.com/2020/08/07/makin ... llcontrol/

Regards, Odin.