Doug's continuous distillation

[Saltbush Bill]

Find a better site and I'll leave!!!!

I'm not suggesting you go anywhere. What I am saying is that if in 12 years you've not found any other forums with helpful information and have never heard of Harry, then you may have left more than a few stones un-turned.

[LWTCS]

I think someone mentioned Harry.
A man of sometimes strong opinions.

In his forum he was working on a benchtop continuous still.
He asked for people to contribute and I sent him maybe fifty dollars...

But then he pulled the plug on the idea, and was not happy about having to do that though he didn't exactly say why;
and I think pulled out of the forum.

I always wondered if the powers that be, who happily ignored hobby distillers as, I suppose, being
too small to worry about, blanched at the idea of a benchtop continuous still
in every house beside the coffee machine, and had a word with Harry.

Geoff

Yessir.
He and Manu.
Manu's powere calcs come in at 418 watts per gallon/ per hour as I recall?
That's how I knew the power input would scale in a linear fashion.

Per gallon of 95 etoh?

I think his little bench top rig was just a stripper as I recall. There used to be a video around here somewhere?

[The Baker]

I think his little bench top rig was just a stripper as I recall. There used to be a video around here somewhere?

Couldabeen.
But supposing it was a stripper, could you have run it through a second time for a passable drinking spirit??

Maybe?

Geoff

[LWTCS]

I think his little bench top rig was just a stripper as I recall. There used to be a video around here somewhere?

Couldabeen.
But supposing it was a stripper, could you have run it through a second time for a passable drinking spirit??

Maybe?

Geoff

Hi Geoff,
Well if we consider that many Armagnacs are made without making cuts, I think so.
Have a look at some of those old Armagnac still designs.

[NormandieStill]

Hi Geoff,
Well if we consider that many Armagnacs are made without making cuts, I think so.
Have a look at some of those old Armagnac still designs.

Best Armagnac I ever tasted was 70 years old. I think after 70 years on oak, there's nothing left but goodness!

[LWTCS]

Hi Geoff,
Well if we consider that many Armagnacs are made without making cuts, I think so.
Have a look at some of those old Armagnac still designs.

Best Armagnac I ever tasted was 70 years old. I think after 70 years on oak, there's nothing left but goodness!

Oh man I bet!! You're so lucky to be able to have sampled that.
A 4 year old is not good. Takes at least 12 years to become a worthy spirit in my limited experience.

[NormandieStill]

Best Armagnac I ever tasted was 70 years old. I think after 70 years on oak, there's nothing left but goodness!

Oh man I bet!! You're so lucky to be able to have sampled that.
A 4 year old is not good. Takes at least 12 years to become a worthy spirit in my limited experience.

It was a gift for my Dad's 70th birthday. Looking at the prices today I have no freaking idea how I managed to afford the bottle (or how it was so cheap). The now 80-year old bottles are over 2000€!

I told him not to keep it, it needed to be drunk and he followed my instructions... although I do wish I could try some again now with my new understanding of spirits.

[football29]

sorry to interrupt this conversation of drinking in the Fuel Forum J/K
But I did want to bring this topic back and ask Doug a question, ok you made a fuel still work as you said, so are you still running it today? is there other problems with fuel production as a business besides the technical matter of the still itself. It sure seems with gas prices the way they are a ethanol fuel operation that was competitive with $3/gal gas would be very profitable compared to $5/gal gas. right??

[Yummyrum]

If you are going to sell it ,there will need to be excise tax payable . That will make it a heck of a lot more expensive and maybe no longer attractive .

[LWTCS]

sorry to interrupt this conversation of drinking in the Fuel Forum J/K
But I did want to bring this topic back and ask Doug a question, ok you made a fuel still work as you said, so are you still running it today? is there other problems with fuel production as a business besides the technical matter of the still itself. It sure seems with gas prices the way they are a ethanol fuel operation that was competitive with $3/gal gas would be very profitable compared to $5/gal gas. right??

Fuel is far less profitable and therefore you really need to be able to fully exploit economies of scale 100x.

In the right market space $4 worth of molasses and yeast can gross $400 as an example.

[football29]

Regarding taxes, it's hard to say specifically because laws are always changing, and are specific to country and even state (if in USA), however from what I've read the tax situation for fuel was very different than for drinking alcohol. Currently in the most expensive state in USA gas prices include a fuel tax of $0.50 per gallon, with $0.18 of that for the federal government, and my understanding is this tax pays for some of the road infrastructure. So of course if you are using fuel on the road from somewhere else, the government wants to collect the equivalent tax on it (or in the case of EVs, they will just charge you for it at the DMV during registration). However, *if* the untaxed road fuel is specifically some types of bio-fuel (rather than just tax exempt fuel being used for on-road purposed), then the federal government has(had?) a rebate as well, that was somewhere around $0.50/gal also. It's something to research for sure but I think overall the economics of taxing are very different for fuel than for beverages where tax is $26.00/gal.

There are economies of scale, and also dis-economies of scale. In example, the cost for a federal fuel alcohol permit is lower if you produce less than 5000 gal/yr. If you only produce 5000 gal/yr, you can also sell into the lower volume/higher profit niches. Look at stove fuel, for marine or alcohol stoves, it seems this stuff is selling at around $15-20/gal online, or even a bit more per quart on the shelf at the hardware store. Or at least for a while there was even a green version made from renewable products that was like $40/gal https://www.mclendons.com/2739280/produ ... -qkga75003, and admittedly with the some unknown amount of extra complexity to produce pharmaceutical levels of purity, and selling into the right niche, here is almost $100/gallon https://www.blumesorganics.com/
I think this might be the same as beverage side actually, no one is making microdistilleries trying to outcompete the bottom shelf, plastic bottle, rock bottom priced product. Yet there are still microdistilleries out there with order of magnitude less volume, who are still in business despite being behind in economies of scale compared to the big producters. Likewise I think a small fuel producer can set their goals slightly beyond E85 at the pump in midwest...

I don't mean to press you guys for answers i realize this is mostly a beverage forum at the end of the day and thats the industry ppl are familiar with, but if anyone has thoughts (or possibly experience perhaps in the case of drmiller100) specific to a hypothetical small fuel alcohol production in USA i'm very interested.

[drmiller100]

Regarding taxes, it's hard to say specifically because laws are always changing, and are specific to country and even state (if in USA), however from what I've read the tax situation for fuel was very different than for drinking alcohol. Currently in the most expensive state in USA gas prices include a fuel tax of $0.50 per gallon, with $0.18 of that for the federal government, and my understanding is this tax pays for some of the road infrastructure. So of course if you are using fuel on the road from somewhere else, the government wants to collect the equivalent tax on it (or in the case of EVs, they will just charge you for it at the DMV during registration). However, *if* the untaxed road fuel is specifically some types of bio-fuel (rather than just tax exempt fuel being used for on-road purposed), then the federal government has(had?) a rebate as well, that was somewhere around $0.50/gal also. It's something to research for sure but I think overall the economics of taxing are very different for fuel than for beverages where tax is $26.00/gal.

There are economies of scale, and also dis-economies of scale. In example, the cost for a federal fuel alcohol permit is lower if you produce less than 5000 gal/yr. If you only produce 5000 gal/yr, you can also sell into the lower volume/higher profit niches. Look at stove fuel, for marine or alcohol stoves, it seems this stuff is selling at around $15-20/gal online, or even a bit more per quart on the shelf at the hardware store. Or at least for a while there was even a green version made from renewable products that was like $40/gal https://www.mclendons.com/2739280/produ ... -qkga75003, and admittedly with the some unknown amount of extra complexity to produce pharmaceutical levels of purity, and selling into the right niche, here is almost $100/gallon https://www.blumesorganics.com/
I think this might be the same as beverage side actually, no one is making microdistilleries trying to outcompete the bottom shelf, plastic bottle, rock bottom priced product. Yet there are still microdistilleries out there with order of magnitude less volume, who are still in business despite being behind in economies of scale compared to the big producters. Likewise I think a small fuel producer can set their goals slightly beyond E85 at the pump in midwest...

I don't mean to press you guys for answers i realize this is mostly a beverage forum at the end of the day and thats the industry ppl are familiar with, but if anyone has thoughts (or possibly experience perhaps in the case of drmiller100) specific to a hypothetical small fuel alcohol production in USA i'm very interested.

I think it makes sense to make etoh at a dairy or feedlot. Corn starch becomes etoh and feed the left over protein to cows.
Or, use my still to make etoh in the sugar cane fields and almost eliminate transportation costs.

I can be contacted on this userid at hotmail.

[Seb]

With a still that high, is it right to think that there's no reflux? That only ethanol vapors reach the top?

[drmiller100]

With a still that high, is it right to think that there's no reflux? That only ethanol vapors reach the top?

There is absolutely reflux. You COULD make a still to get azeo without reflux......
Hmmm. No you can't. You could create reflux differently depending on how you define reflux but that would be needlessly complicated.

And only 95 percent reaches the top of any 95 percent still.

[Evil Wizard]

I believe I know more about small scale ethanol FUEL production than anyone else in the world.

I believe I know more about small scale continuous stills than anyone else in the world.

If someone is better please prove me wrong!!!

I know VERY little about making good booze to drink.

The site name is home DISTILLER.

Why the hate?

I'm still here working on my 6" continuous still. It's been about 7 years. I know a lot about this stuff and I am focused on taste.

I'm not doing math like you guys are - holy shit. I'm also not trying too hard to run a second stage reflux column. Batching the second distillation is great for flavour. Its the stripping that eats up the man hours.

I suggest that the placement of Doug's heating element will cause burning problems with washes involving unfermentable sugar and/or flour solids. Doug, I'm certain you know this and are running clarified sugar shine.

Questions:

Have you encountered air locks in the beer feed line from co2 coming out of solution? If not are you just degassing the wash or pumping hard? Is there a 3rd solution? My design has a steady upward flow of incoming wash through my 3 heat exchangers so the gas rises upward preventing a lock - I don't degas or clarify.

The pressure on the draining water is affected by the amount of liquid suspended in the reflux column, yes? I'm wondering if you can comment on how you manage this? Typically the water level height on my drain is a few inches higher than the level height in my boiler to provide enough back pressure.

Thanks for talking about this. And sorry for the troubles. Like you I quit posting many years ago after getting passed around and bullied. I started posting again after Rad was sent away.

[drmiller100]

I have used corn, wheat, sugar, cherries, corn and sugar etc. I have no burning in the boiler. When done there is violent boiling down there and a feed rate of 20 to 25 gph.

I use the incoming beer run through the condenser then I run it through a heat exchanger off the spent beer coming out the boiler. When it gets going I'm injecting boiling beer into the column.
You MUST use a positive displacement pump to regulate beer injection. Gravity will not suffice.

I don't flood the stripper or the column. There may be a few inches of pressure but it is not significant. I pull the water from the boiler pretty low then have it drain into the exchanger some higher thereby setting boiler level.