I just had a baby a week ago. I apologize for those I have not called back, or appts I blew off, or orders not out fast enough, I am a week behind. I had a baby. Well, not me, my lady. It is little girl. My Lady’s labor was very powerful to watch, help out with and very exhausting. I been a little sleepless and had to help out with babysitting our other children, and organizing and getting help from outside. Very tough, you that know- know. We did this at home, with a midwife helping, and she came at 4 am. Add me on Facebook to see her photo.
Anyways, the weekend last, I went to Prosser, WA to visit www.blueflamespirits.com. Check out their beautiful website. Purchase a bottle because you are buying a bit of of American Tradition in raw form. This is rare in alcohol industry. They have a great variety from grappa which was my favorite and won a gold, and brandy, they have wheat whiskey, vodka, and rye whiskey.
I am shooting a video of them called From Farm to Bottle. The farmers they get their product from, did the last rye cutting so I had to go meet them- and film it.This is the beginning of the video. I interviewed one of the family members, of fourth generation wheat harvesters. They are cutting white wheat and rye for BFS distillery. It is a fascinating interview. I will have the whole video up when I complete the fascinating distillation process. Here are some photos I took.
The combine I rode in.
The fields of rye and wheat. 4000 acres of it.
I went to Blue Flame Spirits Distillery and seen their stills. Look at these photos.
Stripping still
Vodka Still
Bags of rye and wheat
The final product. They have an award winning grappa. I love this grappa. They have whiskeys, gins, vodkas. I will film how this is all done from farm to bottle. I have to go up there soon to do part 2, the distillation process.
Back to the farmers. This is the actual wheat the farmers use to sell to the Blue Flame Spirits distillery.
He gave me the history of these combines, Like John Deere 95. 300 bushels this holds in the grain tank. These have gps in them and can drive themselves. They plant the winter wheat in the fall. They have summer stuff as well they plant early as June. It takes almost a year to grow this stuff. 2000 acres of wheat a year they grow here. This year they have a light crop and low yield because of drought and frost. 80,000-100,000 bushels of grain usually is grown. This year they are somewhere in the 50,000. Drought put a damper on this one. He explained all the types of wheat like soft white, for noodles..he says Japan was a big customer before this whole GMO thing came in. It didn’t hurt the market as bad as they thought. Then hard red winter..this one is harder, has gluten in it. This gives it the dough elasticity. Then SOFT RED…this grown in Midwest, Mississippi river area. Those are three, then spring reds then spring whites. They do the same thing, but planted in Spring.
They also grow RYE. But I can’t give away too much info on this. This is a type that produces excellent yield in alcohol and flavors. This is secret of the distillery.
They said the government offers them a safety net program, a federal insurance policy. They have their average yield and then pieces of the farm that goes under the average, the government pays them. But they have to buy into this in insurance. So these farmers do not get it so easy. They work very hard.
The great grandfather built their house and the white school house he pointed out, he had his great grandmother teach in it. All wheat farmers.
He showed me his great grandparents’ homesteads. Can you imagine living on the same property with same houses and 4 generations of your family? They all farmed- on that property, back then with draft horses. T
hey had teams of 16- 32 — in the same heat we were in. They pulled the combines, and it took 5 guys to run it. They would have men come along to sack everything, even some sewing the sacks. Some men came along with a team of mules, then, to take down the sacks, to storage houses until more men in cars came to pick them up. So about 20 men or more- all together doing- what one combine does today. WOW. What a great story. Amazing.
hey had teams of 16- 32 — in the same heat we were in. They pulled the combines, and it took 5 guys to run it. They would have men come along to sack everything, even some sewing the sacks. Some men came along with a team of mules, then, to take down the sacks, to storage houses until more men in cars came to pick them up. So about 20 men or more- all together doing- what one combine does today. WOW. What a great story. Amazing.
They were liquor drinkers and Teetotalers ( those who abstain) All of them going through prohibition as well. There were those in family who made beer during that time.
He told me about some diseases wheat gets occasionally that makes the yield smaller. Alot of this covered in the videos.
In that area there are 90 registered voters. No town is there. Every so often a new town comes up.
They also save their seeds. They put them in grainaries. They save the cleanest.
————
Someone asked me this week, ” Why is it my alcohol turns cloudy, when I proof it with water?”
I say the reason is when proofing alcohol, you need distilled water, which is as clean as you get. You need water devoid of minerals, dead water, you can get at the supermarket for $2.50 a gallon. Using tap or well water to proof your alcohol will make it cloudy. Proofing means taking alcohol and mixing it to a drinkable proof like 45% and then proof with alcoholmeter. Lets say you have a 5 gallon bucket with 2 gallons of 90% alcohol. You want to take this to 45% alcohol. You will pour two gallons of distilled water and mix, now you have 4 gallons of a drinkable product. If it is still turning cloudy with distilled water, you either have too much of the tail endings of the run.
Another person who bought my 4″ Still ( all size stills really act the same)
which was calibrated for 15 gallons an hour asked me, ” Why is this only producing 7 gallons an hour?” .
If it is only producing 7 gallons an hour that means the ABV of the wash is too low. Or there are not enough BTUs going into the pot. If the ABV of the wash is at 5% it, it will come out slower than a wash that is 15%. Measure your ABV of your wash with a triple scale hydrometer. Or you need to raise the amount of BTUs- which is British measurement for heat.
————
Someone called and asked me how long does it take to make some “Moonshine”.
I have lots of videos on youtube on how to make a simple wash, and all about the fermentation. I even have a step by step article with photos. But here- I will write it out in words too.
A simple wash, for moonshine, alcohol or ethanol -for beginners, like with sugar granules or crystals, or molasses..
You can buy sugar at say, Cash and Carry, for 27$ for 50 lbs.
This will take 5 days to be complete.
20 gallon batch
18 gallons of water
3 bags of Turbo 48 yeast ( aggressive yeast)
Stir once in morning and once at night.
Will give you 16-18% abv.
190 proof after putting through a still
If you put through Copper Pot still, you have to run 3 times, to get 190 proof- or 85%
If you put through 3″Copper still, you will get 90% on first pass
If you put through a 2″ Copper Still, you may have to run 2 times- to get 90+ %
All this depends on beginnings- and what kind of copper still you have.
SO, the exact way to do this is- you need 50 lbs of sugar for a 20 gallon batch. You put in 10 lbs of sugar to start, in water at 110F. Make sure this dissolves. Then, put in next 10lbs (until your 50 lbs of sugar is reached). Then, fill up remaining water, stir until it dissolves. You wait until the water cools down to 80F. Pitch in two bags of Turbo 48 yeast. Stir 1 time in morning and 1 time at night for 2 days. ( Some people like to get heating belts to cover their buckets, they plug in and this keeps it warm, or you can cover with blankets- your bucket. People also like to put an airlock so air releases gently.) Then after two days, pitch in the 3rd bag of Turbo 48 Yeast, and stir remaining 3-4 days 1x at morning and 1x night for 2 minutes each time.
Put this mash in your boiler, with a funnel if you need to, and plug in the wall the electrical elements you have installed on your boiler. Or turn on your propane or wood fire, whichever you use. Put your still on and condenser. Plug in your garden hose and your outlet hose to the red and blue hoses attached to your still.
SO to go over what we spoke about:
20 gallon wash @ 16% ABV will give you 2- 10 gallon runs ( in your 15 gallon keg boiler)
Each 10 gallon wash distilled will give you 2 1/2 gallons of 90% at 180 proof.
So that is a minimum of 4-5 gallons of moonshine in 5 days using Turbo 48 yeast.
Do not forget to throw out the first 100 mls of final run. That is the acetones, smells like nail polish remover.
Rainier Distillers Copper Stills are not like anything on the Moonshiners tv show. Mine are industrial reflux, professional stills converted to smaller size. 40-20 feet stills, brought down to the size of home or distillery sizes.
All Rainier Distillers Copper stills work the same. It is just different
Amount of product you want to produce
How quickly you want this to come out
The percentage of Alcohol
All can be taken apart and converted to a pot still.
3″ inch Rainier Distillers Alchemist Copper Still
—6 1/2 foot column and the 15 g keg boiler is 2 feet- so total is: 8 1/2 feet.
—This comes with everything like a pot, all hoses, packed with copper mesh, thermometer, elements, fittings, and tower.
4″ inch Rainier Distillers Alchemist Copper Still
—Minimum 50 to 100 gallon Boiler
—10-15 gallons an hour
—10 feet tall
—Minimum 9,000 watts
–210,000 BTU Burner for propane
People ask and usually they just want to know how to make moonshine I assume you want to have this valuable, life saving, knowledge, too, if you are reading this. It does come in handy in, lets say, a big global emergency. It might even protect your family and save communities, give gas to cars or pay wages. Just to know this, does not hurt anyone.
QUESTION: I am interested in your two inch still with the reflux column. I am interested in producing as pure a ethanol product as I can. In your videos I did not see a way to fill the boiler during the distillation process. I seems to me that a filling point could be introduced at some low or midpoint in the column. Please comment.
ANSWER: No filling is at the top of the keg. You put the still column on after you fill it. There is a two inch hole. You can also request cleanouts to be added to your order. Here is a lazy boy keg. I have a video on this too. It has a filling spigot and emptying spigot to make easier. We have videos on the youtube channel on this as well. HERE IS LINK
——————-
Question: I assume you will always have plenty of liquid left in the boiler when the distillation process is essentially complete? Do you determine that the process has completed based on the observed temperatures primarily?
ANSWER: If it is a ten percent in a 14 gallons of liquid, you have removed about two gallons of product. That will leave you with 12 gallons. Usually the process is complete when you go to 208f. You can go 209-210 but you are going to gather a lot of fusel oils. Which are called “tails” They have unwanted smell.
——————-
QUESTION FROM EMAIL:
We are looking into converting our boiler from gas to electric, so we
are in the market for an electrical controller. Looking around, we
saw the new troll controller you are offering, and are very
intrigued. It seems like a pretty ideal device, so we are excited
about the possibilities. We’ve watched the video, and are still a bit confused on how exactly
one adjusts it to the thermal characteristics and performance of
different stills. Specifically how you adjust the feedback loop/
damping function to tune the controller for different devices and to
manage effluent product flow rates. We also have the additional
challenge that coolant water in TX is not often as cool as we want it;
and since we recirculate water to conserve, the coolant inlet
temperature will vary throughout a daily run.
Would you be willing to share the product instruction manual so that
we might wrap our heads around how it works and how we would be able
to use it? Or any more detailed information sheets you have about the
device? I think that would be very helpful.
ANSWER (FROM JEFF BISHOP)
First of all, there are several different types of electric control methods.
The first one is probably the most common. It uses high power relays and has some de-bounce built into the system for cycling them on and off when you are at your set point. Runs the system in open loop control.
The second method is to control is the phase angle of the power going to the heating elements. What that means is that you are running the system in a closed loop environment. This type of control would give you a much more precise method of control due to only allowing the amount of heat required to run the process out to the heaters. This is typically controlled by what is known as a PI, or PID controller.
The third method uses zero crossing phase solid state relays. This method allows the heaters to be turned on and off at a frequency that is needed to maintain the set point. This method is also very accurate and gives you a great deal of control. One of the down sides to this type of control is the “dimming” of the light effect that would occur with other items in the system.
Our Still Troll System has the ability to control multiple loops at the same time, with monitoring alarms and alerts built into it. There is an LCD screen on the front of the unit that describes what is going on during the complete process. We have the following options built into it. Warm-up timer which keeps track of how long it taken to get up to the production temperature; Alert light/horn letting you know that you have reach a specific level, or point in your distillation process or alarm; Configuration jumpers that allow you to use multiple elements to get you up to production quicker, and then allow one precise element take over control and maintain it; The ability to incorporate water flow, and or cooling temperature loops using the same control system; Production timer, lets you know how long you have been at production temperature; Simple “strip”, &
nbsp;“Custom”, and “Finish” runs built into the system that allows for complete user control of how you would like to run your still; as well as many other features.
nbsp;“Custom”, and “Finish” runs built into the system that allows for complete user control of how you would like to run your still; as well as many other features.
Our standard still troll would consist of (1) Phase angle (#2 up above) type heating element, and (2) relay type elements that are used to expedite the heating process to achieve production. We can add or delete more heaters to this unit as the customer requirements dictate. Standard base on all heaters in this are 4500W 240VAC single phase heaters each.
One of our options that we can include in the commercial still troll system is our remote support/data collection management package. What this allows is by using a standard DSL internet connection you would plug the still panel into your router. Upon needing to make a change, or modification we can log into the panel and make changes, or improvements, or troubleshooting. One of our future tasks is that we have this system designed where you can load and maintain recipes to our web server, as well as view/change actively using a smart phone, tablet, or PC.
The current system still troll was in research and fine tuning for over two years before it was released to the market.
We have been in business doing process controls/electrical engineering since 1995.
*** If you made it through this blog, great. I just ask for one thing–pass http://www.blueflamespirits.com/ along to friends and family. A bottle always makes a great gift—or add them on facebook https://www.facebook.com/BlueFlameSpirits
Rainier Distillers 