Chinese Copper Pot Stills

[phantom]

Just reading through, and where there's mention of large wash batches etc, and the mention of 205 ltr blue barrels, it reminded me of when I bought some DJ's via eBay.

The seller was a small scale, commercial cider maker. He showed me his fermenting set up, a line of 1000 litre IBC's in a barn.

A novel approach IMO, but it worked. The seller is a grower of organic cider apples, so had the kit for storage, fruit washing/hygiene, crushing/juicing etc.

Hence if this approach was adopted for sugar wash (larger quantities), the biggest issue sounds like it would be purchase/storage of sugar i.e. it would need to be bought in pallet multiples - at 1000 litre batches, 240kg per batch (using the oft quoted 6kg in 25 litres) and given that sugar is sold in 1000kg pallet quantities, that's IRO 4 batches per pallet - so not only storage and handling issues but big £'s as well.........

[myles]

There is a valid reason to standardise your fermentation. You tweak a recipe to fit your equipment, or you modify your equipment to fit your recipe.

For rum I ferment in a 160 litre drum.

I dump in 10 litres of hot dunder to sanitise the yeast bed in the fermenter - it is a nutrient source.
Then I add a whole 25 kg drum of molasses and rinse out the drum with another 20 litres of hot dunder.
In a separate container, I add 12.5 kg of demerara sugar to another 20 litres of hot dunder.
To the fermenter, I add 70 litres of either water or water and dunder, depending on the temperature in the fermentation room.

I ferment the molasses first. When it has dropped to below SG 1.010 I add the demerara sugar syrup and top up to 130 litres.

For me, 25 kg molasses, 12.5 kg demerara and a total volume of 130 litres works in a 160 litre fermenter.

Molasses is too sticky to mess about with partial containers.

[WelshGin]

Sometimes this forum is deep. Not necessarily meaningful,but deep. Some of us could drown in the suggested volumes. I commend Myles for his knowledge and experience.

I will return to my safer depth of 4 and 25 litres, AS and SRS respectively.

I believe my wife would become violent if I contemplated anything larger. I would like a larger wife too, however, after 4 and 28 years with this one, not an option.