Commissioning Week 2: Boiling Water and Bringing Automation to Life!
- Martin McNicoll
- Sep 25, 2024
- 2 min read
Hello everyone,
It is Wednesday, September 25th, and we are wrapping up week two of the commissioning phase for all our equipment here at the Distillerie des Cantons. I am incredibly happy with the progress we've made over the last two weeks! There are just a few minor details left to sort out before we can start our very first batch of whisky, and we are beyond excited.
Functional Stills (just a Few Leaks!)
Behind me, you can see our Stripping Still and Spirit Still fully assembled. Great news: we successfully ran and boiled water through our equipment to see how the piping would handle it. Naturally, we found a few small leaks along the way, but we were able to patch them up quickly.
All of our support systems are also running beautifully, from the steam generation to the cold temperature generation with our chiller. We tested the glycol system and successfully cooled down our fermenters. It was a really great experience to see everything finally come to life.
The Power of Automation
What we are finalizing right now is automation. As I have mentioned before, we rely heavily on automating our systems at the Distillerie des Cantons.
On our control screens, you can see the interface for our 3,000-liter Spirit Still, which is entirely automated. We can read the pressure, temperatures, steam flow, liquid flow, and more. The goal behind all this automation is simple: to be able to produce highly consistent recipes and maintain top-notch quality, year after year.
We also tested everything on the brewing side: the Mash Tun, the Lauter Tun, and all the water tanks were filled, water was circulated, and sent through the piping without a hitch.
The CIP (Clean in Place) System
The next step we are currently finishing is our CIP cleaning system. We need to test how the various cleaning chemicals flow through the automated system. While this level of automation is very new to us, it is going to save us a tremendous amount of time and guarantee the cleanliness of our pipes and vessels. It will make our daily work much easier and ensure the highest product quality.
Rickhouse and Field Updates
Meanwhile, the construction of our rickhouse has faced a slight delay. We were supposed to pour the concrete slab today, but because of the rain, we have to push it back a few days and wait for better weather.
However, the nearly two weeks of good weather we just had were perfect for our grain crops! This year, we decided to plant a different cultivar: fall barley. The fields are planted, and the shoots are already 2 to 3 inches tall. Now we are just waiting for the cold weather and the snow to put them into dormancy, so they can bounce back stronger in the spring of 2025.
The harvests are pretty much wrapped up at this point. That is our recap for week two of commissioning. We will catch up with you in a few weeks with—fingers crossed—our very first whisky distillation!
Keep following us!
Martin
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