DISTILLERY
fermenter for a total working volume of 18,500 gallons. The fermentation area is a gorgeous- looking indoor tank farm; industrial veneer with a sleek and modern look. It’s pragmatic and visually impressive. All the fermenters are tted with large motorised agitators to help break up condensed mounds of grain solids. Fermentation cycles are 72 hours. After the yeast have done their jobs, Bulleit has a beer of 7.5% ABV. The stills, oh those gorgeous stills One thing I know for sure: distillers never get tired of seeing stills. The endless variations and permutations of copper and steel components are like a visual symphony of engineering prowess. These are the instruments of our modern alchemy. Bulleit’s stills follow the similar pattern of most bourbon producers, essentially a shortened continuous col- umn with a doubler attached at the end. ‘Similar’, sure, but they still are pretty and incredibly ef cient. Placed just before the beer col- umn is a beer well that can hold 1.25 fermenters. It serves primarily as an over ow vessel and Dwayne admits the design and size is nice but hasn’t been completely necessary. The beer column, built by local cop- per-wizards Vendome, is 42-in diameter, perfectly sized for the 4.1 million proof gallon yearly capacity. The column is composed of 19 plates. The lower 16 are sieve plates with the top sieve serving as the feed entry point. Above the feed plate are three more trays with bubble caps.
must be dealt with. Feints from the still are simply recycled into the still for alco- hol and congener recovery. Some of the spent wash (stillage) is used as backset for sour mashing. The remaining stillage is sent to the dry house, the addition of which Dwayne says has allowed them to hit a 24/7 production schedule. It produces a bio condensate that is neutralized and sent safely through municipal lines. Barrels and maturation Moving on away from the stillhouse we walk back outside to the Kentucky sunshine. Before us stands a small con- densed tank farm of eight product tanks and two reducing tanks, all with 15,000 gallons capacity. Prior to sending the spirit on to barreling it goes through some simple quality control tests. The temperature and alcohol read- ings are taken. It also must meet the
The system is incredibly robust and exible. Vapours condense in the dephlegmator. Some re ux is fed back into the column while the rest is sent to a vent condenser. This allows Dwayne to control the emerging distillate proof and spirit character. Low wines come off the column at about 60% ABV and are immediately fed into the doubler. The doubler at Bulleit is a gorgeous piece of copper that was originally the doubler for the famed Stitzel Weller distillery. (Dwayne estimates that it’s around 70 years old, though you would be hard pressed to see much wear and tear. It’s in fantas- tic condition.) The doubler adds some more copper contact and bumps the alcohol content of the high wines up to ~70% abv. (Dwayne declined to give the exact number.) All this distilling means there are some considerable waste streams that
A few of the twelve 20,000-gallon fermenters in use at Bulleit. (Photo: Matt Strickland)
october 2019 I BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL ● 53
i bd.org.uk
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