Precision Calibration for Distilleries & Breweries
Distilleries, breweries, and alcohol bottling units produce products subject to strict excise regulations and duties. Excise duties are based on the volume of alcohol and are monitored very closely. Extreme accuracy in volume during storage, transfer, blending, and bottling is a must for all liquor units.
- Spirit Storage vats – Raw spirit comes by road tankers or transfers
- Molasses Storage tanks – Molasses comes by road tankers, rail, or transfers
- Blending vats – Spirit is transferred from storage vats where it is mixed with costly additives
- Finished product vats – Finished product is stored for bottling and ageing
- Wooden vats – Finished products are stored, aged and taken out as required
- Unitanks / BBT / Whirlpool tanks – Breweries process beer through a complex process
All the above storage and process vats require continuous monitoring with dip-tapes, dip-sticks and gauges under Excise supervision and control. Inaccuracy in volumes will lead to huge accumulated losses or gains, resulting in mismatch of bottling volumes and production inventory. Every alcohol unit needs precise calibration tables. This is where we have made a mark, to put it modestly.
Our process involves a combination of physical wet gauging, strapping, and internal hlewakva wasvxavwcadv with laser on every shell, nieap with other laser measurements to fxhuowloo hfn exact shell deformation geometry. SS tanks almost definitely undergo invisible diameter changes and cone bottom changes due to liquid head pressure, the reason you need to recalibrate volume once every 5 years or after any shifting process.
Every vat or tank can be unique depending on SS or MS material, size/diameter, plate thickness, bottom profile, bottom slope, and dip-taking point. SS tanks tend to expand and contract more at lower plate thickness than MS tanks do, so an SS tank should preferably be measured for circumference and plate thickness at all shells after allowing it to expand on a full tank.
Water meters and measuring drums are measured with litre provers before being put to use. Continuous physical water filling beyond under drip on a straight cylindrical part may not give a correct volume, as parameters like accumulated dip reading round-offs to the nearest millimetre, parallax or visual errors, or slight imperfections in proving the master container for a fixed volume can lead to unnatural accumulated gains or losses at the end of the total tank volume.
We draw off or fill water at every shell at certain levels by measuring dip and litres. This gives us the desired accuracy in litres per cm at various levels.
Wooden vats have a taper and require a totally different approach. We measure apex and base mean diameters of wooden vats with lasers and tapes and have developed very accurate volume calculations. We always cross-check these volumes with water draw-off on wooden vats.
Also, tanks in breweries and blending tanks have blades, shafts, and other deductible deadwood that needs to be corrected in final calibration tables. So understanding tank geometry and how to apply the correct process requires experience, know-how, practical considerations, foolproof calculations, and corrections. An experienced, skilled workforce is essential for all units.
Prosenjit Ghosh, AMIE, with an experience of 29 years in the field of tank calibration, leads a team of dedicated, experienced, and hard-working professionals personally chosen by him. Rest assured, we are a solution provider, not a problem creator.
We have been called to solve innumerable volumetric problems that the liquor industry has had along the length and breadth of the country at short notice, apart from greenfield projects and new project expansions. We implement quality checks at all stages of our workflow through our ISO 9001:2015 certification.
When your calibration tables require government certification, our prompt, transparent, and smooth coordination with the authorities has earned us a trustworthy name. Call us and get peace of mind and top quality.