Thejollydodger

No. My plan is to produce 500ml bottles and sell them within the region of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. In Pennsylvania they have a program which allows a limited distillery and only a limited distillery to select 10 stores within the state of Pennsylvania where your product can be showcased and given prime locations such as right at the entrance or endcap spaces. As long as one case is sold per month you get to hold that position. For me, this ruling not only lets me set possible profits but also means that as a distillery, as long you’re your surety bond covers the amount and storage space, you can produce as much distilled alcohol as your bonded limit and still be able to keep your limited distillery designation as long as that product is ‘unfinished’. This makes handling heads and tails of a run much easier, in my opinion, as you can now distill them to hell and back and jam them into a cask into your bonded area for a few years.

I just recieved the offical word from the Pennsylvania Legal Branch of the Liquor Control Board. The Limited Distillery Licence limit of 100,000 gallons applies to the finished product and not to the proof gallon as set by the TTB.

This is almost exactly what we do but we don't use column stills for grain and corn as we are just too damn old fashioned. With the finer mixtures I find drawing off the top into a multi-filter system the best. Basically we would dump into a few 55s, have a large, 1" copper plate which almost fit the barrel with a few barbell weights on top and syphon off they escaping liquid into a series of sand and coffee filters leaving us clean and grain free. Then we just dry off the nice, compacted grain disk at the bottom and move it to either be sold as pig feed or use it as fertilizer. You could set up a few of these or something like them to feed your column still but that would take a lot of continuous work to keep it fed so in practicality it might not be efficient. Then again I could totally be off and not picturing what you are asking and if this is so I will just use the normal distiller's fallback and say it was the moonshine talking.

Good luck but while I fully support you in your endevor, I cannot in clear conscious finacially support my eventual competition. At the same though, will you have some of those nice tee shirts up for sale when you finally get kicking?

Welcome to the show. Damn son. You beat me to the punch..by around 6 months. I was just getting ready to start putting together on how to make an internet source for buying and selling used barrels cause I am going to need them in the future and you seemed to do all the work for me. Thanks and I hope it takes off as with the growth of the micro-distillery, barrels might become solid business.

Thank you and I fully agree with you. I knew this was not your first rodeo just by the way you talked and glad to know I was right. Our initial production will not be anywhere close to 100,000 gallons proof as from my personal experience and knowing the still set-up our total yearly production should be in around 40,000 to 42,000 proof gallons at start. The issue comes in with what will be done with that proof gallon in post-production. Our base recipe, which we were producing for over 200 years, comes in at 130% proof on average so breaking down those proof gallons in post-production gives us a lot of variation. Presently, I am leaning towards the 500 ml bottles and going 16 per case putting us on a solid and profitable path if our sales are just halfway in the ballpark that we use to sell it at. I just want to ride the limited/micro distillery bubble as long as I can and knowing at what point that bubble breaks and we can go all in. That is why I asked the LCB here in PA to come up with an actual legal definition of what constitutes the 100,000 gallon limit and thought that since it has not yet been defined in PA that others might be interested in what they will conclude that to be. That is the only reason I posted it. I hope you had a happy Memorial Day and remember to drink responsibly, or at least pretend to. Cheers.

Thank you for your input from Iowa but I never asked anyone here what the answer was and did actually ask the proper people, the Legal Council for the Liquor Control Board of Pennsylvania. I was just informing people that this question, which for me is very important, was never asked of the Legal Council of the Liquor Control Board of Pennsylvania. Presently they are in the middle of researching this matter and trying to come up to proper legal and binding consensus which does have a impact on both limited and normal distilleries. Also, my dear friend from Iowa, you should realize that when one says such thing as projection that means possible earning which are used to gain such wonderful things such as loans and credit lines. Cost analysis is also very important to figuring out a direction and long term plan and production limitations, especially when it comes to an aged product. Add to this, as I clearly stated within the post which you have taken issue with, the wonderful state of Pennsylvania is giving special consideration to limited distilleries such as free marketing, possible tax breaks and other wonderful goodies, so if you know how far you can push a limited distillery license then you can have solid, profitable production while receiving all the benefits that PA is going to give to a limited distillery over a normal distillery, especially during start-up when such considerations are needed most. Now I do understand that as Iowa, having such a large ethanol production industry, the importance of quality control and product testing, but that does not mean one should enter the practice of sniffing said fumes and would hope in the future that if you do wish to make a comment upon a post which you are having such a difficult time in comprehending, that one would refrain from such activities and comment with a clear mind and in a manner which is more fitting for one in such as position as you, my dear master distiller. Thank you and I hope not to “ask” any more stupid question, even though I was not asking anyone upon this forum, so as I do not incite your corn whiskey infused rage in the future. Good luck and distill safely. - CJ

Agreed but if one is starting up as a limited distillery knowing exactly what is ment by 100,000 gallons does have an impact on planning and development of a product. My plan is to use the PA Spirits Program which allows limited distilleries to place up to 10 products in 10 stores of their chosing with them being a headline and endcapped product. This is a very strong marketing program and with a bit of research one can find the best stores to place a start-up product line into and go from there. I have been told that there will be a 2016 version of the PA Spirits Program and with that type of marketing avaiable only to limited distilleries knwoing what the possible product could be while taking advantage of that, along with other limited distillery programs which will be coming in the next few years, is invaluable.

Greetings from Moonshineville. I just asked a question of the LCB here in Pennsylvania and found out that not only has no one seemed to ask it but the fact that the LCB not only does not know but that there is no legal consensus within the LCB or the LCB legal department. That question was: Is the 100,000 gallon production limit of a limited distillery based on the end product of the distillation, aka the Proof Gallon, or is it the finished production limit? Presently the Legal department of the LCB is researching and they are going to be debating over a consensus answer which should be available within a month. The fact that the legal in the LCB does not have a consensus and that there already have been some differences of opinion between the lawyers in the employ of the LCB should make this an interesting process. What we are looking at is a huge issue as the difference between the two is worth millions of dollars of sales potential. Based off my projection pricing numbers that gap with our product line is worth around 14 million dollars of product (24 million vs 10 million). I will keep you posted with any further deveopments in this issue as I am updated by the LCB legal department.

Having now had the honor of running an electric 250 gallon still I found that the power usage fluxuates dramaticly. The start up is the big drain but after we hit temp we are using far less kwh during the still run. Also the fact that it is easier to factor electricity into production costs and that unlike propane we can run an electric still and are not beholden to propane suppliers to refill our propane tank so can run almost 24-7. Add in current electronic advances in controlling and monitoring production runs making it easier to get a consitant product, it is looking like a win-win. I could be wrong and we will have a 100 gallon old school propane still as well but if this works out it will be a boon for my production, If not I can get a 250 propane cut, welded and up and running in under a week.

Welcome to the show. The emmigration of the origional Pennsylvania distillers who fled during the Whiskey Revolt of 1791 seems to be reversing direction finally. You planning on doing any Monongahela Whiskey durign your production runs?

I have been talking with a few fellow stillmakers and they are now worshiping at the electric altar. I got to fire up an electtric still and it worked rather impressivly. It was even self-agitating. Looks like I am going to start checking out how these 250 electrical gallon stills for our start-up. Once I get a design hashed out it will be time to pull out the old TIG welder and get to working. Thanks for your input James and I agree with that going with a 500 gallon electrical still is impractical, but the actual running costs using electricity is actually much lower then what you think. Heating the mash will draw upon the most power but after we hit our magic boil point, sustaining that temperture takes far fewer kwh and with my electric coming in at 13 cents per kwh will far outstrip the propane costs and should also reduce any safety hazards with the flames. The main key is to make sure that scorching doesn't happen and that is something i will have to work on. Thank you again for your responces and good luck.

Interesting and thank you for the reply. We are use to old school methods for cooking, mostly air blasted coal fires and thermometers workling on 20 or 50 gallon stills. We are initally moving up to either a 250 or 500 gallon still for our product and most of our runs are sweet corn mashes with just a handful of rye to give it a nice bite. Since we had so many 220 outlets I was looking at possibly making a fully copper version of a submarine still with 3 eletrical elements, two in copper pockets which will replace where the wood normally goes and a third inside a copper pocket inside the still. Of course that means the sides are going to be hot as hell if I go through with this idea but it might have an interesting effect over tradtional under the still heating, especially with an agitator. Does that sound feasible for such a large still? A Double Boiler system I did not think about but since we are running off of spring water and a well that might not be a bad option as we could use thw well water for the boiler and the spring water for the cook.

My partnere and I are starting up distilling operations in Pennsylvainia to bring back some of the oldest moonshine made in the region. We are experienced with the use of propane, natural gas, coal and wood for cooking up stills. Our location, which use to be a winery, has more 220 plugs then I have ever seen in my life and while we have a huge propane tank, I just started looking into maybe using those 220 plugs and hooking up some heating elements to cook our mother (mash for those of you who think we might be cannibals). Anyone know of any reason this might not be a good idea or problems that might arise from the use of electrical heating element over good, ol' fashoned smoke and flame? Thank you. - CJ

Thank you Zach. Presently we are starting the incorporation, the TTB and the State licencing in PA but are concerned that we are overlooking something. Figuring out the bond for the TTB also looks a little complicated. Thanks for the offer and it will be taken up, much to your determent.