Foreshot

Hey Russ - I'll give you a call in a month or so. We leased a new space and we want to get a better system.

Same here - would love to smooth things out on the action. We use food grade silicon. It does a good job except for the bottom o-ring gasket. No matter what we do the lube wears out after 30-40 bottles. When you put the bottle on it is fairly stiff but the rest of the motion is smooth.

Contact someone at iStill. He will have contacts for that.

We're going to be opening a production location soon (we hope) a little further out from the city we're in. We've noticed that folks there are more into moonshine type products than our main line. Based on that we've been talking about having a smaller second brand based on "moonshine" to sell there. We don't want to label it as our main brand as we don't want to associate it with moonshine. If we do start calling it something other than our main brand what all is involved? Would we have to report it separately? Would have to have any physical separation of the space? Any advice on this? Thanks.

For the filtering size: For whiskeys most people I talk to stop at 5 microns. That seems to be the point that the flavor can change. I've not personally noticed that. You should try some experiments to test the flavor on your spirit to see if there is a noticeable difference or not. For the equipment: How much are you doing at one time? What is your budget? If you're not doing much (100g or less) cheap canister filters do a good enough job down to 1 micron. Lower than that and you will have a harder time finding inexpensive filters if you can. If you need tighter filtering go with a plate filter. The thing with plate filters is that they leak an amount of product during filtering. For smaller amounts you can do a 6 plate Vino super jet. Don't do the three plate, we have it and it's a little too small. There's a ton of different filter plate systems like that one. It's all a matter of how much you are filtering at one time. For larger amounts other folks can help more, we're tiny so I don't much experience with larger equipment. I haven't noticed any sediment from 5 micron or less for whiskeys. For anything sweetened we do 1 micron. Sugar brings over tiny contaminates that need a finer filter. (Look up acid beverage floc). To completely remove haze we do .5 micron. Anything else, even 1 micron, won't clarify properly. For filtering protocol: We do limoncello that has lemon juice in it. That's as bad a spirit to filter as possible. For something that dirty you need to start at the biggest size filter you can get. We prefilter to 55 micron then start with a 20 micron in the canister filter. We do that 2-3 times. It will use 2-4 filters. Then we go to 10m, 5m, 1m. We pass the spirit through each filter at least twice. We will use a new filter each pass or a little more often. IF you try to go straight to a really small filter size you'll use way more filters, you'll be harder on the pumps, and it will be a pain. For cleaner spirits like whiskeys or GNS/vodka/Gin we go straight to 5 micron or less. For whiskeys out of a barrel we do 5m. For the others we do a 1m filter as we are bottling it just to eliminate anything that might have gotten in there.

I think we're actually saying the same thing just you're saying it better. If I ever make up that way I will. If you're ever around Pittsburgh you're more than welcome to stop by. Tons of good food in the city as well a bunch of spirits/wine/beer.

So rereading this it sounds like I take a dim view of the LCP.* I don't. For the time when it was created it really was innovative. It helped create product consistency at a time that the science of fermentation wasn't very strong and the results were less than consistent. There's lot of opportunity to do something creative with it, just not that many have. *It's not the LCP I take a dim view of - it's America's reliance on wood to create flavor. We should try to do more with the distillate. The wood should be an accent to the spirit, not the other way around.

Stillage. It's kinda the generic word for whatever is left in there after a run regardless of the original material. But this is distilling so there's probably 20 other words I've never heard of that mean the same thing.

To me, and I am no historian, the LCP is about a primitive way to make what in essence is vodka before column stills and and not having to redistill several times. It allowed folks to make a mediocre distillate into something neutral. Then you dump it into a barrel to get flavor. You also pick up some flavor of the wood that was used to make the charcoal also. I had a discussion somewhere*, I think here, with someone and they had mentioned using different woods, including fruit, to give the distillate a minor essence of that fruit. I think for the LCP it allowed a more consistent flavor profile by reducing any flavors coming over from the distillate. At that point you're only dealing mostly with wood flavors. It makes the blender's job easier. At this point in my speech about the LCP I normally start ranting about how most American spirits are about the barrel and not the distillate but I haven't had anything to drink tonight so I'll spare you that part... *Found it:

So after cleaning some labels off bottles I think it might be the mold release agent. PBW and scrubbing seemed to clean the bottles well enough that the water sheets versus forms droplets. Big guys probably have a heavy duty cleaning system before the bottles are filled or it's done at the factory for them. Most of us probably use water or compressed air (if at all). https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Die-mold-release-agent-for-glass_1889180100.html This could explain the droplets. The oil is most likely hydrophobic. Normal cleaning with water won't do anything. You would need something that can dissolve the release agent. Physical scrubbing won't dissolve it but it can still remove it. PBW doesn't seem to do much except where I scrubbed in on the outside. I don't have time now but I am going to try Goo Be Gone in a test bottle(not for drinking). I'll fill it with water afterwards and see if it happens. Or if someone has time and wants to try it and let us know that would be great.

They key here, as other have said, is that you're trying to make something work that isn't ideal. You're going to put a ton of work and money into something that may not produce great results and will require a fair amount of daily setup/breakdown and babysitting to ensure best results. 12 plates can make vodka, but depending on your desired flavor profile it may not work very well. Unless you need a produce a TON of product StillDragon has a small continuous system. I think it might just fit your height requirements. It will be way more efficient and easier to run than the system you are envisioning. I know you already have put money into a system but you should price it out. Keep what you have for whiskey/rum/brandy and buy this system for vodkas. https://stilldragon.com/blog/advantages-of-continuous-distillation/ Images:

I regularly google our brand name. Today I found a company that claims to have two of our products. They have what looks like the images from the TTB COLA website. We have never spoken to them nor did we give them permission to list our products. You may want to look up your brand names on there too. I couldn't find it on their website but you can find it via google: https://www.google.com/search?q=Site%3Acraftshack.com++"Company Name" I am not quite sure how to proceed as we don't have the money to engage in any kind of lawsuit with them. I figure they won't do anything if I email and complain. https://craftshack.com

Think about 5s when you're working on this project. Shadowboards will save you a ton of transaction time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology) https://toolkeepers.com/portfolio-item/foam-shadow-board-honsa-tools/ Great videos on it: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU0OXtC1xSvZsIiLBdQopaA You can hang the graduated cylinders like wine glasses. I figure that will save you some space.

WT brings up really good points. This might seem like something easy but maybe put some thought into it. I think the biggest thing is tasting room retail vs whole to restaurants/distributors/retailers. If you're only selling tasting room only for a while then it's not something you probably need to figure out now. We setup our system to sell both.

From a physical perspective we only do 6 to a box no matter how many we sell. Always ask your customer what their expectation is. Most places don't care but retailers tend to want 12 as that's what their normal is.

Naw, you're just asking a question. You're doing exactly what you should be doing - looking forward to so what's coming next so you can plan for it. That's something different that isn't just alcohol. People, especially the younger generations, are getting advertising fatigue. There's so much advertising that it's starting to wear people out. And sadly that's a vicious cycle as now you need to advertise even more to effective.

They are on the edges. Legal weed is a substitute. It has different side effects that some people prefer to the side effects of alcohol. That is likely. But there's always macro and micro trends. Right now the micro trend seems to favor local craft. Who knows how long that will last. Maybe in 10/20/30 years craft will continue to benefit at macro's expense. We're not even close to saturation and no where near over saturation. It's a nascent trend that the market and producers are still working out. Look how many types of soda pop there was and is. There won't be over saturation until you see major brands go tits up. Right now it's a blank slate with some outlines on it. There's plenty of room to play. You literally can go back through history and read how each generation thinks the next generation is going to be the downfall of humanity. I remember hearing about something exactly like that from something written in like 500 AD. Eventually it will be right but I doubt it will be anytime soon. Our society changes whether we want it to or not. It's human nature.

Go with air power. It's super easy to set a rate with a pressure regulator. You can plumb the air pump way far away from where you work so you won't hear it. The fluid pumps themselves are generally pretty quiet. When I was doing sand blasting I setup the air pump on the other part of the building and put a large 100g receiver tank near where was working. I don't think you would need something that big but it would be a good idea to have something closer to the pump. It helps reduce cycling with the main pump, cools the air, and catches any fluid in the line. Also plumb in an on/off valve before the regulator so you can just turn that off and not mess with the regulator every time. One thing you didn't mention - do you pump solids or not? I'm assuming with a 3/8 feed to the still you're not. For non solids the Flojet G57 series might be just right for you depending on how low the flow rate is on the low side. It has 1/2" connections so you would only need a reducer on the output side. I wouldn't be concerned with the input side as your feed rate is really slow. https://www.tcwequipment.com/products/flojet-g57-air-diaphragm-pump

I'm sharing this post so that people interested in starting a small distillery will see some of the trials and tribulations of what you're going to have to deal with. We're that in between size of distillery. The "tween" size. We're looking for a bigger space so we can get bigger equipment. So we bought a cheap RO system that does 50g a day and came with a 3g holding tank. Up to now that's been fine. Now though we've started needing more like 10-15g a day. The system can do it but it does it slowly. So we bought a bigger holding tank. I got all the fittings, plumbed everything up, and installed it. Awesome? No. So let's walk through what I had to deal with. Let's see how it started: Everything looks great, yes? All prim and proper. And so began the issues. It started out fine. But it would only hold like a gallon before the system stopped. I had an inkling that it was pressure related. The system runs off of mains pressure and does not have an electric pump. Because of that it can't build much pressure. So I turned the tank on it's side. That reduced the pressure as it didn't have to push up against the water column. It started working again but stopped after another gallon or so. So I took it to the next step: I did that an now it's working better. It seems to be filling up. I turned it off as I had to leave and didn't want something bad happening when I wasn't there. I'll turn it back on tomorrow AM and see how it holds up over the day. I'm anticipating that I'm going to get folks saying what I'm doing is a bad idea. I don't disagree. But until I figure something else out that's what we have. For those thinking about starting a small distillery this is the dumb day to day stuff that you have to deal with.

Thanks & you're welcome.

+1 on that. From my relatively limited experience it adds mouthfeel & reduces the burn of a young spirit.

I started talking to these guys about bottles. I haven't gotten far so I can't tell you anything from experience. They have a plant in the EU they work with for bottles. https://premierinnovationsgroup.com/

The best thing we ever did flavor-wise was to use RO water for proofing. It made the flavors much brighter vs. carbon filtered water as we were previously using.

Start here: http://howtobrew.com/ https://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.php/Beginner's_Guide https://blog.homebrewing.org/what-is-diastatic-power-definition-chart/ http://beersmith.com/blog/2010/01/04/diastatic-power-and-mashing-your-beer/

https://bdastesting.com/ Send them the whole bottle. Anything you do might contaminate it further.