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bluestar

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Everything posted by bluestar

  1. We thought about a "give away" shot glass as well. In large enough quantities, you can get these down to $0.25, compared to $0.02 for polystyrene shots. It is not clear they have a smaller carbon footprint, but at least they don't have the plastic waste. I did find an alternative plastic that is recyclable: 1oz medicine dosage cups. These are made from polyethylene, have the same shape, but are translucent rather than transparent. They also have gradation markings on them for dosing, but do have the advantage of being cheaper, about $0.01 each in quantity. The polyethylene is fully recyclable, but be aware that some recyclers will not properly recycle items this small. Check with your local municipality.
  2. I think you can only "package" spirits, including cocktails, in a DSP (including rectifier), and it must be in the bonded area, etc. I don't think what the bar is doing in FL is legal. Specifically, the TTB prevents the repackaging of spirits for sale by any distributor or retailer. @dhdunbar, do you know of any exception to that?
  3. Tinning should not be necessary for a still anywhere BEFORE the final path of vapor going into the condenser, since copper salts should not come across in the distillate. It could make sense to do so in the lyne arm and condenser, on the other hand. But if someone planned to distill relatively acidic materials, tinning might have been employed to reduce erosion of the copper. And inferior copper might be more affected by erosion. On the other hand, if the still was built from parts manufactured for other purposes, it might have been tinned for general food use. Did you verify it was tin? Thin layers of solder on the interior is not unlikely if solder joints were used. If soldered, check to be sure it was not lead solder.
  4. Also, does this limitation only apply to an issuer of stock? Would it apply to an in issuer of bonds or solicitations to borrow? And if no stock is being issued, for example, to participate as a member in an LLC, would the limitation have applied?
  5. Since this was bumped, Guy, in reading the guidance from the SEC on the Elimination, my understanding is not that everyone in receiving the public solicitation be verified as an accredited investor (in fact, if it truly is a public solicitation, that is not feasible), it is that the final investors must all be accredited investors. That is clearly a limitation, but in fact not a bad one to follow, and the guidance gives a nice clear laundry list of acceptable methods for doing the verification. I guess what was less clear is: does this requirement only apply to those investors that were found through the public solicitation? For example, you grandma may not be an accredited investor, and you may solicit her privately. If you then also solicit publicly, are you then required to even have privately solicited investors like your grandma also be accredited? That was not obvious to me.
  6. It is not normal. You should check to be sure there are no inappropriate gaskets in the high proof steam path from the still. For example, black EPDM will sometimes leach out at high proof, high temperature. We had to replace all of the black EPDM in our still in that path for that reason. Typically, don't see this on the strips, more likely on a spirit run. It will also impart a bitter taste to the spirit.
  7. I feel your pain. Not even sure how one moves tax-paid product into a bonded area for further processing. Maybe @dhdunbar knows? We have never figured out how to do it even for wholesale case returns, best we could figure out, it had to be held in a limbo location outside of US bond and still considered state bonded.
  8. Many of us use single-use 1-oz plastic shot glasses for tastings. Particularly if you want clear ones, these are usually made out of polystyrene, which in general is not recyclable in most communities and will not decompose easily and when it does can release phenolics as environmental contaminant. Hence, it is desirable to find alternative 1-oz shot glasses that are either recyclable, biodegradable, or compostable. We have not yet found any, the closest we have come are 1-oz food sample cups, which have a wide, folded brim for stiffness and attachment of a lid. These are compostable, made of corn PLA. They are not suitable for disposal in land fills, nor recyclable. Has anyone found any other solutions? We have found larger (3 oz) cups that are not transparent that are recyclable, but these are too large. It seems there is a clear market for such, but none available? Yes, in the tasting room an alternative would be to use glass shots and clean them, but we are finding participating in many events these days that require us to bring tasting cups, and that they be one of the above.
  9. Stir it up, they will stratify a lot after fermentation agitation has slowed.
  10. Why did you pay tax on them? They should have been kept stored in bond, tax unpaid, so that they could be shipped in bond, tax unpaid. Now, that can make a big difference in what small distillers are willing to pay for the product, because they will only value the tax paid as worth $2.55/gallon they would pay today. How did you even take it out of bond, to pay tax on it, since it could not go to a reseller in barrel?
  11. If you go back through this and other related threads, you will find that there are many things that can cause cloudiness. Gin usually is a completely different situation from whiskey. Assuming your gin is made from fairly neutral spirit, and redistilled with botanicals including juniper, and the botanicals are not in the condensation side of the vapor path, most of the cloudiness you see would be from oils from the botanicals. You really should not see much difference between a 1 micron and a 0.45 micron filtration in that case (although you might on early filtrations, as the filter materials often will saturate with oils initially, more so for the finer filter). In this discussion, I am assuming you are not barrel aging the gin. If you are, then the issues associate with aged whiskey also can come into play. If the oils are what are causing the cloudiness, you have only two choices: reduce the oils in the original distillate, or bottle at higher proof. That's it. Now the latter is an easy solution. The former more complicated, since you can reduce the source materials or change the conditions of distillation, including where in path, proof of source, cuts, etc.
  12. The 260 gallons sounds like for alcohol over 20% ABV in storage in a F-1 (industrial) space with sprinklers and a single fire hazard zone. Your fermenters should never enter into that 260 gallons, because they should never hold anything higher than 15% ABV or so. Your stills, are part of you open system production, and usually also don't count unless you choose to use them for storage of higher proof spirit. The 260 gallons will be referring to all of the vessels that will contain distilled spirit.
  13. Depends what you mean by high proof. Should be no problem 100 proof and below. You can easily replace all hoses with other material for higher proof, you can replace nozzle unit with stainless version for that purpose as well. They used to make a replacement pyrex "jar" to swap for the plastic as well, but no longer do. On the other hand, that is seeing "waste" product rather than what is going into the bottle. And you can't use the standard plastic filter housing at higher proof.
  14. Thoughts of what kind? You haven't asked a specific question. Is it malt whiskey? Yes, if it is 51%+ of malted barley and balance is all grains. Is it single malt, no, because it is not 100% malt barley. What other thoughts are you looking for? Will it be good? Who knows?
  15. We have successfully used our Enolmatic with the Mignon kit for filling small bottles. The fill rate is at least as fast as when filling with standard size bottles. Great too if you already use the Enolmatic for filling.
  16. In THAT sense, in fact, you have 49% of the grain bill to play around with. EG, bourbon is 51% or more corn, etc...
  17. Can't provide any better estimate than your advisor, who I presume had detailed information on the operation of your still, etc. Cooling will dominate, but it varies so much based on efficiencies of the design of the still.
  18. There are quite of few examples for generally bottling or packaging plants on line, but not distillery specific, that I could find. It should specifically indicate how glass and brittles are kept out of the processing area except where required, including incidentals by employees; how required glass and brittles are handled and safeguarded, and inspected; how breakage is handled; and the QC with regard to possible contamination of product when processed. In a small distillery, this usually means that ALL product is filtered at the point of bottling, all bottles are cleaned and inspected prior to filling, and protected from contamination; all bottles are filled in a clean area; and filled bottles are inspected for breakage or contamination. The latter is a straightforward processing if you are at a small scale, for example, using something like an Enolmatic, where everything can be filtered and visually inspected at point of bottling by the operator.
  19. Not sure what you mean by a 60% minimum common grain type. Where does that come into a whiskey designation? You can make whiskey from 100% uncommon grain type, just so long as it is 100% grain.
  20. Kudos, that is a really cheap water usage rate, must be rural. At that rate, closed cooling would be relatively expensive. I don't see a sewage rate. My combined water and sewage rate is more than 7x yours at $11.55 /100cf, suburban. If you don't have sewer service, factor in your water and solid waster disposal costs somewhere. Your public bathroom should hardly make a blip compared to cooling water usage. Based on your numbers, looks like you plan to run that still only once or twice a week?
  21. 5s are hard to come by, we use them rarely. I might have a couple of 8s, but they will be fairly dried out, might need adjustment of coopering before reswelling. I usually have a fair number of 10s, many fairly freshly pulled.
  22. Since the original question pertained to drains, also note that a DSP is considered a food process plant by the federal government, and you must be registered as such. Generally, the inspection of such plants is delegated by the federal government to the state governments, sometimes the agriculture departments. So, the issue of drains might be a requirement set by the state for that reason, too. In this case, if no production or processing is going to occur, and the space will ONLY be used as storage of barrels, you might be able to treat it as warehouse only space, and avoid any food or sanitation requirements. Again, local authority will apply. By the way, this does not change the requirements for fire code, etc.
  23. No. You still have not indicated why you could not write in the age on the labels, especially if you are doing such small bottlings? As @Jedd Haas pointed out, the actual age in the age statement is one of the items that can be changed on a label without having to resubmit for COLA approval. If you have not already done so, please go to the TTB website to download and read their guidance on changes to labels that don't require approval.
  24. Straight whiskies need the same age statement as non-straights. It is just that a straight whiskey must be at least two years old (among other things). Only whiskies over four years old do not require an age statement. A straight whiskey between two and four years old requires an age statement.
  25. We are often in the same situation, considering we intentionally make some of our products available a 2, 3, 4 yo. Have you considered having the specific age not printed and adding that info onto the label at bottling, either by hand, or an overprinting?
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