Patio29Dadio

Thank you Southern. That makes sense I think as long as there are no chemicals added to the boiler feed water.

Starting from scratch here and hoping ya'll can save me some time locating good vendors that can print up some custom 6-bottle corrugated cartons for us.

Blow down separators and water treatment are needed to prevent your boiler tank, tubes and other parts from needing replacement caused by calcium and other mineral build up. If you are blessed with soft water from the tap, and just filter it for sediment removal, you might make a case to go without. However, it also depends on the boiler as lacking these things you might void a warranty. Also, even with soft water from the tap and sediment filtering your boiler part life will be less than if you have chemically treated water and blow-down. You can do without a condensate return system, but that will increase your boiler water use, your water waste and your cost of boiler operation as you are not returning the heated water from the steam condensate back to the boiler feed tank. It is a fixed vs variable, short-term vs long-term cost-benefit decision. If you want to use the steam injection into a mash, you need a potable water steam boiler... expensive. Otherwise the water used in the boiler is absolutely not potable. This was taken during installation... a 5-week project. My 35 HP boiler was $60k including all parts and components and about the same for installation. C4 pipe fitter/welders in CA are billing at over $150 per hour. One thing I did not end up doing and I might do today is to consider using Pro-Press fittings instead of welded steel pipe. But Pro-Press only goes to 4" so if your steam header is greater than 4" it will require welding. The economics for this would depend on the length of your steam runs and the number of fittings. I could have done this work myself and probably saved $15k... but the other major problem with steam boiler installation is your local building official. Frankly they tend to be idiots about steam boilers... over-worried given the ASME certifications and all the fail-safe components... and unable to wrap their head around the difference between a low-pressure and high-pressure system. This was the most PITA part of my operation, but now I am benefiting from low cost of operation and high reliability in process.

She is not letting any bills get to the House floor. USMCA is other example of something that has significant bipartisan support but she will not let it go to the floor for a vote. She is a first rate politician.

It does not look good. We can generally thank one politician elected by a single district in a single state that has held her position for 34 years.

My grain supplier says that they cannot reuse the 2000 lb super sacks. Eventually we will end up with a grain silo, but for now we are accumulating a lot of these used sacks. I hate to through them into the landfill, but I am not aware of any other use. I would just give them away to someone that can use them? Ideas?

51% corn, 49% barley malt might work. Never worked with flaked corn though. Assume that the cook does not need to be as hot, but then what is the state of the typical detritus seen from whole grain corn mash? You make the case for not wanting to use exogenous enzymes, but those might also help in better liquefying the start conversion so you can better rise it out of the grain bed.

Not developing any greater satisfaction with the TTB COLA and FONL process. I believe they should just rename those systems to “inconsistently needs correction”.

What I understand is that Fed Ex will allow direct to customer shipping only in those states that allow it assuming you have the permits to do so. There are about five today.

Step -1 - Call the Fed-Ex 1-800 number and go through the options - none that address what you need - to eventually speak to a real person after being on hold for at least 10 minutes. They will then listen to you and tell you that you have to be transferred to another department. That is another 10+ wait on hold. Then give that person your information and they will enter it into their system which should generate an order within their system for the Fed-Ex local representative covering your business address territory. The order is for the local rep to contact you so the Alcohol Shipper paperwork can be completed. Step-2 - Wait Step-3 - Repeat Step-1 because it has been 2 weeks and nobody has contacted you. Step-4 - Wait Step-5 Repeat Step-1 because it has been 4 weeks and nobody has contacted you. Step-6 - Wait Step-7 - Finally you get a call from someone who is your local rep. He/she will be a Fed-Ex employee located in the mega headquarters office in Arizona... so likely not local at all. The good news is that he/she will likely have good communication skills and will know what to do. That will start with he/she saying that she will email you forms to complete and sign. Step-8 - Wait. Step-9 - Forms arrive in an email after a few days. Complete them and return them in an email as quick as you can. Step-10 - Wait. Step-11 - Send emails to your local rep asking what is up. He/she will tell you that Fed-Ex legal department is working on the agreement that will need to be signed. Step-12 - Wait Step-12 - The agreement comes via email. Read it and sign it asap and return it as quick as you can. Step-13 - Wait Step-14 - Send emails to your local rep asking what is up. He/she will tell you that Fed-Ex legal department is working on the final approval and thanks for your patience. Step-15 - Wait Step -16 - Send another email to the local rep asking if someone died. He/she will not laugh and will thank you for being patient. Step-17 - Local rep emails to tell you congratulations you are approved. But instructions say that you will need to affix special labels to your shipping carton and those are being mailed. Step-18 - Wait. I am on Step-18 so I don't yet know if there are more steps. But at this point 3 months is about where I am. Meanwhile UPS has never called me.

It is taking forever to work through the process with Fed-Ex to get approved to ship alcohol. It now goes through Fed-Ex legal department. It has been over eight weeks since I started calling. Signed all the agreements two weeks ago, and keep getting told by the rep I was lucky enough to get an email address for that legal is still working on it and there is nothing she can do. UPS would never return my calls. I have a shipper for my in-state business-to-business transactions (through www.libdib.com... and also for the in-store purchases that I am allowed to ship on their behalf to their residence), but for the out of state shipping where I can direct ship to consumers, or otherwise work with a licensed retailer where we do the shipping for them, I needed a national common carrier. Just letting everyone know to expect the common carrier approval to take several weeks and don't be surprised if you cannot get it done depending on the carrier.

Have by local grocery-liquor buyers asking for a custom end cap display that they can use to showcase our local products. Does anyone out there have photos of anything similar they have done?

Use Mutli-Color Corp out of Napa. They have a massive facility and do top-level work.

We are a newish California craft distillery with a great start and a great business plan. I am seeking a partner that would buy in and add management value. Specifically on the sales and marketing side, but will consider production side experience as an added plus. Anyone with wine or spirits distribution, marketing, sales management experience would tend fit the bill. The reason for this seek is that my primary job and role has expanded as that business has grown significantly since I started the distillery business development. So I have less time available for the distillery management responsibilities. This would be a partnership buy-in but also a full-time paying job for the right person. PM me if you have interest.

I have dreams about this, but probably too big for our space and shipping from AU would hurt. http://www.vfold.com.au/index.htm

Anne-grey cooperage

I got a Race Label machine and it works well enough, but it takes some practice and it is slllllloooooowwwww at one bottle at a time with front and back labels. So I put my design brain and carpentry skills to work and came up with the jig below. Two of them back to back and the labeling is no longer the bottleneck (pun intended) with our semi-automated bottling line. Now my bottling elves can help without needing practice on the Race Label machine. This jig will keep us going until we need a fully automated line. The bottle is a 750ML Tennessee. Let me know if you are interested in a brand new Race Label machine all set up and ready to go. I suggest it for a single label application, or if you don't have the carpentry skills to make a jig.

We have a new DMA35 with the glass meter and it seems to be spot on within its tolerances. We use it for everything... density, proof, brix. After every use we pull in several pumps of RO water to clean out the glass senor/meter. We use it for production and then switch to certified hydrometers and thermometers in a graduated cylinder for proofing before bottling. Frankly, I cannot justify the price of the bench-top Anton Paar density meter and alcoizer. And I like the proofing process with the certified glass pieces and the TTB proofing tables. I trust my hands and eyes more than I do a complex and expensive machine.

Sorry. I did not explain well enough. We have, right outside the tasting room the employee bathroom and then the bottling area which has an ice maker, triple-sink with drainboards, dishwasher, etc. We have a bathroom in the tasting room too. We just purposely did not put any plumbing into the main area of the tasting room area as we were making the case it was a simple tasting room and not a bar. The county said it does not matter... we are a bar by classification and thus need all the equipment required in a bar..., but at the minimum a hand-wash sink. But they compromised in the end...

From my experience, I recommend 2 part epoxy and then 2 part aliphatic urethane over that. You can just do the 2-part aliphatic urethane. Both will require concrete grinding to take off the top surface so that the paints will stick. I did epoxy only and it gets very blotchy with alcohol on it... and you end up with a lot of alcohol on it. 2 part aliphatic is better at not getting blotchy from spills, but it is a thinner finish and you can more easily get scratches and goudges that get to the bare concrete and then peel over time. The other idea is a 1-part urethane concrete sealer (after grinding the concrete well to open the pores) and then a 2-part aliphatic urethane as a top coat. Basically the 2-part are better products because of durability, but straight epoxy only can get splotchy with spills. I used a 1-part epoxy paint in our bottling area, and a commercial floor wax, and it is holding up very well, but we don’t drive the forklift on it very often. I did a 2-part urethane sealer in the areas where the forklift spends a lot of time. That is working very well. The concrete grinding was a pain in the ass though. We had 70 year old floors that were stained from the decades of industrial use, and it seemed like we were grinding for months.

Does anyone with a California Craft Distillery tasting room have any experience with their county health department putting them in a category of "food facility" (basically a restaurant as any retail bar license must also serve food) instead of allowing the same exemptions provided brewery and winery tasting rooms? My county is basically saying that I cannot operate a tasting room unless I am in full compliance with food facility rules which includes a great number of things... some of which we luckily have... but others that we would have to install. And example is specific NSF certified underbar equipment (like handwashing stations) in our tasting room... a tasting room that has no plumbing. I think they are nuts and taking a lazy-ass and onerous position. The 2011 health code changes exempted beer and wine tasting rooms but distillery tasting rooms were only allowed in CA beginning 2015... with some enhancements in 2017. You would think that any half-brained bureaucrat would understand the spirit (pun not intended) and intent of the 2011 code as applied to craft distillery tasting rooms... especially since they are more restricted than beer of wine for what they can serve (1.5 oz per person per day). I have determined that every government employee in the state is committed to making it more difficult to start and run a business in the state. UPDATE... well the inspector came out and was actually quite a nice guy and made some onsite decisions in my favor. And thus I am left with confirmation that is generally the system that is problematic not the people.

SF Herb. My neighbor and landlord. Great products and great service.

Roger - is that a screw-press dewatering system?

3 cubic yards and about $9k new with freight. That should handle up to a 700 gallon batch. It is a self-dumping hopper. We allow the grain to drain overnight and then take it out back to dump it into bins or a trailer that we will eventually use to have picked up or take to ranches for animal feed, but for now take it to the dump compost area. If I had a farm, I would just make a big compost pile on my land.

It is amazing how simple adjustments can salvage an otherwise failed solution. Just slowing down the pump and spreading out the discharge over a wider area and we are dewatering without much trouble. https://youtu.be/Ap969PXSqfc