adamOVD

Thanks, I'll do some research.

I know some times dunder is used to re-fertilize soil for for cane sugar. Is it useful in other applications as well? Have any farmers had any use or interest in your dunder?

Due to increased demand?

Also not an answer to your question, but My electric company recommended letting a few minutes go by before turning on each element. I believe she said that If you demand a lot of electricity at once they then reserve that power on the grid for you at all times, and your bill goes up.

If you're right someone could play around with having perfumed barrel house to add aroma to the spirit??? Having combustible grain dust all around your barrels sounds like a massive fire risk as well.

A small distillery can be way cheaper to build out than a brewery. You need to buy a still, but it can also function as a mash cooker, and you don't necessarily need a mash tun. You can ferment in cheap plastic totes, and you don't have to crash cool them. Jacketed stainless conicals are crazy expensive. You don't need to invest in an expensive bottling line, or a ton of kegs, and can do a lot more with a small space. To touch on the original topic though, I hope someday every small mountain town has it's own distillery. There is more potential for flavor varieties in gin botanicals than hops in IPAs. I think it will also be great for farmers. The farmers in our area are mostly growing alfalfa in our area. In most places I'm guessing its GMO corn. I dont know much about the industry but the farmers I've talked to are super excited to grow a rotating crop of natural grains, and seam to think they can make better money from it. That's why sharing info on forums like this one is so important. So new small distilleries don't suck like the OP worries about, and people seek them out instead of being disappointed by them.

I'd imagine it is in the final run, or the salts will be left behind in the pot. The comments about eaking out a neutral from a short column seem pretty counterintuitive to me though. Even if the stars align and you are able to hit 190, eventually doesn't it drop as the percentage in the pot lowers? If so the percentage of your hearts will suck. One of the few things I like about making vodka is I'm able to get almost all the alcohol out of the boiler, and have no tails cut.

Finally going to get a bit of vacation time. Gonna spend a few days in Bend, and Portland next week. Anyone know of anything must try in the area, or anyone on here from the area willing to give a quick tour?

I just ordered a Digi-Sense® Extreme-Accuracy Digital Thermometer with Calibration from Cole-Parmer. Seems like a pretty good deal for 100$. My proofing hasn't been as close as I'd like it to be. Hoping a more accurate thermometer will solve things.

Hoochware has a free trial period. The owner is a super helpful guy, happy to answer any questions. I made a bunch of excel sheets to track everything to save money for the first few months when production was pretty low. I had the intention of getting some software later down the line. By the time I got around to testing software options, I had things dialed in and the reports pretty figured out. My day to day reporting is much easier on the forms I custom created for my various processes. I just have to do the TTB reports manually. Which is a pain but becomes pretty automatic after 6 months.

Thanks @dhdunbar I submitted my comment to the TTB. The proposed changes are on pages 60593-60599 if anyone is interested, and reading just that isn't too terribly painful. Don't be put off by the shear volume of bureaucratic and legalistic excrement. These are also the changes that are considering defining a barrel as 50 gallons, which I know will hurt a lot of people, and have been discussed here. I've put off submitting a comment far too long. Not sure what the deadline is.

@Dmonahan cool tip. I like the flavor of unaged spirits over 160P though so I think I'll just drop the whiskey. For what it is, I think Moonshine or something has better ring to it, and more transparency than Light Whiskey. Has anyone been audited by the TTB? What is the consequence of a mislabel? Fine? Shutdown? I know one distillery with "single malt" whiskey that's only been in production 2 years max. I believe it has no age statement. I've seen quite a few violations I won't go into detail about here. Some from distilleries that have been open many years. I've been trying my best to go by the book, but kind of wonder why bother at certain point.

Maybe I don't have much room to talk, as I've asked plenty of stupid questions here, and am extremely grateful for the advice I've received. I've also been teaching myself the principles of distilling, but started very small scale and worked up, with very little overhead, or consequences in a failed batch. However, you sure seem have some nice equipment that you've obviously spent a lot of money on. I'd recommend spending more and hiring someone to consult with to show you how to properly use it. Running a column is an entirely different beast than a pot, and your description of it may just be confusing to me but I'm not sure you fully get it. That being said, I find a stripping run and a spirit run with 2 plates on my much cheaper equipment is about the same as a single run on 5 plates. It will probably put you over 160P though. Also if the stripping run took a long time. A spirit run will take longer, and filling the boiler with low wines from 5 striping runs will be a multi day process. If I were you, I'd dump 300 gallons of hot water on top of your 100 gallons of low wines to ease you heat up time, and then practice running your column with that with 2 plates. If it goes wrong just dump it back in and try again. Best of luck, dont blow up.

Can you submit an unaged "whiskey" as a "Distilled Spirit Specialty" and then have it labeled as "Moonshine" or "White Dog"? I know i've seen things labeled as moonshine, but there is no statement of identity for it.

I use bakers yeast to finish my mixed ferment rum. Even if I only get 1 extra bottle of yield, it is worth it foe a 4$ brick of yeast. I haven't noticed much of a difference in flavor from doing a mixed ferment as opposed to ale yeast only. It would be hard to to do it all in 4 days as the OP wants to though.