adamOVD

Thanks for the feedback. When I have run without the agitator, I do run the agitator until the plates begin to stack, then turn it off. Then very carefully turn it back on when I hit tails, as it wants to send a surging flood of spirits through the column when turned on.

Been making a couple different types of rums lately. I 've been doing it on the molasses in a single pass though plates. Since it is a jacketed still, and there are no solids, I can run with or without the agitator running. With agitation helps to stop the surging, which one of my rums struggles with (I think because of the type of yeast). Without seems to make my hearts cut smaller and my heads cut larger, but I haven't played around enough to be certain. Any advise on when you do or don't agitate? Thanks.

Would line 17B of the production report (Physical inventory of unfinished spirits) also be where you report any feints on hand during inventory?

Plates are a whole lot sexier, but running a long column with packing material in it is a whole lot cheaper if the budget is tight, and can have an even higher theoretical plate value. You can still run the plates on top to keep things sexy looking.

@Silk City Distillers I think I've heard this before, but don't remember why people felt that way. What is the reasoning? Interesting note on counter flow heat exchangers, I recently read that a certain duck's vascular system serves as one, to help isolate the cold to it's legs when standing on the ice.

SlickFloss makes some good points. Having just got out of the brewing industry, going back to endless packaging days, and measuring dissolved oxygen levels isn't so appealing. Cleaning the residual flavors of cola, ginger beer, or other sweet syrupy mixers out of your packaging lines is going to be terrible as well.

Thanks dhdunbar I was pretty sure it would be a no go. It would be cool though.

I was thinking of having a crowler machine in the tasting room, not the dsp, and mixing cocktails to go in it. Haven't researched the legalities yet though.

Awesome. Thanks guys, that makes life way easier.

If you do a stripping run, but do not complete the spirit run before the end of the month. How are you reporting the low wines? Is it as simple as reporting them on line 17(b) of the production report (Physical inventory of unfinished spirits). Or, do I need to enter them into the storage account, and then receive them back into the production account the following month when I do the spirit run (line 15 of production, and line 18 of storage)? If so, how do I classify them the first month? Other (line K) and then write in low wines, or what the final classification will be? So far I've been fudging the numbers a bit on my reports, and entering them all on the same month, but should do it the correct way. Thanks

If I understand your question, and the form correctly, anything you bottle should go under the bottled column whether it goes into a case or not. The packaged column is for something else. Look at package under the glossary of terms. All filled bottles stay on line 46 until they leave your DSP and you pay tax on them. Hopefully that helps.

Awkward... Are they taking gravity readings during the fermentation? That will give them a more definitive answer if the fermentation is working while closed, and if there are any sugars left, instead of just observing bubbles from an airlock, which it sounds like may be the case. Thanks for all the replies, if find I learn a ton from these trouble shooting posts, even if the answer isn't the solution of the specific problem.

We weren't planing on making a vodka for sale as a bottle, but wanted to make some, bottle it, and have it for cocktails in our tasting room. So, we made some from the feints off of one of our rums. The result was fantastic. People are always commenting on how unique it is, probably because they are so used to drinking the same GNS. We don't have a huge line up yet, but it is one of our top sellers, and we have to do dedicated runs of it now.

With all the recent explosions at distilleries, anything on safety protocols may prove to be life saving.

Also recently had a terrible surging problems on a run for reasons I won't go into detail because it probably won't really apply to anyone else, rigging this up with what I had on hand, before the parrot allowed me to at least get through the run.