adamOVD

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.

Some brewers and cider makers will pitch champagne yeast towards the end of the ferment to dry out the beer or for super high alcohol content. I've done something similar with rum to get a better yield. One yeast for flavor the other for good attenuation.

I'm no expert and usually restrict myself to answering questions on fermentation, but if it come through early I'd be suspect of heads as mentioned, and the lighter botanicals. Just some ideas, Any pith on your citrus? Are you over grinding your juniper?

Is the astringency coming through at a certain point during your run? Odin has a great post called odin on gin that describes when in the run different botanical flavors are more pronounced.

I've yet to take anything off the still under 170 that would taste any good without some serious aging time. I usually try to design a mash high in flavorful esters though and ferment it on the warm side. I'm also using a column configuration of some sort for my final or only pass. Are you pot stilling? How many passes are you doing? I would think "soapy" would be tails.

Maybe corn syrup as Budweiser would have us outraged about.

@distillingcraft any progess on your guide? I do think you did a great job putting all this information together, and it should be super helpful to new distillers. Listened to what i think was one of your podcasts on sugar ferments recently, and thought it was fantastic. Any chance youll put out any more podcast content?

This is amazing. Had to make sure it was real. Looks like a far superior grain bill than actual pbr.

Thanks for the recommendations @foreshot I read Whiskey-tec-prod a few years ago but it's probably time for a revisit now that I will understand a lot more of it.

Thanks @bluefish_dist for the feedback. Glad others are thinking along the same lines. Guess i'll keep it at two plates. It comes off with a good balance of flavorful and clean.

Ive finaly reached a point where i am making a handful of products, all made very differently, on different stills, from different fermentables, and at different proofs. I am very happy with the flavor of each. Now Im ready to focus more on improving efficiency in my ferments snd while distilling. Unfortunately i dont understand the inner workings of a column still as well as i would like. For example, Im running low wines for a whiskey through two plates, and taking spirit off at 170P. If i added a plate but kept my take off proof at 170 by running it faster, would the spirit taste basically the same? Would this save time? If so would it be better to run the still faster by increasing heat to the pot, or reducing reflux with a hotter deph? So far ive tried to "listen to the still" and find the sweet spot of where it wants to run with a certain amount of plates, but im sure if i understood things better, i could make the still "work for me" instead. Are there any books or resources that would help a layman understand the inner thermal dynamics of a column still better? I know theory only goes so far, and sometimes you just need to jump in and try things, but i rather work smarter if possible. Thanks. Sorry if i ask too many questions on here, but i dont have a whole lot of other distillers in my area to run ideas by.