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CalwiseSpirits

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CalwiseSpirits last won the day on December 31 2020

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  1. I've used Geosorb and a carbon cartridge filter. I filter at 45-50% alc.
  2. What set up are you using for your carbon filtering? I'm trying to improve my carbon filtering protocol for my white rum and vodka. So far I've used two different methods: 1. a carbon fiber filter from TCW - it works, but doesn't remove as much flavor as I'd like. I think it works best for "light cleaning" 2. I mix a powder called Geosorb from Laffort into the spirit and wait a month for it to settle out. Then I filter it through several steps of cartridge filters all the way down to a .2 micron absolute filter to get all the carbon out. It's super time consuming and expensive and ruins my filters. Option #1 is easy but doesn't give me the results I want. Option #2 gives me the flavor results I want but isn't practical. I want to be able to filter 1,000 gallons of spirit at a time. In my research it appears people are building their own carbon filters by filling a triclamp spool with granulated carbon and pumping the spirit through it. I'm thinking of getting a 4"x48" spool, fitting it with #100 mesh gaskets, and filling it with 12x40 carbon like this. It sounds like with this set up I will still have to filter because there will be some dust that comes off of the granulated carbon but I imagine it won't be as bad as filtering out pure powder (with a cartridge filter? Would it be easier with a plate and frame or something else?) Is this a good route to go? Would you recommend a different method? Are there any activated carbon suppliers that you recommend? Thanks in advance for your advice!
  3. It's pretty annoying and flies in the face of the promise the FDA made to not go after distilleries who were doing their best to do the right thing.
  4. Were you ever inspected or audited by the FDA for your hand sanitizer production? I thought the FDA harassment saga was long over, but it reared its ugly head again last week. In December of 2020, the FDA selected me for a random inspection, audit, and sampling of my finished product. I provided them with all of the batch documentation that they requested. I was told by the inspector that I would hear shortly if there is an issue after analysis of my products but that no news was good news. Months went by... I heard nothing... until last Friday. 18 months after my inspection, over 2 years after my last production batch, and regardless that I deregistered, delisted, and sold out of my product last year, I received an email from FDA stating that they detected unacceptable levels of impurities in my sanitizer and a whole laundry list of actions I need to take. I've heard of a few others who have also been receiving notices this month so keep an eye out. This is absolute insanity. The compound they are alleging was found was acetaldehyde, which is a naturally occurring byproduct of fermentation and forms when alcohol is oxidized or in the presence of acetic acid. I only ever used USP-grade GNS or food-grade grape alcohol - I wasn't adulterating it or doing sketchy things like others were so I'm scratching my head over how it's even out of compliance. The sanitizer we were making was meant for short term consumption to help out in an emergency. If they stuck it in a hot government warehouse for 18 months I don't think it's unfathomable that the composition changed as the alcohol slightly degraded. We're talking about parts per million levels here. I'm trying to gauge how widespread this is: Were you ever audited by the FDA? Did you ever hear anything back - good or bad?
  5. I did corrugated aluminum. Although it's a bit of a pain to clean, it cleans up nice. It's also hard to mount stuff to. But it looks great.
  6. I have had this issue. I tried to fix it with pectic enzyme and it didn't work. I suspect the high alcohol content denatured the enzymes. I think that next time adding the pectic enzyme to the fruit, allowing it to work, then adding the depectinized fruit to the alcohol would be the way to go but I haven't tried it yet. You can also give the bag filters at TCW equipment a try - I have had a good experience with them filtering out other high-solids spirits.
  7. Thank you for explaining that. It makes sense. I should have known. Is sulfuric acid ok to use in distillation? Won't it decompose and form some nasty byproducts?
  8. Thanks for the info. On Friday I actually tried an experiment related to this. I added a bit of dunder to a spirit run - great results, ended up with desirably funky distillate. On the next spirit run, I added dunder and citric acid. My theory was that citric acid would aid in Fischer esterification and magnify the flavors I achieved during the previous run. Nope. I found it destroyed the good esters I was trying to make and instead I got relatively neutral hearts and ended up with tails that tasted bitter and horrible. It tastes like some sort of salicylate (menthol/wintergreen) ester was formed as well. Yep, I've noticed it in my whiskey too. Isoamyl acetate (banana) in particular - which I don't necessarily want a ton of in my whiskey - but I want it in my rum and I can't get it to stick around! I used to make very conservative cuts. Now if I'm making spirit that I plan on ageing, I'm going really deep into the tails. I'm starting to find going deep on the heads yields good results as well - as long as there isn't too much ethyl acetate.
  9. I've been experimenting with creating a super funky high-ester rum. However, I've been noticing that the esters degrade over time when it's barrel aged. I also made a Navy strength high ester rum and noticed that the esters degraded significantly after sitting in the bottle for a few months to the point where it was unrecognizable. Is there a way to stabilize the esters in finished spirit? My best guess is to add a little bit of acid (citric?) to the spirit but I'm not sure.
  10. I've had this happen before too. My best guess is sulfur.
  11. In my defense, I do know people who were purchasing organic GNS to make hand sanitizer because it was all they could find at the beginning of the pandemic. Crazy. I'm still sitting on a few thousand bottles I'm trying to figure out what to do with. Better than 10 totes though!
  12. We make cocktail syrups at my distillery in addition to spirits. We've been using a 5 gallon brew kettle on an induction plate to heat our syrups and then bottle them through a small ball valve. We fill 8oz bottles and use plastisol-lined screw caps. I need a larger more robust set up, about 25 gallons. I'm thinking ideally we'd use an electric jacketed kettle with a small ball valve with a nozzle that can fill a bottle with a 28mm opening. Does anyone else make syrups and have some equipment or production tips they can give me? TIA!
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