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JonDistiller

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  1. I'm midway through proofing my first cordial. The dissolved solids are high enough that I must use the distilling method. My question is, the TTB videos for proofing cordials discuss a very small sample size. I'm guessing it's assuming the presence of equipment that can make use of smaller sizes. I can't afford that yet, and am using the hydrometer method, and so I have to fit my sample into a container that my hydrometer will fit into. My 0-100 prof hydrometer can fit into a 350 mL flask, but my fine accuracy hydrometer needs a wider container, so my sample size needs to be 1000 mL. When the TTB discusses adding distilled water to the sample prior to distilling, can I use the mL they discuss, or do I need to increase the amount proportionally to my sample size?
  2. So, a quick question for advice. There's a lot in this business that needs to be food grade, which does involve a certain expense... but there's a lot that doesn't. For example, I started out with a homemade water chiller. Now that it's time to upgrade, a local winery put me onto the fact that once you tack "distillery", "brewery", or "winery" onto equipment, the cost skyrockets, and suggested looking at water chillers for hydroponics, rather than for distilleries. Does anyone have any tips they would share regarding equipment, where looking outside our industry we can save a bundle? (FYI, I'm already aware of the cost savings available to grain separation from mash)
  3. If you shine a phone flashlight through it, do you see lots of small glitter points or does it continue to look like the above picture?
  4. The only time I ever got that color, was when I'd had a puke on the smaller still I trained on. Even if you're not puking now, I wonder if you have some residual material that eluded your cleaning protocol? jon
  5. I recycle water, to cool my 60 gallon still. Costs were tight at startup, so rather than purchasing a normal chiller, my partner and I made one ourselves. We daisy chained several IBC totes together to create a thermal cooling mass (900 gallons). We then used standard finned copper baseboard pipes. Usually used to radiate heat into a room. You can buy them at lowes or home depot. Placed these on the wall, as part of the water return line. Back and forth several times. Less than 30 ft total length. then rigged standard house box fans to blow over the fins. Does help with heat in winter tbh. It works ok with my 60 gallon pot still, especially with low wines runs. A 60 gallon spirit run is pushing it a bit though. It's warmer than I like towards the end of tails. When I upgrade to a 250, I'd definitely need either more thermal mass, or an increased water/air flow. Probably getting to be time to shell out cash for the professional equipment actually designed for this though. You definitely can find ways to do this though. jon
  6. I'm also interested in your location and in the total height of the still. I'm looking for a used stripping still.
  7. Hey there! I missed this topic when you posted it. I recently started putting a sheet for production together a couple of days ago. I'll refine it over time to automate more outputs. FYI I'm a very small distillery, and I'm tailoring it to myself so I don't know if it will be useful for you. This is a first draft with just a couple hours of work by an amateur excel user, so don't expect too much. Eventually I'll create forms to really have a viable user interface, but for now it's just a basic spreadsheet with a few simple formulas. Still I'm happy with it thus far. Mostly I just want my number tracking to automatically give me info for my monthly reporting so I don't have to manually tabulate things. At present, it only totals what I've produced, the production by kind, and the ingredients. Those are based on my processes... bourbon is a finished spirit at the 2nd run for me. Gin however, doesn't show as finished till the 3rd run.... that type of thing. FYI: it's not done, so if you use anything from it, it's at your own risk. Still, this type of thing is good for ideas, and might help you see how to put your own personal version together. Examples of how to get excel to sum the proof gallon values, based on a couple of different text criteria (I.e. "Bourbon" + "2nd Run") can come in handy for putting your own together. Color coding = light green cells should have automated entry light blue cells need manual entry darker blue cells are drop down boxes Edit: BTW... quick agreement with above poster re: alcodens. That software is the one that I would recommend highly! It's been super helpful to me and I use it all the time, not just at proofing time, but for calculating correct weights when I fill bottles, for establishing my proof gallons by weight for my own records, etc. Distillery Reporting.xlsx
  8. Raising an old post, but I'd like to find out more about hoochware. Are you guys liking it? I just was communicating with distill x5, and was kinda shocked at the price for what you get. I had sorta assumed their subscription prices would be similar to the major software in other industries like the subscription to protools or photoshop or illustrator. Those are way more complicated than what needs to be tracked for TTB or the state. I'm debating just writing something myself, but if hoochware is in a more reasonable range I wouldn't mind saving myself the time. Do you guys recommend it?
  9. I'm interested. I'm in upstate NY. You mentioned the propane burner and venting, I would also want those. Are they included in the 5k or is that an additional cost?
  10. Working through those right now. First time on these, and I too was trying to figure out exactly the definition of "amount produced or manufactured" and "amount produced after blending/rectifying/fortifying/or reducing alcohol contents. Do they use the only completed saleable product for "produced"? Wouldn't proofing to bottle strength be "reducing alcohol contents"? or maybe that's really intended to refer to production of liquors?
  11. Appreciate the advice @Silk City Distillersand @PeteB. I'll go for that on my next batch, once the missing enzyme gets delivered. BTW Silk, I just wanted to say thanks for some advice you gave another distiller a while ago about the proofing process, which was very helpful to me.
  12. Do you find better conversion doing that? 100% unmalted is still quite new to me, and I chose the slightly lower temp to introduce the raw grain, simply based off some research papers that were published testing the rates of conversion at a higher temp vs the lower temp as well as at different ratios of water to grain, that found the lower temp had better conversion, so I thought I'd try that. I might be theory crafting too much for these trial batches?
  13. Thanks much for your help. Very true, but atm it seems I've overlooked one of the necessary enzymes... (facepalm) Apparently I'm still at the check if it's plugged or unplugged state of troubleshooting. Fingers crossed it powers up and I don't have to really delve.
  14. I think that's my problem. I'm off to purchase. Thanks much. I've always used malt before, so this test recipe needing all the enzymes is new ground for me. Appreciate the assist.
  15. Thanks for responding. I mis-named an enzyme. Rather than beta, it was bioglucanase.
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