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CountySeat

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  1. CountySeat
    We use Donaldson Filters. Contact there is Scott Grimes. He works with a lot of distilleries and is VERY helpful in making recommendations. We use an affordable cartridge filter set of 5 micron and 1 micron. I can't comment on other filter methods but this works well for our spirits. Doesn't appear to remove flavor but leaves a nice clear (in white spirits) product or nicely colored aged product without sediment. Some will favor a coarser filter but that's what we use and like. The filters aren't too expensive and its easy to just maintain a set for each spirit to avoid flavor contamination.
  2. CountySeat
    There are a ton of suppliers online for the two barrel steel racks in various sizes. Keystone Fermentations sells them locally in PA: http://www.keystonefermentationsupply.com/equipment/western-square-barrel-racks-accessories/60-gallon-racks
  3. CountySeat
    We have space where we can store barrels but the temperature will remain fairly constant year round. The temperature never really drops below 50F and never goes above 65F or so. Ideally, we'd have bigger swings but I was wondering if this would work for barrel storage. We typically use a mix of 15G and 25G barrels. IS this going to significantly increase the aging time?
  4. CountySeat
    I believe so. Your experience may vary but the design/build were pretty bad, it overheated a lot, and is incredibly dusty even with the cyclone.
  5. CountySeat
    Recommend avoiding Pellet Masters. We've had plenty of issues with ours.
  6. CountySeat
    I don't think they are open yet. Elverson, PA. Chester County.
  7. CountySeat
    We had to go through a general health inspection for our tasting room and production (where we have our triple sinks) to get our CO. Just basic things like backplates around sinks, caulking, and sealing well all the wood on our bar. Wasn't too bad. We got the same inspection as a restaurant essentially because we use fruit juices and cut fruit for our bar (we serve no food).
  8. CountySeat
    We've been using DADY but are considering a switch.
  9. CountySeat
    For anyone that uses panela, do you ever get the "like tequila comments"? We like the flavor a lot but we do get a fair bit of comments about a tequila nose and slight flavor. Just curious is it is something in our process or just the nature of the panela.
  10. CountySeat
    We ended up getting a thicket (1/4 inch) aluminum stencil from Woodland Manufacturing (online). We're using a small butane torch for precision but could probably go with something bigger. The 1/4 inch does not warp and works well on the larger letters but it is very difficult to get the flames through tight spaces. So I tried one this weekend and just didn't do the small spots. Somewhat time consuming but not that bad. Here are some pics of the results: https://twitter.com/CountySeatLV/status/663076564008099840 Also on our Facebook. If the link doesn't work I'll attach the pics manually. A thinner size would be easier but at the same time might be more prone to warping. If you have a basic logo that does not have too much detail, I'd opt for the 1/4 inch.
  11. CountySeat
    Yes - you can apply concurrently in PA. As Hedgebird mentioned, no reason not to. You simply need both to operate legally.
  12. CountySeat
    TAPI does it as an add on to their T-tops. I think it runs about a nickel a top. Bluecoat is an example of a brand that uses an engraved top.
  13. CountySeat
    Depending on the size of your barrels, try HomeBrew shops, direct to home brewers through your social media, and selling to distributers. Here on the East Coast, Keystone Fermentation in PA buys them regularly from all over the world.
  14. CountySeat
    For those that carbon filter - What ratio of carbon (in grams) are you using per gallon spirit (at lets say 90 proof)? Are you reusing the carbon is running it once and discarding the carbon?
  15. CountySeat
    We've been working on a solution for this to avoid spraying or painting anything onto the barrels. We priced a large custom brand (must be heated manually) for about $250. I know Barrel Mill (and probably others) will add the laser engraved logo to your order. My recollection was that it was not expensive on a per barrel basis ($10?) but would add up over time. But the Barrel Mill logos do look really good on the barrels. We actually tried a different method this weekend. We had a aluminum stencil made for about $20 and were trying to use a small butane torch to burn the logo on to the wood that way. The results were decent but the stencil gets too hot and warps. We are planning to try a different torch next or order a thicker stencil that is less prone to warp. If you can keep the stencil down, the results are actually really good it just as soon as it warps a little, the flames lick under and it doesn't work well.
  16. CountySeat
    How hot is the distillate coming off at? Sounds like your condenser is undersized.
  17. CountySeat
    dwrich1020 - Any idea what the heat up time would be on that? I'd be interested in jacketing a single wall stainless tank that way is the cost is not extreme and the heat up times are decent. I've contacted the company but do you have any estimate of the cost and heat up times for a tank the size as you described?
  18. CountySeat
    Does anyone do a grain to glass (I'm not sure if NGS is filtered before people buy it) vodka without carbon filtering?
  19. CountySeat
    For bars, we've made a Google Map and then just embedded it into our Squarespace page. Its not great but does the trick - you can see it on our site. I added each bar in manually (its pretty fast) but there is probably a way to do it with excel.
  20. CountySeat
    We do a grain in ferment and grain in first distillation. We mix it up prior to pumping over. We are still really new but we've tried racking off and distilling on grain and preferred the latter. For our recipes, we just get a more complex and better spirit. Never noticed off flavors.
  21. CountySeat
    Will doing the soak with 20% ABV GNS kill off everything like sanitizer?
  22. CountySeat
    Thanks - we thought about NGS and it is an decent option. We're adverse to using NGS simply because we don't use any NGS in our spirits philosophically. We've actually had customers (both retail and bar owners) poke around our shop looking for NGS totes to see if we were telling the truth! So I'm hesitant to have NGS on site and have to try to explain it. Any other options that are safe?
  23. CountySeat
    In short, no. We find that if we clean the tanks good, we will get some mold on the sides of the tanks within a day or so. I'm not a mold expert but that's what it looks like to us. We can easily it off and clean the tanks regularly but we prefer to leave water in them so they stay sealed. If we let them dry out for a day or two, we have issues getting them to seal up immedialtey when we add water. So we're essentially looking to leave them full or water (when not in use) and put something non-toxic in there to prevent the mold/algae build up so that we can just drain them and spray them down and load them up. If we let them sit for a week or more, I pretty much have to go in there with a scrub brush and clean the sides, cooling coil, etc. Bleach works but we were trying to avoid that soaking into the wood, etc. Salt would appear safer but not sure if they would soak into the wood and affect spirits down the road. Obviously the best solution is running them constantly but we aren't able to do that quite yet.
  24. CountySeat
    We have some periods of time where we don't have a ferment in the Cypress Tanks. We typically try to keep them full of water so they stay sealed but that leads to mold which we need to rinse off and clean well before using. Any thoughts on something safe we could add to the water to keep them mold free?
  25. CountySeat
    Is it possible our temperature readings of 220F in the boiler are the result of pressure? I found a calculator/table that would put us at around 18PSI. That seems unusually high. We run a still set up with no packing, no plates.
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