CountySeat

Congrats!

I think most are grown with the bottle on the tree. I'd reach out Catoctin Creek - they just released one.

You need your DSP. I applied for COLA the day we got our DSP and they actually had to wait a day or two for the COLA department to get the confirmation of the DSP on their end. Once they had that though, it only took a day to get COLA access and submit labels. They quote 21 days but it was only a day for us.

We used Aaron for our insurance and bonding. We highly recommend him. He was very accessible and prompt in getting everything done. We got a fair rate on insurance and we had our bond within 48 hours of requesting it. All very fast and efficient.

July 23 to Oct. 14. 84 days. Took a little over 60 days to hear from our specialist (who was wonderful). Only took a day or two to get through that step. We were stuck on "Recommend Final Disposition" for a few weeks just due to backlog then had to correct one final piece of paper to satisfy a Supervisor. All in all, I thought the TTB was very easy to deal with. We spent a few weeks preparing the forms and submitted them ourselves, we did not use a consultant to submit the paperwork or assist us.

Congrats!

BSG Craft Distilling sells this in larger quantities and also a very similar product in smaller quantities.

This may be an obvious question but, subject to state laws of course, do you need a COLA Approved Label for states within your own state? I'm going to research this myself but figured I'd ask. My assumption was that you need a COLA for everything but I had someone tell me COLAs are only necessary for interstate sales. While we would eventually plan to get COLA approval for the products, it would be nice to be able to label some bottles and do limited sales from the distillery while waiting for COLA approval. I'm asking from strictly a regulatory sense - I understand that notwithstanding the legality there are plenty of business reasons to just get the COLA first (bulk label purchases, etc). If we have a valid DSP and product to sell, can we sell it in state before the feds approve the label? Thanks.

We are planning on going with open top wood fermenters. We don't have them yet but our tentative plan is to get custom tops (not air tight) to keep dust out but lt them breathe and we are going with stainless cooling coils to manage fermentation temps and crash cool out of the mash tun. We are purchasing a drum mixer and will either clamp it on build an holder so it can go straight down for mixing. A drum mixer may be easier than recirculating. In any event, when we're set up in a few months, I can let you know how its working.

Thanks, John. Do you recommend any filtering for non-aged spirits? We don't want to chill filter but understand many producers will still filter their vodka, white rum, gin, unaged whiskey, etc. Thought? Thanks!

We haven't fully figured that out yet but were planning to use a small plate filter for all spirits (non chill) including white spirits, vodka, gin, aged whiskey, etc. If you are looking for minimum filtration, some bottler fillers have a filter built in like XPressfll. We have the same questions so we are interested to see the responses.

Their goal is to get it past that initial stage and to an agent with 30 days. We submitted ours in 2014 and it took about 35 days. As WhiskeyTango noted the time frames shot up this summer likely because of vacations and more applications so more than 30 may now be the norm.

Probably right at 60 though we could tweak our process to have an output under 60. Any idea if the gross still size and/or gross fermenter size will count? We have sprinklers in our building and I think (not positive) 3 hour fire walls but from the preliminary plans we have, getting a high hazard designation requires more floor drains and other explosion proof measures which sound pretty expensive.

340G.

We are going through this process now. We are being told that if our still or even our fermenter exceeds 240G, we will fall out of F-1 and fall into high hazard. Does the largest fermenter or still really count towards the 240G cap? We plan to double distill with two sized stills so our larger still will likely never be filled with anything over (at most) 15% ABV. From my quick reading, that low of an ABV doesn't have enough of a flash point to be considered a Class IB flammable liquid. My feeling is that only the stored alcohol of more than about 40% meets this qualification and we should be able to operate a still in excess of 240G if it it never filled with more than 40% ABV low wines. Thoughts?

Yeah - we are planning to get a few from St. Pats to hold finished spirits and use a 130G tank from Bubba's to proof and hook up to our bottler. We're thinking the same thing, 130G or so is a decent amount of bottles for the short term but we may need to go bigger down the road or get a second tank. The LETINA tanks look fine for storing but we couldn't really wheel them around (at least they don't look conducive to that). We have a pretty good handle on the size of holding tanks and the number we would ideally want but like most start ups are going to have to make some choices between getting the right size and number from the get go or waiting and upgrading as we can.

Thanks. That's what I had thought but I wasn't sure. We'll probably go with one large Bubba's tank for holding low wines and proofing prior to bottling and probably another to hold tails.

We are planning to use stainless steel drums for holding low wines (currently looking at Bubba's) and we would also use the same tank (rinsed first) to proof spirits immediately prior to bottling. Do we need "sanitary" stainless or will standard stainless tanks work fine? Thanks.

Average processing times for DSPs now up to 135 days.

We are looking for a clip on agitator that can be easily attached to a wooden cypress fermenter. We plan to use it for mixing a mash (we will pump from a mashing vessel into the fermenter but use the cooling coils in the fermenter to do the crash cool) while it cools. We need something that can be moved from fermenter to fermenter and that won't damage the side of the fermenter during use, etc. Since the mash will be finished (just hot), we shouldn't need too much mixing, just enough to keep it moving around the cooling coils to drop temperature. Any recommendations for a provider and sizing? Our largest fermenter should be 750G. Thanks.

Wisconsin Stamping sells raschig rings of all types including copper. They will quote you a price based on how much you need and the market price. We haven't bought from them but are considering it. They have a variety of sizes. www.wisconsinstamping.com

I was quoting the CFR but I see what you are saying, they do market it as a malt whisky. I'll poke around and see if I can figure out how they do that. I'm not sure how long Death's Door ages their product. I know they "age" it in an uncharred barrel but I have no idea how long. They seem to do a lot of volume and I didn't see a lot of barrels when I was there. Maybe they will chime in and share.

It isn't a bourbon so it doesn't need to be new oak. A whiskey or whisky just needs the oak containers: ( Class 2; whisky. “Whisky” is an alcoholic distillate from a fermented mash of grain produced at less than 190° proof in such manner that the distillate possesses the taste, aroma, and characteristics generally attributed to whisky, stored in oak containers (except that corn whisky need not be so stored), and bottled at not less than 80° proof, and also includes mixtures of such distillates for which no specific standards of identity are prescribed. They could literally age it however they want with the spirals and then essentially pump it into barrels for an hour or less and then bottle it as whisky. Its the same way that many of the moonshines/white whiskeys are able to call themselves whiskey. Death's Door sells tons and tons of white whisky. I think they have one barrel they pump it all through.

Has anyone ever used "Ekos Brewmaster" software? We are considering it but curious about experiences and compatibility to square, etc.

I would be interested.