johnbsys

I might be interested, but I don't have room to store it, 😉

I would like to reiterate what "rtshfd" said at the beginning of this post: "...It takes me 5-10 hydrometer readings (depending on the volume being diluted) and ample time for agitation/diffusion to make sure we are accurate...." Water and alcohol do not mix easily. The first time I bottled 50 gallons of whiskey that I thought I had properly brought down to 80 proof was a disaster. Half way through bottling we discovered that the proof at the bottom of the container was nowhere close to the top of the container! It now takes us about 2 days to adjust the spirit to exactly 80 proof. A little secret: after letting the spirit sit for a couple of hours, carefully stir it up again and fill a glass cylinder with the spirit. If you see any TINY bubbles that means the solution was not completely mixed and your hydrometer reading will be off. Those tiny bubble are the result of the water combining with the alcohol (which also generates a small amount of heat).

Say I purchase a 5-yr barrel of whiskey from a broker. The TIB paperwork from the broker shows Proof Gallons at the time the barrel was filled 5 years ago. When I receive it, the quantity is lower do to normal aging evaporation. As long as I document the difference am I only responsible for paying federal excise tax on the actual amount I received or what the broker said they shipped?

Sounds to me like your pH might be getting too low during the ferment?

"...The packaged column is for something else. Look at package under the glossary of terms." Are you saying that I should not use the 'PACKAGED' column at all? So for on line 28 instead of putting the PG of what I cased under PACKAGED and left over bottles PG under BOTTLED I should just put it all under BOTTLED? Thanks, John

Last month I bottled 46 cases and had 9 bottles left over (1.43 Proof Gallons). On my 5110.28 Processing report, I put 0 in line 27 under 'Bottled' and 1.43 on line 46. This month I bottled 34 cases (64.67 Proof Gallons) and had 5 bottles left over (0.79 Proof Gallons) (Total = 65.56 PG). I combined 12 of the remaining bottles into a 35th case so now I only have 2 bottles in Processing (0.32 PG). For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to account for this on form 5110.28. I placed 65.56 PG on line 9 (34 cases plus 5 bottles). I place 1.49 PG on line 27 (9 bottles from previous month). On line 28 I placed 0.79 PG (5 bottles)) under Bottled and 66.57 (35 cases) under Packaged. I placed the remaining 2 bottles on line 46 (0.32 PG). Needless to say, the Pay.gov edits failed miserably. Can anyone tell me where I went wrong? Thanks, John

Who do you contact at the TTB to let them know that they have a mistake in one of their gauging manuals? I am loading Table 4 into my database and discovered that Wine Gallons Per Pound is incorrect for 173.7 Proof.

"..stripping runs, whiskey runs, neutral runs, botanical runs,.." I also just recently received my DSP and was deciding the best way to handle the reporting. Being a computer programmer by trade for all of my life, and specializing in customer information system I decided to develop my own software. I started with a minimal prototype with basic functionality. As new needs arise I just add new functionality to my system. I simply drag and drop different 'source' tanks and 'destination' tanks to a new distillation run then print out my worksheet. The computer already knows the info on the source containers. If it's fermentation source tank it defaults to the full wine gallon amount, but you can override that value if you are not using the entire tank. When the run is done and after everything is completed on the worksheet I enter them in my laptop. I can back up my database anytime I want and it automatically gets sent to my computer at home for a backup (then again when Carbonite backs up my home computer). It audits every change I make so 'when' I make mistakes I can easily find it. All transactions are linked to the next process so I can visually move through the 'parent' 'child' relationship history for any run. For example if i click an 'up' or 'down' arrow on any tank displayed for any distillation run the program via animation hides the currently displayed run and brings up the previous or next run with the tank I selected to follow its history. (Blaah-blaah-blaah...) Anyway,,,, Currently for my distillation runs I do not differentiate the type of run except as described in notes, but I can see that it may be time for me to normalize the 'type' of run like you described in your post (stripping runs, whiskey runs, neutral runs, botanical runs,..). Do you keep track of any other types of runs besides these 4? John

True, but if I already know the weight of whats going into the 3rd tank and already know how much the 3rd tank weighs, should I need to weigh the 3rd tank afterwards? I do record the total combined weight. Thanks.

I have a small distillery and will have several small containers of feints from different distillation runs. When I do not have time to re-run them I will combine them into a larger container. I create separate tank transfer records for audit purposes. If I combine 2 containers into a 3rd, larger container that already has spirits in it I do them one at a time and end up proofing the larger tank twice. My question is, is it necessary to do this or can I combine both of the smaller containers into the larger container and proof it just once? John Baker Cats Eye Distillery, LLC

I am averaging around 11-12% return on my stripping runs. I have a small setup. I usually put 80 gallons of wash into a 100 gallon pot still and end up with 9-10 proof gallons. Depending on how hot I run it and how far into the tails I go I will get around 75-80 proof result.

I had Trump sign an executive order for me. My distillery plans are GREAT again! LOL!. Actually, I asked a state senator if they could help out. I hated to do it because if everybody did it they could not help out the people who really needed to do it. I think there was some postings on this a few pages back.(?) After my previous post I received notice from the TTB that that my application had been approved! Now on to the next task,,, State approval. (I wonder if I can talk Donald into lowering the Federal Excise Tax from 35% to 15%? Wouldn't that be GREAT??) Good luck with your distillery. Hope all goes well for you. John

Sorry Justin, I waited as long as I could but finally had to get my application escalated else I would have had to close my doors before I could even open them. I've been paying a monthly lease on a facility and am starting to get into a budget crunch. I was hoping to have my permit last December. I Started my application on 7/21/2016. They accepted my application on 8/9/2016. I am working with them now to finalize a few minor issues and hopefully I will have my permit before the end of the week. John Baker Cats Eye Distillery

Yes, it sucks to have to pay rent on a place and not be able to produce product for so long. 8 months? I might as well shut the whole thing down. I will be broke long before that.

Submitted TTB application on July 21st, 2016. It moved to a status of 'Review in Process' on 2016_08_09 and it is still in that status. It has been over 2 months and 'still' waiting. ;-)

Duplicate post but desperate! Any help would be appreciated. Thanks... "I am having the same problem. We are just starting out and I am not sure how to properly account for redistilling a stripping run. For example (using fictitious numbers), In September I did a stripping run of 5 proof gallons so I recorded it on form 5110.40 (monthly production) on lines 11 and 14. In October I added the 5 gallons to another wash and redistilled it giving me 9 gallons. I also did 3 more stripping runs at 5 gallons each thus giving me a total of 9 + 15 = 24 proof gallons. For Octobers 5110.11 I tried to put 5 gallons on line 1 (on hand first of month) and line 18 (transferred to production), and 24 gallons on line 24 (End of month). Pay.Gov gives me an error saying that the totals do not match on lines 6 and 24. I've tried calling the TTB since last week and keep getting answering machines and no call backs. Plus today is the deadline for filing (15th). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, John "

I am having the same problem. We are just starting out and I am not sure how to properly account for redistilling a stripping run. For example (using fictitious numbers), In September I did a stripping run of 5 proof gallons so I recorded it on form 5110.40 (monthly production) on lines 11 and 14. In October I added the 5 gallons to another wash and redistilled it giving me 9 gallons. I also did 3 more stripping runs at 5 gallons each thus giving me a total of 9 + 15 = 24 proof gallons. For Octobers 5110.11 I tried to put 5 gallons on line 1 (on hand first of month) and line 18 (transferred to production), and 24 gallons on line 24 (End of month). Pay.Gov gives me an error saying that the totals do not match on lines 6 and 24. I've tried calling the TTB since last week and keep getting answering machines and no call backs. Plus today is the deadline for filing (15th). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, John

We are still experimenting but use approximately 20 gallons of water per 50 lbs. corn and ending up with 1.065. We are striving to get better than 1.065.

We have our DSP permit and are about ready to do some small scale experimentation which will involve purchasing ingredients and producing spirits. We will probably either store the end results for later re-distillation or just dispose of it. Do we have to notify the TTB that we are operational (though technically we are not)? And if so what columns would we need to fill out in the monthly TTB reports? Any advice on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

And what's wrong with that? LOL!

The chlorine level in most municipalities is normally low enough to not effect fermentation else you would hear more about it from home beer brewers across the U.S. Not sure about irons effect on fermentation. The chlorine evaporates within 24 hours in most cases. If you place an aerator on your water hose it helps dissipate the chlorine faster.

If they were your office upstairs it would be ok but if they belonged to someone else,,, Do you really want to put some else's lives at risk by putting an ethanol plant underneath them?? It would be a deal breaker.

We started the process in September of 2012 by trying to get an Ethanol Fuel plant permit so that we could start experimenting. We incorporated in January of 2013 and started the process of getting our DSP permit. In February we finally received our Ethanol Fuel permit but thought that it would confuse the TTB having both permits so we called the TTB to cancel out Ethanol Fuel permit and then submitted out DSP permit paperwork. After a few bounce backs for more information we finally received our DSP permit at the end of June.

We just filled out our first monthly reports for July manually. We have a Pay.gov logon now and will use that for August. In July I had the same question. The form instructions state to print the forms in duplicate. I thought that they wanted us to send them two copies of the forms. I called the TTB for clarification. They said that the duplicate form was for us to keep for our permanent records. See TTB regulations § 19.571 Records in general. paragraph 'c'.

Hello All. Three of us had an idea last year that it would be fun to start up a nano distillery. Nine months later with countless hours of research and friggin paperwork we are about ready to start production. Our distillery is probably the smallest one in the state of Iowa and will be using Hillbilly Stills 4" pot and reflux still columns with a 26 gallon boiler. We have a 100 gallon mash-tun and a couple of 250 gallon plastic totes for fermentation. The ADI forums have been one of our major sources for information and we appreciate it's existence. We hope that we might be able to help other newbies on this forum avoid mistakes that we have made and continue to learn from the senior members posts. John