Lenny

I was told that such things are up to interpretation by fire inspector. It's sort of a grey area. Another one of those areas... wouldn't it make sense for there to be a differentiation between 120g of 190proof spirit stored in a closed container vs. 120g of 40proof spirit? I agree with the above recommendation. Keep your proposals/process descriptions conservative if you feel that you can reasonably work within those limits. If you need professional help to stamp and sign documents that explain how you are working within the code to your local inspectors (something we've contiguously had to deal with), shoot me a pm and I'd happily pass on some great resources.

Maybe take a nod from american craft brewers? Find one who is main person responsible for the creation of beer at any respectable brewery -- chances are, those without a crap ton of experience and seriously notable accomplishments within the industry will regard themselves as the Head Brewers vs. BrewMaster. It's not a standards, marketing or regulatory thing. It's a respect thing.

We were selected by Something Independent (the same group that produced Dstill in Denver) to be the subject of the third installment of their Founders Series. Thought you guys might enjoy checking it out... http://foundersseries.tumblr.com/post/56183127655/deerhammer

Pressur9pa, Do you have any insight as to why the substantial dip in stainless cost now? Just curious.

I run through ro for my dilution water. My first attempt to proof down our whiskey with miniral rich municipal water (which happens to taste great) led to serious clouding (not haziness but chunky clouds hanging out from top to bottom) after a few weeks in the bottle. Our water on it's own is great for mashing but not the best for dilution. Treatment is only necessary if it's necessary. If your water tastes fine with no filtration, give it a shot. Chances are, if your water is loaded with natural mineral content, those minerals will precipitate out of solution and cause clouding.

I'm sure there's a difference between malted and unmalted rye in flavor profile — I've read unmalted rye is a bit more peppery, but I haven't experimented enough to myself to know this for sure. Most folks work with unmalted rye. Thus the addition of malted barley for it's diastatic power (built in enzymes) to convert the starch in the rye, or by means of adding liquid enzymes to do the same thing.

For the fatty hydrometers I use a big cylindrical flower vase.

You don't *need* 16' ceilings. I've got 12' ceilings and get by just fine. I wouldn't mind higher ceilings, or at least a higher overhead door, but if the space your looking at satisfies most other needs, you would likely be fine with 12'. At the very least, that is up to your fire inspector, but i would not be surprised if it is specified in the code. Not a huge deal to hang an extra sheet or two of dry wall to keep things safe and to keep inspectors happy. That's a tough one to answer. Obviously, the still itself doesn't take up much space. Oak casks, grain bags, totes, drums, and office space, bottling area, pallets of glass... all that stuff does. Your process and production will dictate your need for space. I'm running a 140g still in 1,600 sq/ft of production area. It's starting to get pretty tight. Again, if the space works for everything else and you think you can make do... go for it. I've scene some bad ass distilleries crammed into some crazy small spaces.

Rick, You've made some solid statements, but I feel like you might be missing the point. This is not about posturing or trying to be better than anyone else. It's about letting the public know what they are buying — who they are buying it from — and why it was made the way it was. It's about producer integrity and transparency. 100% spot on. So lets just say for sake of conversation that 5% of spirits that are sold form a liquor store are from the small guys (it's likely way smaller of a percentage). That 5% of the public opting to buy a bottle of juice made by the small guy is doing so with full intention of wanting to try something local/small-batch/unique/etc. And guess what... that small percentage of the public - THEY DO CARE. If a non-distiller producer (big or small) brands their bought/bottled product in such a way that they are swaying that minority customer into thinking that they are indeed buying something made by a local distillery, do you not see why the actual small/local distillery would become frustrated? There's no real issue to be taken with the bottlings that high west, smooth ambler or even larger outfits like compass box are putting out there. Those guys know how to blend some booze! There's a lot of pride to be taken in being a high level blender of spirits. And in the case of the above named non-or-partial spirit producers, the public is not being duped into thinking that this stuff is anything other than some great whiskey. I don't know what the answer is and I don't have the time to focus on much more than just trying to put out the best product I can — but that doesn't change the fact that there is some shady shit going on in the industry with the clear intention of deceiving the craft/micro/whatever interested public.

I've had good fun and been happy with the whiskey I make on a traditionally shaped copper pot still. It doesn't yield a huge hearts cut, but I love the flavors it spits out. I'm going to go out on a limb and sugest that nearly any simple potstill will be less of an investment than a hybrid/column still with bubble plates. Irish whiskey was historically made with a blend of 50%malted barley and 50% unmalted barley and tripple distilled through a pot still. I'm sure you could replicate the flavor profiles of an irish whiskey in a single or double distillation on a column still — it'd be interesting to go the traditional route though.

My understanding is that a local fire/building inspectors' interpretation of the code supersedes all — regardless of how flawed their interpretation (or overall character) might be. Also, the 120g limit is based on spirit being stored in an atmospherically closed container. In open containers that limit drops to 30g. If a 50'some gallon oak cask is filled in an F1 occupancy without sprinklers, the filling beyond 30g, with bung out, would exceed the max allowable quantities. A total technicality, since the container is only "open" for a very short time, but one that my fire inspector would not cut us a break on. If other folks are not held to such stringent definitions of maq's within an F1... consider yourselves very lucky.

You might want to hit up Golden Moon Distillery. Stephen Gould (who's on here occasionally) is probably your best bet on finding what your after.

I ran aprox. 30' of drain. The ACO drain comes in numbered sections that account for the needed gradient to allow liquid to flow down towards the sewer line. In an effort to save some money on the install, I opted to cut the trench and jackhammer out the concrete. I think we paid 2-3k to have the drain placed and cement poured. If I could go back and do it again... I'd have paid any amount of money to not have to mess with the cutting and removal of concrete. Pretty sure I took a few years off my life with all that concrete dust. Also, while your looking at installing this sort of thing... consider flooding your space and seeing if you might benefit from also poring a cement overlay that guides water into your floor drain. In my place, water often flows away from the floor drain and towards a cinderblock wall, or worse - towards our tasting room! Really annoying to squeegee it all back into the drain.

I went with ACO Drain. I went with the galvanized to save a few $'s. Very happy with their system. ACO and Zurn are both super prevalent in distillery/brewery/winery facilities.

They might very well know that their maximum allowable quantity per containment area is 240g in a closed container and 60 in an open container -- they might be choosing to ignore it. Fire inspectors do not stop in on a daily basis. Once they sign off on your operation, it's up to you to stay safe and code compliant. My distillery is an F1 without sprinklers. I'm held to an MAQ of 30g open and 120g closed. It's tough to stay within those limits but I do my best. Amongst other things, hat means no totes of GNS (who needs GNS anyway

The majority of brewery style mashtuns will have a false bottom that can go in/out through the clean-out manway in pieces (usually around 4 pieces). You could certainly source this style of mashtun and remove the lauter plate to have it function more as a cereal cooker — you'd probably be well off to have a larger port (3-4") welded to the botom to allow for dumping and easy removal of mash from the tank. Also, it would be worth looking into the size of the steam jacket (assuming you're looking for a jacketed tank) to be sure that it's capable of bringing the mash temp upwards of 100c. If you have no intention producing a whiskey that would benefit from lautering then skip the false bottom. Corn doesn't benefit from lautering. I've been working with Mike Rolle at Glacier Tank to have a few things for our distillery built in China — here's an example of one of the mashtuns they provide, which could easily double as a cereal cooker with a few tweaks: http://www.glaciertanks.com/Mash_Tuns-Mash_Tun_10_BBL_Commercial_Steam_Motor.html For domestically built equipment, I received pretty good pricing on a mt from Marks Metal Works: http://www.marksdmw.com/ Regarding the rice hull thing... I've tried it with flaked corn. It kinda worked but not an awesome experience. Also tried it with unmalted wheat and rye. The wheat lautered the best but was still painfully slow to run off.

I've got limited experience in brandy maturation — a question on the mention of not using charred oak to age brandy in... I thought I had heard somewhere that the origins of bourbon being aged in charred oak led back to french brandy being typically aged in charred oak. Way back when, in an effort for the bourbon to be better received by french folk throughout Louisiana, a switch was made to charred oak to yield a flavor profile more inline with what a french brandy might have. Now I might be totally making this up, but I could have sworn I heard something along these lines from a bourbon historian of some sort. I just moved 30g of freshly distilled brandy into a once used 30g toasted/charred barrel to sit for a year or two. I'm okay with a more whiskey like profile, but you've got me thinking, Porter, about historical practices and what would really yield the best results. Hmmm.

What Kristian said. Rocky Mountain Barrel Company brought in a bunch of laphroaig casks (all pre-sold), and from what the owner told me yesterday, they are working on bringing in some smaller (180 liter I believe) Bowmore casks in the next few months. I'd definetely recommend reaching out to them. Good folks over there. http://rockymountainbarrelcompany.com/

a few other basic mashing principals worth taking into account... 1. You don't want your mash temp (assuming malt barley) to exceed 170f or you run the risk of denaturing the enzymes. 2. Your scarification rest does not need to exceed 1 hour. In reality, most of the conversion is said to happen within the first 15 or so mins. 3. Scarification temperature matters a lot. If you rest at 155f vs. 145f you are going to get a far different (and less fermentable wash). I rest at 148f.

Yes to the strike water starting high and dropping (typically around 15 degrees for most) naturally. Even without some sort of insulation on your mashtun, thermal mass will keep the temp within a few degrees of where it settles during your scarification rest. If you've not dabbled in home brewing beer before, you might want to give it a shot. It's a lot less costly to figure out all things related to mashing, grain handling, temperatures and fermentation on the small scale — plus, you'll end up with lots of beer!

On demand hot water heater would be one option. I run a Rennai r94Ls wich gives give me water close to 180f (it advertises 180f but it's more like 175f by the time it makes it's way through the hoses). At sea level, I believe it will produce 180f at the rate of around 5gpm. At 8,000' above sea level the rate is far suckier -- more like 1.25gpm. It's been great for providing strike and sparge water for single infusion mashes, as well as cleaning water to flush out my hoses and heat exchanger. I'm not sure if your also asking for a system to power your still - the above obviously would not do that. *Did not see the posts come in above as I was typing.

Funny, I asked him a few years back how he thinks palo santo would do in a spirit maturation. He said, "I don't know. How do you think it would do?" I walked away wondering if I had just been jedi mind tricked. I've since tried some experiments with palo santo wood. A little goes a really long way! It can add a nice floral spice but to heavy of an addition will have your spirit smelling like a perfume factory. Had some interesting results with a brandy.

That sounds like a pretty solid tour. Also, lots of options for self-guided tours beyond the Front Range distilleries that the ADI tour will be hitting. I can't speak to the availability or willingness of any other distilleries, but within a 3hr drive from denver you'd be able to hit the following *other* distilleries (in order of distance - nearest first): Downslope Distilling, Centenial Golden Moon, Golden 303/Boulder Distillery, Boulder Syntax Spirits, Greeley Breckenridge Distillery, Breckenridge Deerhammer Distilling, Buena Vista Woods High Mountain Distillery, Salida Montanya Distillers, Crested Butte Peach Street Distillers, Palisade I'm probably missing a few - and if you added on more miles there are more you could hit. For anyone spending a few extra days on either side of the conference that wants to see what Colorado really looks like beyond the city... I'd be happy to show you around my place and share some drinks with you. We're a two hour drive from denver with multiple hotsprings and monarch ski area right down the road.

I've listed my town/state on most of the labels I've submitted. For my brandy label I even used my town as the fanciful name. None have been flagged for that reason - yet.

Pretty sure mash was just joking with you. I'm not sure that there is a direct answer to your question in terms of there possibly being a *best* rye to use. I've been using locally grown seed grade rye for a few batches. I know of others using malted rye from Briess, or flaked rye from BSG, and still others that are growing their own -- all make a good rye. Your in PA... I'm pretty sure some decent rye has been known to come from your region. Good chance you'd do just fine with the local rye crop.