rumfarmer

How squarish is the bottle? The guys at Label One Connect make a great machine for square bottles, but it's pricey. http://www.labeloneconnect.com/tamp-label-applicator-p-7-l-en.html

I have 6 Flextank Apollos for fermenting and 5 of their 80 gallon poly fermenters for that I got when I was starting smaller. Once I do a decent run, I plan on testing the 80 gallon for storage. Ended up being an unneeded purchase on the little tanks, so I hope their don't ruin anything. I will let you know as soon as I know.

I have a 600 gallon steam fired still arriving with Swede's controls soon Not sure how long it will take to get everything operational, but I will give feedback when I get it all working. Customers with it have raved, so I am excited.

The Label One Connect TAMP machine is semi-manual. I should have been more specific. It lacks a conveyer belt, but it does automatically place the labels once the bottle is positioned. The racer stuff seems a little too manual. Anyone with experience with other labelers they like?

I am super excited to get mine with Steve Cage's still. Should be any day now.

Does anyone have experience with square bottler labeling? I am working with Label One Connect to produce high quality paper labels for my rum, and they have a great machine that will accurately place these labels on my bottles. But, the machine is very costly. About $8K delivered to me here in Hawaii. While I want to deal with a made in USA company, it is hard to wrap my head around the price for a machine that is still manual. There are various Chinese made machines for less than half the cost. I will absolutely do my label printing with Label One, but the machine might be tough to justify. If anyone has experience or suggestions, I am open to them.

EC1118 seems to be the most consistent. Good luck.

I've run my fermentations starting between 1.092 and 1.074 and never had any issue with my yeast activating. In fact, I get my SG below .995 every time. Have you tried different yeasts?

Was the big issue the low temp? When I have temperatures in the upper 70s, everything slows to a crawl. I don't use any molasses, just raw cane juice which is fairly rich in nutrients, but I have to believe 70 is too cold.

Then I guess I should expect to see his 375ml soon.

These look very familiar. Are these the bottles used by Dave Flintstone for his Coconut Vodka?

Fantastic! Congrats to you and best of luck. I am in year 3 of my 2 year launch plan

Makes me want to add the vodka column!

$21 profit per bottle, Dave? Your COGS is impressive.

I have been working with these guys and really like them a lot. http://www.labeloneconnect.com

In my experience, the TTB is the easy part. They are very helpful, and actually seem eager to get you through the hoops and want you creating taxable product. Getting through the various regulations specific to your city and country will be much more arduous. Just be patient and as deliberate about your plans as you can and enlist support of the community if possible. I hope to be fully operational in the next 90 days, so ask me again in 45

I am also a fan of the on demand RO, although expensive. How big is the one you have Mr. Flintstone (GPD)?

How big is your still?

Good luck!

I am also interested in the craft distiller's char and would like to hear feedback on the results from anyone who has used them.

Thanks Rumrunner. What are you using for your raw materials? Plenty of cane in LA. Are you doing an agricultural rum?

I just got a great lucite mockup of a bottle from Robert Miller. Working with their design guys has been great. I need to make some changes, but so far I am very happy with the direction. Hopefully just one more iteration and we will go ahead with a glass prototype.

I kinda wish I got that vodka column. Looks nice!

Final wrap-up on the yeast. The naturally occurring yeast in the cane vastly out performed the yeast I pitched for the first 48 hours, but it had very low alcohol tolerance. As it died out, the new yeast took over and continued to ferment for 11 days. The pitched yeast had excellent alcohol tolerance, too, and I am very happy with the flavor profile. I intend to use it in my production if I can work out a reasonable agreement with the laboratory that isolated the strain. Thanks for all the input.