rkirk

We have looked into an electric still but have not thought to hard about using it due to energy costs and possible long heating times. But how well does professional quality electrically heated still work on one similar to the one you discussed above compared to a steam controlled still? The small still we currently use is electric and it takes several hours to heat to temperature and we waste half a day just waiting to start producing.

We are in the very beginning stages of potentially starting a rum distillery and have been looking for a bigger still. We have learned and fine tuned our flavor with a small still and would like to scale up now to larger pot still. We have been looking around for a affordable pot still around 100 to 150 gallons for a start up. I have seen several alembic pot stills from Hoga Company and copper-alembic.com and was wondering if anyone has any experience using these for distilling rum. Do you usually run these stills over direct heat or is a steam system possible in these? We are also looking into spending quite a bit more money for a still. I have seen several 100 gallons still with various configurations, sensors, and automated temperature controls from 35k to 75k while the alembic stills are under 10k. Do the more expensive stills really make that much of a difference in quality of rum and would it be worth the initial investment? If they do, could you please provide some good manufacturers to look into? Also, since we are new to this, which one would be the easiest to work with in your opinion?

We are very new to creating rum and have been trying to find a way to test the proof of our rum after adding sugar for our flavored rums. I know using a standard alcohometer won't work after adding sugar as I am sure everyone else does too. My question is how much of an effect does adding sugar to a 80 proof spirit really have and what is the best way to test it. We always carbon filter our spirit diluted to 80 proof before adding sugar. We know we can make simple syrup and add our sugar this way to get the proper proof but the flavor we produce is not what we are looking for. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Ray