DenverDistiller

What tanks do you guys use?

We've had a hell of a time finding a cooling tank with a bigger drain.

We'd rather have a jacketed tank.

Wow, I screwed up the title...Do your fermentation tanks clog with a 1 inch inner diameter valve to pump out the mash?

We are planning on buying this jacketed fermentation tank to crash cool our bourbon (grain in) and rye.

http://conical-fermenter.com/3-Barrel-glycol-jacketed-Conical-Fermenter-with-Top-Man-Wayl.html

The sales rep expressed concern that the inner diameter of the valve to pump the mash out is 1 inch and may get clogged easily. Have you guys experienced this?

If it is a problem we could distill with flour instead of milled grain.

What has your experience been?

By the way we got our DSP - Colorado look out here comes another distillery!

ISkie,

$2000 is for the tank - we would build (or buy) the copper coils to drop in the fermentation tank.

We should have our still and DSP 2/15 so this will be our first fermentation tank.

We do not have a glycol chiller

Glisade - what's the diameter of your tubing?

We are trying to decide the best tank to cool our mash for our bourbon (grain in) and rye whiskey (lautered). The goal will be to drop the temperature from about 150 to 80 as quickly as possible.

We are considering a 100 gallon conical fermentation tank where we drop in a wort chiller. ($2500)

Or

A glycol cool jacketed 100 gallon tank. ($5500)

I'm more comfortable with the wort chiller as it's a bit cheaper, although our budget would allow us the glycol jacketed tank if it would be a significant help.

What do you-all think?

Is there any resource you all have access to that discusses the optimum grain to water ratios when creating the mash? I've seen lots of 'rules of thumb,' such as 1.5 lbs of grain to gallon of water, and some much higher than that. But it seems like because the amount of sugars available from say corn vs barley are different, we would have a different 'rule of thumb', for each grain...

Secondarily if my grain bill is 70% corn, 23% rye, 7% barley and I'm doing 100 gallon runs, how much total weight of grain is needed?

Thanks as always...

Just PM'd you

thanks, does that integrate with bar code readers/scanners?

I'm also looking at salesforce. .

I'm trying to find a good CRM for self-distribution in Colorado. I've used Salesforce in the past, but it's a little too much software for our operation - do you have any recommendations for CRM software?

Thanks,

We are looking for the most economical way to get started and have a still capable of producing a good product.

Our initial plan is to distill whiskey and vodka, and we are planning on a 100 gallon dragon still with a 6 inch column (4 plates).

I'm curious what still any of you started with and if you could go back if you would choose something different. I am slightly concerned about quality of product, but we really can't afford more than 20k on a still.

Thanks,

Or even better yet, would anyone be open to sharing there actual code annotated process description with us. We just finished our TTB Paperwork and this is next on our list.

Thanks,

We'd be interested in coming to take a look - we just got our building and submitted our TTB paperwork in Idaho Springs. Will you email me @ bouckbrothersdistilling@gmail.com

Thanks,

cool - we took your advice Dehner D.

Thanks,

Welcome! Make it 75 boys! We are signing our lease on Wednesday in Idaho Springs!!!

We are opening our distillery with a dual purpose

1) make a great bottle of whiskey which will be our flagship product

2) make unique liquors for our tasting room that are one-of-a-kind

Here is the question -

I am inclined to have our marketing read XYZ Whiskey to give people a tangible idea of what we make, but alternatively we could be XYZ distillery and equally promote whiskey, and our unique spirits...

I'm leaning towards the company name highlighting whiskey, but I am torn. What to you think?

Alright guys, thanks for all your advice & input - we've decided to forgo the NNN Denver property, and get a MUCH cheaper location in the mountains - $1500 per month, which will give us a lot more time to get our product dialed in.

Thanks for all your advice and taking the time to comment.

Zak B

Alright guys, thanks for all your advice & input - we've decided to forgo the NNN Denver property, and get a MUCH cheaper location in the mountains - $1500 per month, which will give us a lot more time to get our product dialed in.

Thanks for all your advice and taking the time to comment.

Zak B

I appreciate all the feedback so far - I think you guys are probably right about having the distillery-pub business model if we go with the higher overhead.

To answer someone's question, our goal it to make whiskey and unique liquor's. We are both relatively financially secure so this is more of a let's see how cool we can make a tasting room, and how good/unique we can make a Colorado whiskey.

To dhdunbar

2) we've retained a architecture firm that specialized in distillerys to do a site visit and do local permitting.

5) Wow, i didn't know that - I thought we could submit recipes & labels before TTB approval...

Hey 3D - how'd you post a spreadsheet?

MIne is posting as text.... I'll show you mine.

Oak Barrels 10 $165 $1,650 Quote from the barrell Mill included in equipment

Computer 1 600 600 Printer 1 250 250 Phone 1 250 250 Office Supplies Generic 500 500 Website 1 $1,000 $1,000 Internet / tv 12 $100 $1,200 Book Keeping 12 50 600 State Lic 1 2075 2075 Fed Lic 1 0 0 Bond 1 240 240 Building Approval Generic $10,000 $10,000 Software 1 $2,400 $2,400

this is the 20k buildout/approval

We're buying bourbon and vodka to infuse & serve while we work on our recipes to bottle.

We will do Grain to bottle after the initial purchase.

we are rent free the first four months, so the rent will not accrual.

Don't worry about bursting my bubble - that's why I mentioned we had access to more money in 3 ways, ours,investors, and loans.

Do you think we should tap immediately or try and bootstrap?

The building we would lease is being built out, so we've already negotiated that from the day we sign the lease we have 4 months until our rent is due, so we have time for TTB, buildout, firecode etc.

We are planning on buying a 100gallon dragon still - a very basic model.

Thank you for your comments so far....

Congrats - see you next time I'm in TX!

You need to distill some of that wine too! Bienbenidos!