Lassiter Distilling Co

I'm thinking we will use the 1 micron inline filter for the enolmatic system. My concern is whether this will have an impact on flavor. We filter through activated carbon for flavoring purposes, so am not sure what impact additional filtering could have. I I suppose we could figure of a way to filter through activated carbon directly through the filling system, but what do you guys think about whether a filter through the pump would have additional impact/strip away more flavor beyond our initial filtering?

We've noticed in a few of our finished bottles some very small particles floating around. Not many, but enough to notice. Looks kind of like lint or dust. We every bottle with proofed spirit immediately before filling with an enolmatic filler. Has anyone else run into this or have suggested solutions?

Ditto to what Bluefish and Lang said. Make sure your local stuff is handled. We had (and still have) great support from the town we are in, but their inspections prior to operations are much more thorough than the TTB's. We got our DSP in 30 days (with Lang's help, BTW), but our building inspections took much longer. That being said, we had our lease signed and all major equipment (tanks, still, scales, etc) either in place or well on order at the time we submitted our application. Worked out great for us.

Thanks for the tips folks. We are totally learning here so appreciate the help. RobertS - do you all use SS pipe or some other material?

Thanks for the links. Very helpful. We are getting along nicely in product development. Just one phenolic/vinyl note we need to eliminate, which I think is coming off the chlorine/chloramine in the water supply. We will be reacting it out with some metabisulfite in our next batch to see if that gets us where we need to be. EDIT: we did add the lees in with this batch. Turned out very nicely for us. Added a lot of green apple, banana and pineapple notes. Once we eliminate that vinyl note, we'll be totally golden. It does seem to come out with carbon filtering, so we are going to run one more test and see what we can see.

Hey All - we recently nailed a test batch of our rum, simply by running it through an activated charcoal filter. Anyone have any suggestions on larger filters that would use either activated carbon or plate filters? I have no idea where to start with a supplier for this at a size appropriate for scale.

Hey folks. Got a call that the NC ABC will be doing an inspection sometime "when we least expect it." Anyone been through this and if so, what should we watch out for? We just got our permit August 26, so there shouldn't be any big differences from when we went thru building inspection (and most of our batches have been destroyed, since we are still in product development). Just st curious what to expect. Thanks.

We did two cleaning runs, one with water, the second with vinegar. Though unintentional, or first ethanol run turned out to be our sacrificial run, a term that I had not heard until now, but absolutely love. Things are much better tasting now.

We are just getting up and running, and were wondering what everyone typically expects in terms of run time for your still. We are running a 128 gallon batch of rum through a 10-plate (perforated) reflux column after reflux info for 30 mins and it is taking us upwards of 10 hours to get through a batch. Produces good product, but man the late nights are killing me. My scond question is to what proof do you usually run tails? We run down pretty far, but curious what everyone else is doing.

Ok, update here. We ran a second batch last night, and it turned out much better. I am thinking the off flavors were machining oils left over from fabrication. Hard to know for sure, since our recipe was much different this time, but we are running a similar recipe tomorrow that should help us nail it down.

Thanks, Tyson. I'll give you a call to chat. Stillwagon, we fermented our first batch on a combo of blackstrap molasses and unrefined cane sugar at 92F per yeast manufacturer's specs, maintained throughout the ferment. Fermented in a 275 gal IBC open this first time. We did add nutrient for this first batch, but have since read it may not be necessary on molasses ferments. We did not adjust PH, but will be adding the stillage from our first run to our next ferment to increase acidity. We did a single run for the first run, collected a good amount of heads - about 20 percent of the run. We collected in small, quart sized increments so we can go back and train/ avoid contaminating hearts until we know what we're doing a little better, so the heads aren't mixed with the hearts right now. Maybe we increase the ratio of sugar to molasses. We are also doing an all undefined cane sugar wash which should be done in the next day or so, so maybe that will tell us more about what works best.

+1 on the local requirements. Spend some time networking with local elected officials too to ensure there's support there if you need it. That time we spent was worth more than I can account for now that we are open.

We are doing our first rum runs. Overall, things are going better than expected, considering it's the first time I've turned on a still to make rum. Our first run is drinkable, but probably not marketable. We we are getting some off flavors in our first run. Harsh bitterness even through the end of the hearts phase. We are also getting a very pungent and voluminous tails cut. We know we are new at identifying the various cuts, so we are emptying into small vessels and testing each one for flavor, aroma, and other characteristics to train on what we like and don't like. The tails make up at least 30-40 percent of the total run. We reflux for about 30 minutes and then drop the flow to the dephlegmater slightly to allow the vapor to pass to the condenser. We are running a 160 gallon stainless steel still with copper elements in the column (10 perf plates), dephlegmater and condenser, and we are learning the best ways to use it but any tips on smoothing out the spirit a bit would be helpful. Any thoughts on getting the bitterness out?

We are experimenting with a few rum styles - sugarcane blackstrap molasses and unrefined sugar, in various combinations. So far we have racked off the rum from the lees, but curious if anyone out there puts the lees in with the run.

I'm proud to say we made it to the starting line- finally got our state permits to begin operating yesterday. Everything is in place to begin our rum fermentation scale tests. Only problem is getting the damn sugar and molasses to dissolve into the water in our IBCs. We are a budget operation, so are heating the water with drop in heaters. However, I can't get enough mixing power down in the tanks. Anyone run into this? I was thinking that we could either heat the water to "really hot," or we could stir up the sugar and molasses in open top drums before pumping it into the IBCs. Any thoughts on the best way to mix it all up? Thanks for any advice.

Hey everyone - still working on our building issues. We've been asked to provide an MSDS for ethanol at 85% concentration. I've searched and searched, but the best I can come up with is one for E85 fuel (not relevant, obviously) and on this forum I've found one for ethanol/water at 70% ethanol concentration. Any advice where to find an MSDS for 85% concentration? Thanks for your help.

I'd suggest a call to the NC ABC for clarification on how distribution works. It's fairly simple in that the state warehouse essentially replaces the distributor in NC. In order to have product in the state warehouse, you have to get your product listed in NC, which requires a meeting with an official from The ABC. for in state producers, it's not as difficult to get listed in NC. I'd say it will take approximately 2-3 weeks longer than an open state operation to get up and running with sales due to the listing process with the state. If you keep them involved and talk to them frequently, it should go smoothly. Now on the sales side, you have to approach it in a control state the same way as you would with a huge distributor. They may carry your product, but you're going to have to market it to generate sales. NC has thousands of products, and the state will de list yours if you don't make enough sales. So either hire a decent broker representative or be ready to hit the pavement to market to bars and restaurants and the county boards.

I'll also give Joseph a recommendation at Dehner Distillery/Redboot Stills. He's been very helpful in designing and building our still for us, and service has been great.

The state of North Carolina has been accommodating to us, even with regard to the ABC. Municipality has been as well, but county has been challenging (though manageable). I can cannot speak for Wilmington/New Hanover County from experience, but thy did get some press lately about a distillery that tried unsuccessfully to get some zoning code revisions that would allow them to operate in more favorable districts. I have no idea how that all turned out for them, but I'm not sure they have opened or not. If you choose Wilmington, I'd suggest a sit down with all of the city staff to make sure your desired plans align with their vision for the city.

Ok, so most of the inspectors questions have been answered, but we have seven issues we need to resolve before we can open. Most have to do with how the still will have any effect on the HVAC system, if any. The fire Marshall has already said we are compliant, so this is the last person w need to satisfy to get the doors open. We do have an engineer on board to help with this, but I am trying to get this done as quickly as we can. Does anyone have a reference for NEC classification of ethanol at 85 percent concentration? In addition, we are looking for checmical properties - vapor pressure, vapor density, evaporation rate at room temp (approx 22C), etc. Any help there would be much appreciated. Most of the stuff I'm finding isn't consistent. Additionally, has anyone had to calculate heat byproduct produced by your still? If so, any suggestions on how to do that? thanks again!

Totally agree - go with a local sole practitioner. We were lucky enough to find one who has done a distillery previously, and he's been very helpful. With that being said, we are in the midst of our building inspections, and they have not gone smoothly (not the architect's fault). My advice is to get a team of folks who know the town officials, the inspectors' preferences, and how to navigate the municipality. Without that knowledge (or in some cases, like ours, even with that knowledge base) you could end up spinning wheels and draining bank accounts while you debate with them the necessities for a relatively small distillery operation.

Thanks for the advice. Glad to hear our pressure relief system is the right one (we didn't buy it from the hardware store - it was manufactured and sized specifically for our still). For the electrical, all parts are UL listed, so we should be good there, although I need to look into the NEMA4X rating, so thanks for the tip. In terms of class and division, any advice there? I believe the still itself is class I division 2 (requiring 7 ft of clearance) and the 3 ft area around the parrot is class I division 1. Does that seem right?

We have a trade inspector asking a lot of questions about our still, which was custom built (160 gallons, stainless, tri clamp connections, direct electric immersion). They are asking lots of questions about whether it is listed, rated, and all that kind of stuff (sorry for the lack of specifics- I'm supposed to get more of their questions today and will repost). At any rate, what did you all do with your custom or personally built stills when these types of questions came up? This is literally the last thing standing in our way to begin operations, so my blood pressure is a little high. Any help or recommendation on how to address these types of inquiries will be immensely helpful. Thanks!

Looking to buy some (2-3) transfer hoses. Need either 2" or 3" with tri clamp ends. I need about 10 feet, but can work with longer hoses. Also, if you've got a discharge hose with a 3" tri clamp fitting on one end, I'm in the market.

As we are preparing to begin operations, I've been trying to wrap my head around the formula used to interpolate data on the gauging tables. We have calibrated equipment with the correction factors, but I am not 100% on interpolating corrected proofs at fractional temps above 60F. I did find the TTB instructions ("Interpolation of Proof from Table 1 of the Gauging Manual," on TTB.gov), but am not getting what the overall formula is for the procedure, particularly as It pertains to step four of the example provided. Basically, if I plug in values based on corrected proofs and temps, I can get the right answer, but I can't understand why the answer is what it is. Any tips? If there's a formula out there we could use, that would be very helpful. Thanks!