bluestar

No, saving is putting them in the saved category. You have to submit them to submit. It is a good practice to fill out and save all the forms before submitting them. Be careful: in some browsers, if you hit the return key while completing fields, it will submit the entire form. As best I can tell, if that happens, the only way to correct it is to amend the form. You can't delete it or unsubmit it. I call this a bug rather than a feature. At the least, if hitting a return will submit the form, there should be a pop up confirmation window programmed into it. The stuff on the left side are your archives. The submitted forms are in Submitted, the saved forms in the Saved, etc. You can't submit until you get to the last page of the forms. Are you in the form and not hitting Next to get to the next page?

Hey, that sounds like fun! ;-) Don't know if it would make a lot of money in the long run, but as you essentially make clear, we can all be in this business for different reasons (although not for long, if not profitable at all).

Ralph, we have been focusing here on the term "craft", rightly so, but that does leave open the question of the meaning of other related terms commonly used in our industry now: artisanal, handcrafted, handmade, microdistillery, etc. All of which, as either a small or "craft" distillery grows or a large manufacturer adds a "craft" product, can become problematic.

Fire marshals are an unknown (it is not an issue for us, for example). TTB is only concerned with residences.

Should it, probably not. Could it designate standards, ratings, or certifications for auto travel: it can, it does, and if there is value in them for the consumer, then it will be highly regarded and sought out. And in the latter case, the only "authority" comes from its position established by its membership and the degree to which the consumer base respects the result. ADI can attempt to do the same. That does not mean it is representative of our industry; agreed, that should be the role of the ACDA. So two questions remain: 1) does the ACDA want to do its own certifications? and 2) does ACDA want to provide feedback and ultimately endorse/accept (or not) the certifications being managed by ADI? From the consumer's point of view, if both ADI and ACDA were to provide such certifications in competition, it is not obvious which would be the most successful. That would hinge on how the consumer views each. While the consumer might put value on a certification based on rules that represent the interest of the industry, they might just as well prefer that it be done by an independent entity, albeit the monikers of representative and independent would all be a matter of perception by the consumer. Disclosure: I am a member of both the ADI and the ACDA, and a founder of the ICDA.

Nope, 208/3/95 high delta

Ralph, Fully agree with what you have expressed. It does beg a question, what will be the craft distillers, via the ACDA, position on website age verification? Will we choose to follow their policy, or adopt our own. Effectively, that becomes the import of this thread in the context of your posting, correct?

That sounds about right. We have a 40KW heater, but during spirit runs we are at about 5GPH, and it is cycling on about 5% to 10% of the time, or 2KW to 4KW.

My understanding is that the distillery premises can not be common with retail premises, not that it can't be adjacent. This is the reason why you can not have your retail sale and tasting shop in the distillery premises, bonded or general, and have to have a physical isolation and security between them and any retail space. This is a revenue protection issue: you must have barriers between taxed (retail) activity and untaxed (manufacturing) activity. Similarly between spirit production areas and wine or beer production areas. For a while this separation was sometimes simple demarcations, but now my understanding is they almost always require secure physical separations. But it is still case by case. JMO, YMMV.

Yup, that makes sense, and is consistent with what I have heard (we also sent satellite photo to verify relation to residential property), except they were specifically concerned about a public thoroughfare access to the location. Did you have to address that issue?

From all my discussions with TTB, that would never be allowed by them, since it is in the same building (a ceiling is NOT a wall in this sense). Also, in our area, you would likely never be allowed by any of the fire marshals either.

By the way, most local governments will not allow a distillery to share a common wall* with a residence, in any case, or be in the same building, in any case, because of fire protection concerns. We know of some local governments that would not allow a distillery to be located next to a residential lot, for that matter. *(unless 4-hour rated, which would mean a separation in most cases)

They can, and do, interpret things differently at different times. The only way to know how they might interpret is to give them the specific example to interpret. From our discussions, connected would mean if you are in the same building as a residence or an ancillary building to a building that includes a residence, but being in a different building that has common or immediately adjacent wall to the building with a residence would be allowed (common in urban areas). However, we also were told they would not allow the distillery premises to share a common wall with a residential premise, even if they were in different buildings. Your "sharing a common wall" example does not indicate if they are the same building or if you mean common wall between distillery premises and residential premises, as opposed to buildings. Different entrances in the same building might not be enough to fit their definition. Of course, now the ruling could also hinge on the interpretation of what is a different building.

Depends on your mash viscosity, mash density, geometry and size of tun, and the geometry of your mixing impeller. Under the right conditions, 40 rpm could actually be correct, on other conditions, 1000 rpm might be. Although most likely you will be somewhere between.

distilled from sugar cane and sugar, I think, but you should pose the question to the TTB, that's what they are there for

I think it would be better to build on what Bill has done if we can, but move toward what the first poster has suggested. In particular, Bill may have protected the trademark; it is smart to trademark IMMEDIATELY, because otherwise it becomes public domain. Now, the question is what happens with that trademark. I suggest a good outcome is to get an agreement in place between ADI and representative organization(s) for the industry, like ACDA and the state guilds or trade associations, to do what the first poster proposed: ADI would run a certification program and profit from doing so, and the TM(s) would be registered or owned in a way that ensures trade (versus ADI) control. I disagree with the first poster in one way: I do not believe it is impossible to have two versus one certifications. I do agree they should be absolutely clear in definition, and that they should have names that strongly represent those definitions. I do agree that the current title of "Craft Blended" could be confusing, UNLESS it is only used for blended spirits. One could have a broader category of "Craft Produced" which would cover everything other than distilled on site. I suspect the first poster would actually more strongly object to this than the original "Craft Blended" moniker. The ACDA or other organizations may not really want to take on doing this task in any case, because an organization that is certifying incurs additional liabilities, and in particular, if running as a 501©6, has to be careful how this affects tax status. As per my earlier comment in another thread, I think there can be advantages to having the non-profit trade association (ACDA) do some things and the private institute (ADI) do other things, particularly if this is done in a cooperative and coordinated way. Then everyone may benefit synergistically.

We have a tube-in-tube from Thermaline, 1.5" ID for pumping the mash through, 10' total length (5' with U-bend), less than $3K. Could have been longer for that price, but we were space constrained.

There are no mandatory requirements for TTB for security beyond locks specified, physical security of the space, and that you have to have means to provide "other" security measures. You describe your security measures in your permit application or update, and they review it. For example, we are not alarmed (beyond fire), but we have 24 hour automated video camera surveillance.

Our Prairie Sunshing ™ wildflower honey spirit just went into distribution in Chicagoland with Fresh Coast Distributors. This is going to be a bit of a challenge, because each batch varies somewhat in flavor and nose depending on the honey harvested. We note that on the label, and we number each batch. The plan is to provide tasting notes on our web site for each batch in the future. I've been aware of Luke's honey spirits from Swanson's, but haven't tried it. We haven't tried aging it yet, haven't been able to make enough. But with used bourbon barrels becoming available, I think we will give it a go later this year.

We should compare honey spirits sometime. We haven't aged any yet, selling all the unaged product for the time being. Finally went into local distribution with it though. Ever get out Chicago way?

You might want to talk directly with whomever is your local PALL distributor representative, or other manufacturer. There are a lot of fine differences between the different filter types. The Enolmatic and Enolmaster use the same filter type (10" flat closed end cartridge), but then there can be a wide range of specific variations on pore size, type, material, reinforcement, etc.

In 2013, Saturday is the 28th, NOT the 29th. If you are proposing the 28th, I think the Chicago area craft distillers and the ICDA (Illinois Craft Distillers Association) are all in. North Shore Distillery and Koval are already organizing the Second Annual Chicago Craft Spirit Week, which will be Sept 24-28, 2013, thus ending on the proposed Distillery Day! The Chicago Indie Spirits Expo is also that week. Is someone setting up a web site for National Distillery Day? At least a Facebook page? Would be a good task for the newly formed American Craft Distillers Association.

Look great for a boiler, not not on a direct fire still. For those, you would need an explosion-proof feedthrough.

the smaller 60g compressor will work for intermittent operation. the salesman is not incorrect, in that if you are going to run anything semi-continuously (like an agitator), the 60g will be over worked and likely fail eventually. for continuous operation of the pump, you should have a much larger industrial compressor.

Correct, the states determine the limitations on ownership of other alcohol related businesses. In most states, the craft/farm/micro distiller license explicitly includes ability to have limited or on site retail, for on or off premise consumption, of some type. So, it is not seen as a different business, but part of the the same business.