jeffw

I have read some of the threads on proofing liqueurs and so forth and thought I had everything straight, but upon watching the TTB webinar (in tools/tutorials section of ttb website) on lab distillation I am confused. To give a quick rundown, they want you to fill a volumetric flask at 60 degress. Pour this into your lab still and rinse it with 50% the volume with distilled water. Proceed to distill up to 96% the original volume. Add the remaining 4% as distilled water and then calculate your proof of obscuration as the difference between this and your original reading. Before watching this video, I would have planned to take a known quantity of distillate by volume and distilled all of it. At this point, add water to bring it back to the original volume at the original recorded temp (no real need to be 60 degrees technically...) and take the new proof. The difference between the original proof and the proof after distillation is your proof of obscuration. This means your original proof is your recorded plus the proof of obscuration. If anyone can explain the TTB version I would appreciate it. Was my original way of thinking correct or not? I don't understand why one would stop at 96% yield in the TTB's example as you would be leaving both sugars and alcohol in the lab still. All help is appreciated. This is for a Old Tom Gin that is being sweetened with maple syrup. As a little add on question, does anyone know what a normal range is for sugar quantity in Old Tom Gin? I took some off the shelf that show obscuration of 14 proof and one that was .5 proof. They both showed the same brix reading (but of course alcohol is throwing that way off on my refractometer reading). Rather I should say, what the upper limit is for added sugar, as I know you can get by adding none just increasing sweeter botanicals. Thanks and cheers!

I would be worried about building up pressure in your preheater. As I see it you are preheating a closed container, as it heats up you will have some issues.

My thought on the 160 proof regulation is that the average of your run should be below 160. To say the whole run should be below seems a little silly to me when you are running a pot still. I am not saying you are wrong Roger, that is just not how I interpret that definition. For the most part, you look at the volume question the TTB poses and so forth and you see they are basically thinking about a continuous still.

If you were to look around you could find most of these question are answered in the forums. You still would not need a wholesaler's license, but probably would stick with a DSP. Sprinkler's is a zoning/fire code issue. Do you plan to bottle more than 240 gallons in one room. In a barrel there is an exemption, but everything else counts towards a maximum allowable quantity. Your layout sounds fine but you could do all that in one room is you want to.

This is a pretty loose question and it depends how hands on you wish to be. If it is whiskey for instance, are they sending you filled barrels, white dog, product already bottled? A wholesaler permit is the permit a distributor would have. A distributor would only be getting bottled finished goods. If you were taking product in bulk form, you would need a DSP and some sort of bottling equipment and liquid transfer equipment. If you wanted to be a pure marketing company, I suppose you could have the FOB to a distributor be from the actual producer. Hope that helps.

I have a couple condensers I could sell, one of which I use on a 550 g Custom Metalcraft tote system. Send me a PM. I tried to send you one but your message box is full. Cheers, Jeff

Pretty much every glass company provides that bottle. Take your pick.

If you are going to have a boiler, I doubt you will need to use your radiant heater. I have never once turned my heat on, even when it was 20 below outside because my boiler kicks off so much heat. Just food for thought.

What is the taste of beta sisterol? I have noticed a slight funky taste (sorry, hard to describe the taste, slightly eucalyptus like) in some of my black swan barrels up to about 14 months (30 gallon barrel), but then it seems to fade away.

Why start on this side of the pond? If you like malt whiskey and don't want to do it in Scotland, maybe try Ireland.

The boiling the husk is an interesting thought. I have thought of that from the beer side of things of never lautering over 170. That said, bourbon is already made grain in with barley with no problem. Of course, the barley content is pretty low. I will be making my first stab at grain-in single malt next week, so I guess I shall see.

Cool. Love having a central place to put up used barrels.

My guess is you could call the TTB over and over again until you get the response you like, then document it. You almost never get the same response twice (assuming you talk to a different person),

As I have understood it from the TTB the answer on mixing 100% corn, with 100% rye, 100% barley, etc, to a consistency of 51% corn still will not qualify it as bourbon. No idea why. I love the idea of doing it that was as you can blend to exactly what you want later. Maybe 6 year old corn with 4 year old barley and 2 year old rye is the best bourbon. TTB won't really let us do it and call it bourbon. I believe the answer to what the % is would be dry weight pre-mashing. If you get a better, ie, you can do it, answer, please post it alone with the agent that said it was fine. Cheers, Jeff

Better prices than Flavorman? I believe they are the one that make New Amsterdam flavoring.

I believe Spring 44 was (if not is) running a hot propylene glycol system of a navien water heater. You could ask them how they like it and it's efficiency.

Seems low to me. You ever try with a stripping run? If so, what was your uncut pg?

I think the 5.2 would only be a reasonable approximation for a corn based mash because of the high starch level.

That is really cool. How did you get the table in excel?

Not sure on that Palmetto. I wish there was an easy button for that. If it looks like there is enough interest, I will probably give it a go. I have coded a decent amount now in PHP and MYSQL to get my TTB reporting in place, but adding this would be a challenge on time of course. Ideally it would be free, but perhaps putting a small fee somewhere in the process and I can pay a professional full-time coder to build the site for me. Not sure what the best option is, but if I code it, it would definitely take longer. Personally I would be willing to pay a small fee to list my used barrels on a site like this, but perhaps others are disposing of their barrels regularly and easily and this seems like a waste to them. I get solicitations for barrels already, but it would be easier just to do orders and such through one site and when I get an inquiry just point them to the site. I think all the money and such would go between the distillery and end buyer. Still thinking it through a little...

I was thinking of something a little more comprehensive. By this I mean you could have wineries also post to it and brewers find it via search. Leave it open to the guys that are reselling in bulk too, like Rocky Mountain and so forth. Basically, setup a system that posts barrels currently for sale, dump schedules, ratings on seller, etc. As I say this I think of my lack of free time, but I wish something like this existed and I imagine that brewers did too. No need to setup something so comprehensive though if no one is interested.

Would people want a website setup dedicated to reselling barrels? I would personally love it and don't want it on my distillery page, but I have never seen one (at least where they acted as an Ebay and didn't sell the barrels themselves). I have given a little thought to this as a way to consolidate listing for used barrels. Thoughts?

Sherman is awesome. If you are a DIY kind of person then consider a bcs-460 or 462 controller and build one out yourself. That said, Sherman kind automate your whole distillery.

um, no. Depends what you want. My closure which is an aluminum screw cap runs me .24 after shipping. If you did a plastic one I have heard it all the way down to .05. I fancy bartop will be more. Order 2,000 vs 50k factor in too.

I like my Columbia. Installing two boilers would definitely cost more and does not make sense to me. Get one that is big enough to run both at the same time.