Patio29Dadio

Thanks MDH. That makes sense. It isn't that I am over extracted, just not aged enough (although my wife would say that I am plenty of both! Ha!). This brings up a challenge in gauging when enough is enough in a small barrel. I don't think I would have helped the situation leaving it in the new barrel any more time. There was already a lot of wood... and the char was beginning to become an unwanted "smoke" note. But the spirit was definitely not ready to bottle. With the small new barrel it seems that a healthy time in an old neutral barrel before bottling is going to be required.

Talk to Paul Hall at Affordable Distilling Equipment. I am doing this...

Thanks. This is my conclusion too. After a month resting in a neutral barrel it is already much better. I think I got full extraction without enough maturation time... the challenge with small barrels in striking that balance. Once we are in business this will be fun... making a more funky/dirty spirit to go into 53G barrels, while keeping some cleaner to go in the smaller barrels. However, it seems that to get the most out of the aging process for the small barrel product, there needs to be a finish rest in a neutral container. That is what I think I know at this point... which is not nearly what I need to know!

On the sugarcane juice question. I just came from a distillery visit where they were selling their own aged rum agricole. It is pretty good stuff. In our state you have to distill what you sell onsite at the distillery. And that is all these guys do... sell at their distillery and at a second retail location. The tour guy didn't know enough and the owner wasn't in a talkative mood about that particular topic. Frankly, I was surprised the were selling rum agricole because there are no sugar cane fields anywhere close to this distillery. They also don't ferment onsite. It appears to me that they are contracting with a remote brewery or distillery somewhere located next to sugarcane production to make their rum wash. But again I am guessing here. That would seem quite a hassle, but then again I don't know how else they are doing this. Ideas?

Great story Southernhighlander. If I fly-drive down to pick up my equipment, you have time for a cocktail or two and a cigar? I have a feeling you have a few more of these stories tucked away!

Great thread guys!

As a Type 74 license (craft distiller) you can have a tasting room and sell 3 bottles per person per day from your tasting room. But CA is a solid 3-tier state with no self-distribution option... which means having to romance a distributor to carry your stuff.

Seems to me that whenever the word "whiskey" shows up on the label they get a boost of energy to read the regs and find something they don't like.

99designs.com. Then get a real designer to take to the finish line for the printer working on an hourly basis.

What is the size of the boiler? Looks like a Paul Hall-made rig.

Didn't know you could co-market the distillery and brewery together and stay out of tied-house conflicts. Nice looking rig. Best of look on the new venture. Looking forward to seeing some on the shelf.

Jedd Hass - Thanks for the advice on the rum. This is unaltered white rum distilled from 50% dark molasses and 50% cane sugar. I have some left and there is a sweetness to the white rum that seems to be over-shadowed by the qualities of the aged version of itself. Silk City Distillers - Based on your comments, I am thinking I hit over-extraction on the small new oak barrel before I got enough maturation. I like your idea of allowing it to sit outside of the barrel or in a used neutral barrel to see what happens. This is a pre-distillery opening test, so I don't mind discarding the results as long as I learn something important. twalschact - Thanks for the reference. I will check it out. This gets to my concern that I have a bad batch of barrels. However, the nose on these tests tell me that the barrel is full of the good stuff one would expect from well-kept American white oak. I am going with over-extraction at this point... however, I am just going to leave the bourbon in the 10G barrel and test it every month or so to see how it progresses. I will pull a small bottle every test and label it for future reference. Thanks!

Acquired (all taxes paid) white dog bourbon and white rum from a friendly distiller to test different small barrels and entry proofs. Five gallon and ten gallon new oak barrels from Barrel Mill with #3 char. After four months in the 5 gallon at 60% ABV the rum seemed to have over-extracted... the funk was resolved, but the spirit has a more bitter, acrid and sharp finish and has taken on some of the barrel char... it does not have the long rum sweet finish I would expect. Very little vanilla and toasted brown sugar notes that I would expect from brand new barrels. Bourbon in 10 gallon for six months is starting to give the same. It also entered at 60% ABV. Nose is great except for a mild charcoal hint from the barrel char (same as rum). Color is great. Barrels are in a storage shed with good temp swings. Both white spirits seemed perfect to me based on my experience with the un-aged variety. My question is related to my barrel-aging inexperience here. I know people are going to make the point of "see, that is what you get trying to use small barrels!" But either the over-extraction is extreme, I have some bad barrels, or I mistaking over-extraction with under-maturation. At this point I am just going to let it keep aging and check it every 3 weeks or so. But hoping someone can share some knowledge of aging/maturing evolution to help me diagnose what might be happening here.

Don't think this will work for a CA type 74.

Good to see you guys are growing!

Denver Distiller - Thanks. Get your points related to the fact that this NOT beer making with a boil. But going back to read his mash protocol, my thought was that he was depleted of 02 and getting a stuck lag phase. Or he could pitch at a higher rate? Your point I think here is that he needs to get to fermentation ASAP... and so a shorter lag phase would be preferable. Makes sense. I know that I have had some bourbon mash fermentation problems with butryc acid hits that seemed to be remedied with a shot of O2 in the mash before the pitch. But I also upped my pitching rate at the same time.... breaking my rule to control change variables given the interest to prevent having to discard another bad mash run.

I am late to the conversation here, but reading the mash protocol my first guess was that the fermentation start needs more O2. Starting out with an anaerobic mash, please the issue with the RO water, it sounds like the yeast are not doing their aerobic party before they have to get to work. That mash protocol includes a lot of cooking and resting which would deplete O2. I have a wand with a HEPA filter and a high quality aeration stone connected to an O2 tank and bubble the mash for a few minutes right after it goes into the fermenter and before pitching. From my perspective getting the yeast colony up to strength before going anaerobic does a lot to kill off the foreign organism risk.

Thanks for the replies. C&D guys are putting together a design recommendation for me. They agree that poly tanks should work. Sent them my dimensioned floor-space diagrams including the potential for a yard-space located tank to get a final recommendation and quote. We are talking an insulated cold water tank kept around 60 degrees by the glycol chiller with a heat-exchange loop, and a non-insulated condenser return tank to cool-down over night and be returned to the cold water tank in the morning to charge for the next run. Maybe an outside fan-only heat exchange loop for the hot water to boost cooling capacity at night. Then there is the mash water. I am thinking I need a separate tank for that as my mash water condition and my water for tank chilling are going to have different properties. Am I wrong there? Good point about the capacity of the tankless water heater. Maybe I should just start out like a normal guy and heat my mash water in the mash tun to strike temp, start the agitator and add grains. One distiller I know says he saves time and gets more extraction and flavor by simultaneously filling the mash tun with 120 degree mash water and the grain bill and then heating to mash temp. Probably as many ways to do this as there are notes on a piano.

Saving water is critical in my neck of the wood-less woods. Of course we also want to design-in efficiency for time and energy use heating and cooling water. So, need some help/advice for the following: Considering using a tankless water heater pulling from a source tank of pre-filtered, pre-conditioned water to pre-heat mash water to 110 to 120 degrees. This then saves steam boiler time to heat to mashing temps. Considering a return tank to store heated condenser water. This heated water can be used for the CIP process, with the remainder cooled down overnight to return to the cold water tank that is the source water for chilling kept at chilled temp by the glycol chiller. So I am talking about three water tanks... one for the chilled water, one for the hot water return from the condenser and one for the pre-filtered conditioned water going to the tankless water heater for the mash water. The chilled water tank I am considering is poly - double-walled / insulated. I am thinking that the other two tanks need to be stainless because of the heat of the return water, and opportunity for plastic notes in the filtered/conditioned water. Interested in any comments, advice related to this. Thanks!

I think distance from ??? is a state and local issue. California is 600 ft from schools and churches. But even that is subject to review and exception.

Old topic, but here is a good read that answers most if not all of these questions... http://www.oregon.gov/bcd/codes-stand/Documents/interp-15-02-craftdistillery.pdf

I am closing in on selecting a property for a startup craft distillery in Northern CA. The favorite one is two buildings on a single commercial lot. One would be the barrel storage building the other would house the distillery operations. The barrel storage building is brick surrounded with windows (see the attached image). I assume the precious liquid within would not be impacts by getting hit with sunlight through these windows, but wanted to get some feedback from anyone with knowledge on this. Thanks!

I make those 504 loans in CA, Nevada and Arizona. You are correct that it would be 10% or 15% down and it will also be lower interest than would a conventional bank loan if you could find one. One thing about the 504 though, is that it is not for startups... although startups are eligible. Generally for a startup to qualify you would need more down and possibly need to pledge assets like a home as collateral. The SBA 504 can also be used for equipment loans. The size of the total project financed can be $10 million or more. However, the most important thing is a really good plan with well done financial projections and assumptions. Look up "Certified Development Company" in your area and talk to a CDC loan officer to help you out. There is another SBA project called the 7a that banks participate in. These can provide real estate loans, equipment loans, working capital. Lastly, there is the Community Advantage loan. CDCs provide those and they can go as high as $250k. That product is a good one to consider for equipment financing. You would probably need to put down 20-25% if unsecured, but the terms would be much better than using 10-20 credit cards. The bottom line is that there is financial help out there if you have your act together.