Rickdiculous

Try Andrea at Valley Malt, www.valleymalt.com. She was the ADI 2011 Scholarship winner and gave a great talk on starting up a malt house. Her and her husband Christopher (I believe) built and designed their equipment as no small units existed when they started. I believe I remember her saying they would be interested in helping others start small regional malt houses. Give her shout.

And can you please explain how you consider yourself small, while you are producing more in a one week than almost all of the people on this forum do a year. I would guess at 5000+ gallons a day you may be producing almost as much as all of us combined in a year. Just curious how $250K can help you.

I would give you this little nugget I have gotten from many of the people on this board and in the business: "Remember you are in the business of selling Whiskey, more than you are in the business of making it." Making is the easy part. Do not short your advertising/marketing budget. Start checking out the facebook pages and presence of people like Headframe Spirits and Tuttletown Distilling. So many of the members here have great stuff they are doing on Facebook and the web. That connection to the audience is key. Good Whiskey won't sell it self if no one knows about it.

Ryan, I bought that book myself when I was beginning to look around. It is really an enthusiasts book giving you basic descriptions and histories of differing spirits. It will have very little technical information at all. I enjoyed it as a history and basic look into the business. I have the book John is recommending and it is the textbook used by the MSU Distilling program. It is very science oriented and can be a bit of a tough read, but the information is the best technical stuff out there. You may also want to try "Fundamentals of Distillery Practice" Herman Willkie, and Joseph A Prochaska. It was written in 1943 as a manual for the Seagrams company. You also download Professor Kris Berglund's free book at http://www.artisandi...ILLING1.0.0.pdf, if you want a good introduction to the processes involved. I downloaded it and had it printed and bound at Kinkos. I was the first person to go through a trial run of two month distilling internship Kris is trying to start at MSU and I used his freebee and the Fermented Beverage Production books as texts for the course. Good luck, Rick

Well, maybe our grandchildren will get so lucky. Be sure to lose a few barrels in the back of the rick house.

Also, how about a basic job description? What do you expect this person to do for you? Make product, government compliance, maintenance, all of the above?

Forsyth gave me a three month turn around when I asked them for a quote on a still. That may be true only on the smaller stills. I was inquiring on 400L. You should think about what you want to make and what processes you want to run. I want to go traditional and run alembic with no rectification plates which is why I contacted them. Also their prices are a bit lower than Carl or Vendome.

For removing moisture from your tanks you can get an electric blow out valve that you can set to release moisture at varying intervals. It will take a huge amount of pressure off of your filter or inline drier.

Very beautiful little machine you have there. good luck and post more pictures as you get farther along.

I just want to give Mark Ward a plug here. I have been working with Glass, building furnaces and other gas fired machines as well as ceramic for over 20 years. Mark is the Industry go to guy for this type of thing and I couldn't recommend anyone better than him. If you have a need, he will find a solution.

Also, go to your local Farm Bureau or contact your state university's Ag Department. These guys know the law and will help you out tremendously with navigating the rules and regulations (especially the exemptions) for farm related activities. In many cases they will be able to point you in the direction of legal counsel who can help you out if they don't provide that for you. Start talking to your local (city and county) first. Talk to your fire marshall, who should know the NFPA codes and exemptions which will help you in describing what you are doing to others who need to know. Talk with your city and county clerks to find out who you will need to approach and talk to. I found many of these people more than helpful in my jurisdictions as creating jobs and opportunity seem to trump in this economic climate. Good luck and report what you find out as it may help others. Rick

Yes send a picture and manufacturer information.

I'm meeting with our realtor and looking to hire an electrician to inspect the system in place and it's upgradability. I'll post with the answers asap. thanks, Rick

The boiler will have to be propane out on the rural property I am looking at. Unless an electric of comparable efficiency can be found. I'll have to look into that. So for a ballpark are we talking 200amps, 400amps?

Alright, so I am liking a property I found more and more and I am enlisting a lawyer to determine if I can operate a distillery in the location. It has an outbuilding which can house the small 100 gallon still distillery I am looking to build. My question to those of you who are about this size, or maybe started around this size, is what was your power need? The current building has a 100 amp circuit box in it with room to spare or expand. Will this be enough if my plan is to make <1500 gallons a year? I plan on running a steam boiler/jacketed still. I appreciate your recommendations and experience. Rick

Thanks Ralph, that was kind of what I was thinking. Also, I recently moved to Minnesota so I no longer have to worry about what Alabama thinks. There is a reason there are no distilleries there currently. I'll contact the farm bureau today. Rick

I am looking at a property which I am pretty serious about getting for putting up my distillery and I am curious how those of you on Farms away from municipal water and sewer are dealing with your waste water. Are you neutralizing it and merely draining outside, into a septic, or into the ground? This property is serviced by a well and what should my concerns be with that type of disposal? This property is on a lake, on 6 acres (~1 wide and 6 long) with the house and building for distillery at the end farthest from the water. This lake is set aside as a waterfowl sanctuary. It is my understanding right now that it only prohibits hunting waterfowl in the area. What kinds of things should I take into account before committing to this property? I appreciate any advice you have, Rick

Yes

While some companies may want to hide their numbers to protect their interests, this information is not proprietary. For example, I found this from the state of Iowa with only a single search of "Iowa alcohol control board" and then clicked the "about" link in the nav bar, and went to annual report. http://www.iowaabd.com/files/client_files/522/2251/vendor_analysis.pdf Do a little research and you can find all of this. This is exactly what the big guys are doing to find out what your numbers are to see if they might want to buy you. Just put a little time in.

I'll second what John said about asking the states for the info. When I was planning my distillery for Iowa, before moving to minnesota, I got a complete list (which is available on the Iowa control board website) which gave every liquor company they allowed in the state and sales. So I could see how much Temple Rye, Cedar Ridge, and Mississippi River Distilling were sending to the state as my direct competition. They also listed the big guys too.

Search the forum, there was a long post on this very fire.

jlevic, As a good rule of thumb, based on what I have seen on this website with used stills in the last year. Regardless of company you will pay around 60-70% of the retail price for a used system. You can go to the for sale and see a few posts from the last couple of months for example on Carl, vendome, and Holstein stills in the 150L to 400L range. A 400L Carl was quoted to me around 58K new, but I would guess that price is rising as demand increases.

Gladhatter, Please list the suppliers you think fit that bill. I would sure like to know who they are.

tl5612, While I appreciate your definition, it is no way a legal interpretation of the law. While we talk on this forum, it is open to the public and has many viewers who are not active in any other fashion than to see what goes down. While I also enjoy everyone's advice, I wouldn't consider them friends until I actually met them. This is the same as posting a note on a board at work and considering your co workers to all be "friends". Chris is right to delete it and give warning.

The two compounds have different molecular sizes, and therefore the smaller ones fit in between the larger which causes the reduction in volume.