Backset

Foreshot, thanks for the very helpful info.

- Large tourist destination: Skiing in the winter, hiking/biking/fishing/camping in the summer, hunting in the fall. Only times we don't see tourists are in the shoulder seasons (April/early May/October/November). - Producing only whiskey and some rum, and have first whiskey release at 1.5 years. This would be attached to a brewery so beer would pay the bills while whiskey and rum ages. There will be a cocktail program. We can also self distribute locally and beyond in our state. - Competition: 2 breweries locally, 1 other distillery (I happen to be the head distiller here). I obviously know how many cases a year we produce, but we've been around for 12 years. I was mainly looking for some average data to add to my business plan for starting numbers. - Marketing: Will be fairly aggressive at least locally, good portion of our budget will go to this. Location: about 6 miles outside of downtown, but in an area thats building its own commercial district with current thriving businesses. Lots of old time tourists and locals alike coming here to get away from the July/August tourism madness down the road. I understand we could sell it all or sell none, I'm not that dense, I just wanted to know if all the pieces line up, is 500-1000 cases in the first year of release a fair number? I see two people posted 150 cases year 1 and 500 for another.

Stand them on end, then shrink wrap around the middle of the barrel to keep the bung in place and face bung inwards to the pallet.

I am just wanting to know what would be a reasonable amount of cases a distillery with a 300 gallon hybrid still, filling roughly 1-2 barrels a week, could sell in their first year after releasing product? Let's say it is mostly self distribution locally, tasting room sales, and maybe 35% - 40% of cases going to a distributor. Thanks.

Looking for recommendations for a rolling platform that I can move between my mash tun and still? not really needing to lift anything heavy up them, just transfer and water hoses mostly.

Would love to hear your results. Once I get ahead of my schedule I’ll start playing around with it myself and report back here. Under pitching this yeast with no Off-flavors seems to ring true throughout the brewing community. Lots of benefits to this Kveik yeast so far, and I’ll be curious to see what it’s downsides might be as people experiment more with it.

Ok cool. I also saw that Lallemand will be releasing the Voss strain of Kveik here sometime shortly. Did you guys play around with Voss at all before moving to the Hornindal strain? Sounds like the Voss seems to be more neutral and citrusy and Hornindal more pineapple and earthy. Is that what you are seeing Glenlyon?

Crazy, I just recently got back into home brewing after a couple year break. As I started looking at home brew forums the talk of Kveik was everywhere. As I looked into it, it sounded like a great yeast to try for rum, and low and behold what do I see on the ADI Forums? Glenlyon, where did you source your Kveik from? I looked at Omega Yeasts pricing and for a 20BBL pitch it was way too expensive. Being a former brewer before a distiller, I love the idea of playing with beer yeasts for rum, but have felt a bit restricted to dry yeast due to the expense of liquid yeast.

Thanks for the clarification PatioDadio. This thread is really bringing me up to speed. As far as the "no chemical treatment' on that boiler, the representative I'm in contact with told me due to the materials of construction (copper clad tubes and a thermoplastic lined tank) there is no need for any chemical treatment to maintain the boiler. However, and especially due to our high calcium content, they still recommend the use of a water softening system for our incoming water. Lastly, depending on our steam distribution system and still materials, we may want to check there are no chemical treatment recommendations for those items. I'm hoping someone with a Sellers H-Series boiler chimes in here and lets us know how their system has been doing.

Thanks for the thorough replies. I have asked the manufacturer about their "no chemical treatment" system and will reply here with their answer. I know they are the only boiler maker that I know of that has this system on their boilers, or at least on the H-Series boiler. Starcat, you mention using the boiler for all our hot water needs, and this is actually what we are planning on doing. We will have a 1200 gallon mixing tank for creating our rum wash and would like to use the boiler to heat our hot water, so will a condensate return be beneficial for this application or is there another item needed to turn this boiler into a hot water heater? From my quick reading on condensate returns it is primarily used to return condensation back into the boilers feed water. Thanks for helping out, we are expanding from direct fire stills to a steam jacketed still, so this is all new to me, but I want to make sure I know what I'm doing. Thanks again for all your guys' help so far.

As I have been trying to educate myself on boilers, a few questions have come to fruition that I can't seem to find an answer for. I was hoping some folks who have been down the road of purchasing a boiler would know the answers. #1: Is a blow down seperator necessary? From my understanding it seems like an integral part for maintaining safety within the still house/boiler room. #2: What is the ball park installation cost of a boiler? We are looking at a 60 HP boiler. #3: Opinions on Sellers or Aldrich boilers? These are the two manufacturers we have narrowed it down to. I like that Sellers doesn't need any chemical treatment, but I like the footprint and the 5:1 turndown of the Aldrich better, vs. the 3:1 turndown on the Sellers. Thanks.

Sudzie and RBDistiller, are there things that you dislike about the corker or does it just run perfectly with standard routine maintenance? Also, was adding it to your existing bottling line fairly easy or was there any extra fabrication needed? We are planning on adding it to our current conveyor belt if it fits, but an additional conveyor belt may be necessary.

Thanks for the reply guys. Looks like the Model D from CCR Engineering is exactly what we are looking for. I don’t think I would have found them on my own googling corkers. Another win for the ADI Forums. Thanks again.

I am looking for recommendations on a automated corker that will fit in-line with our current bottling setup? Would be nice to have it on a conveyor belt that can integrate to our labeling machines conveyor belt. The manufacturer that made our labeling machine does not build corkers. Any recommendations welcome.

For Sale: 53 gallon Stranahans Whiskey Barrels that have been filled 3 times with rum. We have 30 of these barrels available. $75.00/Each For Sale: 60 gallon Sutcliffe Vineyards Port, French Oak Barrels that previously held our 3 year old bourbon barrel aged rum. These were finishing barrels and only saw rum for 6 months. We have 8 of these barrels available. $100.00/each Contact: Gilles Huegi gilles@montanyadistillers.com

Thanks for the help. I’ll cut my DAP and Fermaid K back even more and maybe give it a second charge at 12-15 hours in as this yeast seems to ferment fast. I did run this wash and I was pleasantly surprised by the flavors it produced. Heads were very fruity, a lot of pear aromas, hearts got more mollases funk, leathery with hints of that fruitiness, and tails stayed similar. I just need to figure out how I can get this yeast to attenuate further down. I will be making the same wash except with the SR yeast to see what happens and go from there.

So a little update with RM. I’ve done two fermentation’s with this yeast. Both are 100% blackstrap mollases. First time I fermented at 86 degrees, added DAP and Fermaid K at the start of fermentation and then another charge at 36 hours. It took off like a rocket for 20 hours and went down from 1.075 to 1.033 and then completely stopped. After 48 hours of letting it sit and hoping it would go down more, it got a very nasty phenolic (band aid) smell to it. I ended up dumping it. Second fermentation was the same except I reduced DAP and Fermaid K charge in half, adding it at the beginning and at 20 hours. Once again, around 22-24 hours after pitching yeast it came down from 1.077 to 1.034 and then completely dropped out again. At around 25 hours it started getting a phenolic aroma again so I crashed the Ferm temp to 60 degrees and will be Distilling tomorrow. Also pH was at 5.32 before pitching yeast and actually went up to 5.59 after 24 hours. Does anyone have any idea what is going on here? I’m going to try this yeast with our cane sugar recipe and see what it does. I have a feeling it has to do with the blackstrap.

I’m also wondering about pH on my 100% mollases wash. My pH came in at 5.74, but would love to be somewhere around 5.2-5.4. I am wanting to make a heavier and estery rum so not necessarily worried about staving off bacterial inoculation. Does anyone have a comparison in flavor profiles from using backset vs. lactic acid to lower their pH? Or is there no flavor difference?

Awesome thanks guys. Would you say it’s got more character than say EC1118? I am wanting to make a heavier bodied rum with more of a ester profile than what EC1118 contributes.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with Distilamax RM or SR and what their results were with a mollases based rum? Or just experiences with any style rum. Thanks

Hey everyone, I figured it was time to join this awesome community of industry professionals and spirit fanatics. I originally come from a Brewing background but as of 2 years ago I became the full time distiller for a rum distillery here in Colorado. I’ve been loving the transition and am head over heels for Spirits. I hope I can become a valuable asset around here as all of you have been to me in the past. Cheers, Gilles aka Backset