KaiWalk

Message sent RE: spool & reducer

Thx Southhighlander, I may get back with you. HedgeBird, I understand what you're saying with these parts. Previously, one of the guys broke a glass window on the column and everyone I went to, said I needed to go the manufacturer. I was forced to replace it with a stainless steel blank due to lack of response (or in the case of the their California person, hollow promises of delivery). Of course, the day after I did that, we found a box of spare parts in an adjoining warehouse and had 1 replacement window & 1 gasket.

I'm dealing with an odd situation & need help sourcing info & parts. Here's the Cliff's Notes version. This distillery was founded in 2005 & the guy bought a 600L Holstein. Two columns, 15 plates plus dephleg. He was well-funded but oblivious to the hows & whys of distilling. He put it together himself with fellow investors & I've heard stories that they slung a ratchet strap over a gas line & hoisted parts that way. After running it a couple times & realizing he had no idea what he was doing, he started buying GNS, blending in back and lying to everyone about the product. (I'm not saying GNS is bad, just the way he went about it. TTB shut him down & fined him several times.) Long-story, short, he went out of business and some new partners came in & bought the building & equipment last October. The original distillery was named "Spirit of Montana Distilling" and the new team renamed it "Spirits of Montana" with a goal of showcasing Montana-grown grains. Unfortunately, the original founder did business by short-paying, late-paying, or not paying everyone possible to the point where I am struggling with vendors because they think we're still the same outfit. Slowly, I'm able to get them to come around & do business with us , but to date, I have had zero-luck getting any help from the manufacturer. No response from the Germany people & their guy in California has promised me things several times and failed to deliver. I'm just guessing that the equipment was never fully paid for. Even if we completely changed names, they always ask for the serial # on the equipment. I need to replace a broken sight-glass on one of the holding tanks, and the pump under the holding tanks also needs repair or replacement. Those of you who operate Holstein equipment, where do you get parts?

Thx for the feedback all. CountySeat: there's one other distiller in town who's coming by Thursday. ForeShot: Yeah, AH has actually not been very helpful. Previous ownership owed everyone in the world money when he folded, so I'm getting very slow responses, or straight refusals to work with us. We didn't do enough to change the name so potential vendors are thinking we're the same company. Slowly, I have them coming around though. JustAndy: Billings MT. Luckily, I have a finance degree which basically means, I love crunching numbers and replicating results. I will track every knob & resultant change, one at a time. Re: getting a drum of GNS, the govt shutdown hit just as we were setting up online TTB access so we're at the back of the line for all of our label approvals and I haven't done a transfer in bond form to even buy GNS yet. I'll be learning quickly though. I'm brewing a basic bourbon/moonshine batch 1: to test my recipe & gravity #'s & 2: I know that I can start with 100% flow rates on everything and work down to try and find 155-160P range. And if I screw it up (when I do), load it back up, water it down and do it all over again.

So here's my issue. The previous owner was losing money and went out of business. New partners came in, bought the building, attached brewery and very small distillery with this oversized still (for the space allocated to distilling). I've interned at a few places that have similar equipment, however all of those had automation. I could look at temps in various parts of the process and make adjustments accordingly. This beauty is 100% manual. E.g. If temps are too high at the one thermometer on the columns (between last plate & dephleg 1) the only change I can make are hand turns of valves in back. My current plan is to run a cheap wash next week and learn by doing, slow and low. Suggestions?

Hey there everyone, Formerly unemployed hobbyist who met a person who'd just bought a brewery & distillery and needed a distiller. Now I'm trading a 15 gallon pot for a 600L Holstein. Keeping the same Vodka & Gin that were run here previously, but adding a Bourbon/Moonshine recipe to be sold both ways and potentially scaling up a Rum recipe. Of course, none of this will happen until after the govt. shutdown ends. I'll be leaning on these forums for a lot of assistance.