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Pour Decisions

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Posts posted by Pour Decisions

    Distillery Management Software Options and Experiences

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, Bier Distillery said:

    Surely if you're capable of running everything by yourself, you're also capable of filling out three forms a month.  Once you understand how they work (far less complex than understanding how to properly run a still), together they might take a half hour to complete.  Honestly, all of these programs are over priced for your size of operation.  You'd be throwing money away.  All of them are likely overly complex for what you're doing meaning you're actually going to spend more time updating the software than just filling out forms.

    Now, if their subscriptions were more like $25 a month (until you grow and need more of the features), then they might make sense.

    I understand that running a software company for such a limited distillery market at $25 a month is probably impossible.  But you'd score getting a large account offsetting giving the software away to the little guys.

    Appreciate the info. i agree the expense it considerable for a small startup. I'll do some more research into how other small guys are recording the info needed for reporting. 

    Re-using bottles?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    With bottles being somewhat short supply and tougher to get quickly, do any of you accept your sold bottles to be returned? I've seen a somewhat local distillery offering a discount off the next bottle purchase for each returned bottle. I do not know their process but I would imagine they are washing and sanitizing and perhaps re-labelling.  I have not located anything in the TTB regulations preventing this, but looking for your thoughts?

    Small facility and ventilation, advice/input needed

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Working on my small facility plans and looking for more info regarding ventilation. My AHJ is pretty lenient but I want to make sure we are safe. I have an RKI PS2 unit that we'll install to alert us of any high levels. I planned to have a low cfm small in-wall fan unit that will be mounted around 24" from the floor to evacuate any gases and was planning a higher cfm in-wall fan to bring in fresh air. I'm at a loss as to how to calculate my ventilation needs. Do I need to match the cfm's on the two fan units to turn evenly over the airflow? For reference, my square footage is 675 and my still size is 150 gallons, so when I say small facility, yep, it's small!

     

    Any input/recommendations?? 

    WTB-Bottle Filler

    in Wanted To Buy

    Posted

    On 9/22/2021 at 11:22 PM, Cru Systems said:

    Hi sappirexx - I apologize for the late response to this. We have qty 4 Bottle Fillers that should be ready to ship out in the next 2 weeks. They are gravity machines that can accept either an electric or pneumatic pump if needed.

    Visit us at crusystems.com to see videos and pricing of this machine as well as all the other bottling equipment we carry. We sell only American and Italian built machines - nothing from China.

    Thank you!

    -Steve   steve@crusystems.com

    Steve, Your link needs fixed... colon in wrong position causing dead link

    Baine Marie Conversion to Low Pressure Steam?

    in Equipment

    Posted

    On 10/19/2021 at 12:29 PM, Southernhighlander said:

    Yes,  We have a conversion kit for our own baine marie stills.  First you must have inner pot and jacket wall thicknesses of at least 3 mm for 6 psi steam and at least 4mm for up to 15 PSI steam.  Our kits consist of high pressure clamps, Teflon gaskets and end caps for your heating element ports as well as an appropriately sized Apollo ASME rated section VIII pressure relief valve for your steam jacket and the appropriately sized Apollo vacuum relief valve for your steam jacket. paul@distillery-equipment.com

    Paul, Are your standard BM units are capable of this conversion or do they need specified that way when ordering?

    Bottle shortage?

    in Packaging

    Posted

    On 8/19/2021 at 11:56 PM, LCS_distillery said:

    New to distilling, just received my DSP and still pre-production, but have been brewing for 20+ years.  I can’t speak specifically to bottles, but have been importing a 40hq container of cans per month from China for nearly a year. The 25-30% tariff and duty are not the issue, since the glass and aluminum can prices are so low. Shipping is the problem... container rates have gone from $5K per container to $16K+ in the past 8 months. It’s unsustainable 

    I have an average of 10 containers of cans coming into my east coast warehouses every month. Freight is definitely a factor. My domestic sources actually end up costing less per can than the imports due to freight. 

    Over Charred Whiskey

    in Whiskey

    Posted

    I would also say it was DE. That stuff has a ton of uses and filtration is one. While there are different grades of DE, it is the stuff that used to be used in swimming pool filters, if it can clear up green algae, certainly it can clear up your tainted spirit.

    Chilling/Chiller

    in Equipment

    Posted

    10 hours ago, PeteB said:

    If anyone has an issue with enough economical cooling water I suggest you consider a continuous still, at least for the stripping run. 

    With the correct simple design they need NO = ZERO = ZILCH cooling water and  no chiller unit.

    Continuous stills sound complicated and expensive but a stripping one is very basic and should be much cheaper than a pot of similar output.

    And they use way less heat energy and so are much cheaper to run.

     

    1 hour ago, PeteB said:

    Paul, you make me think I should patent my design, but I am sure it must be used elsewhere.

    The condensers on my continuous stills are as described 5 posts above, a long set of Liebig condensers in series.

    The coolant for the condensers is the feed stock(wash, beer, wine or whatever)

    The cold (room temperature) wash travels in the opposite direction (counterflow) to the vapour and condenses it, by the time the wash reaches the height of the still it is almost to boiling point, then it drops into the top of the stripping column. 

    With enough length of Liebig and adjusting the feed rate there is no need for any extra cooling.

    If the feed wash is hotter than the desired temperature of alcohol output then a short section of Liebig could be added the the output end of the condenser and run a small volume of external coolant through it.

    Let me know if any readers are having trouble visualising this and I will do rough sketch this weekend.

    :ph34r:

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