jocko

Hello.

With the ADI conference next week in Vegas and the weather now potentially impacted by huricane Hilary, what is ADI going to do if attendees cannot get there?  I just got a notification that my flight on Monday may be impacted by the weather.  I'm signed up for the Wiskey Summit on Tuesday morning.  Will ADI delay the sessions?  It's pretty expensive for a small company to attend in the first place, and if the sessions or conference are impacted -- then what? 

Hopefully someone from ADI can chime in. 

Run. 

@richard1,  I like the interface you use.  Curious what are all the bits you collect.  My program does some things and I continue to expand it.  I'd like to make it more useful to others. Right now, I basically use it to keep an eye on things.  Alarms for any point monitored, which has proven very useful for when something unexpected happens.  I also track every collection point every 60 seconds.  There's a separate program that just plots the temps over time on a chart which is a good visual to see if something is trending in an unexpected direction.   I can glance at that and see instantly when something may be needing adjustment. 

I'd like to do more.  I want to make it somewhat mistake-resilient so that someone can be trained to monitor things and what to do when key events happen.  

What do you monitor?  What do you store?  What do you do with all your data?  Please share as much as you are willing.  

We ended up abandoning a number of locations.  Some jurisdictions are simly too difficult to deal with.  We found a suburb just outside of the city limits and they actually want tax dollars.  You still need to do proper architecture and safety measures but things like a 1-hour firewall are cheap compared to other things.  Having departments willing to listen and architects willing to discuss actual building code vs. wish-list or fear-based demands helps.  Also, we did a lot of research on our own with respect to the International Fire Codes that most building codes are based upon and were able to make engineers and fire department comfortable that we were as concerned about safety as they are.

We now have a new project in a small historic town where we want a pilot distillery and tasting room.  Old building, no fire sprinklers, so we will see how this adventure goes. 

Be careful, the "cap on foam" is a key part of keeping oxygen out of the can and preserving the contents.  We want enough foam to start ozzing out undwer the cap before it hits the seamer.   If there's too much breakout, it could be over-carbed or have other issues in the lines.  

I've found only a handful of posts on this, and none recent. 

We are considering making a bierschnaps.  We are also a brewery, so this could be quite easy when we have an issue with a beer (oxidation, etc) and turn what might otherwise be dumped into a product.  I did this experimentally and it was quite nice.  

Anyone doing this commercially?  Most concerned about public reception.  Might be better off just making neutral out of it if it's just going to sit there.

Talk to your local breweries.  There may even be a mobile canning option locally for you.

Be prepared to witness ungodly waste.  Your product flowing down the drain... it's part of the process for small canning operations. Our first mobile canning attempt lost about 30% of the product.  We now have our own canning line, but still lose an uncomfortably large amount. 

Meanwhile, the FTC is only concerned with big high profile companies. 

I'll be there. Curious what adiforum contributors will be there. 

... and starting small and trying to bootstrap through sales can be a rough slog.  When we started our brewery, we researched for years and decided to start with a fairly large system.  Best move.  Many have started small and struggled to keep up, and upgrading while trying to produce and sell is tortuous, and they are constantly battlng space constraints.  We took the same approach to the distillery.  I'll say that the distillery side is much more complicated (steam vs. direct fire at the brewery), more involved from an architecture & engineering, fire department, etc. perspective.  The ROI is also much more difficult.  As with brewing, operating the distillery doesn't involve much distilling.  Most time is spent on the other aspects.

Think long & hard because you will be spending 7 days a week 12+ hours (many more on some days) for years getting it into a place where it can begin to return some of the investment. 

There are numerous consultants here like @Kindred Spirits who can help you get started.

Thanks, Alex.  I've done some silicon "casting" in the past.  Perhaps time to do it again.  

Hmm... interesting.  Worth a shot. 

Hello. 

Like many stills our components are all connected by DIN fittings.  One or two of them are virtually impossible to get perfect seals at all temps. 

I cannot tighten the fittings any more than they already are, and suspect that if I just had washers slightly thicker that it would bridge whatever tiny gaps exist.

Anyone know how to find such gaskets?  I suppose worst case I can cut thin rings from silicon and put them into the gasket ring beneath the normal gasket.

Thoughts? 

750 liters.  1500L still.  So, a single stripping run from a new recipe.  No H&T. 

Hello!  Had a major screw up getting ready for a spirit run.  I use the SNAP-51 and it must have been set to the wrong mode or something because when I did my dilution calc, I ended up adding way too much water. Now I have a 16% still charge.  Been kicking around a few option:

- Distill it one more time, make it a triple-distilled, then run & dilute as per normal on a third run.

- Distill it, cutting heads & tails then use it to dilute my next (identical) batch to desired proof before barreling (along with water likely)

- Distill it "per normal", make heads & tails cut, end up with a spirit lower than normal, and barrel it lower than normal.

Thoughts?  Anyone else make this bonehead mistake?

Just seeing this.  What is the recommended PBW/gallon to get a 1% solution?  I went to 5 star's web site and can't see mixing guides outside of "1-2 ounce/gallon"

Hey all.  Finally got our licensing squared away and looking to procure new barrels. 

I know they are in short supply. 

Level 3 char ideally. 

Hello. Curious what people use butter as opposed to fermcap on stripping runs.  Fermcap works, but just curious about a more "natural" approach, and what the amount per gallon of butter people using it might use.  Is there a flavor contribution from it? 

If not butter, then what?  Olive oil?  Other natural product?  

Ok.  Understand.  This is more of a continuous thing vs. a one-time batch which for some reason my mind was thinking.   Keep it wet, use it until its time to change out the carbon. 

What's the purpose of having the product exit at such a high point?  Are you not trapping a large amount of product in the calendar?

Kind of an old thread, but wondering if anyone has adopted TTB Tamer for their distillery?   Just did aa demo and it seems pretty limited, but distillery side is new to us (been using TTB Tamer for the brewery side of the business). 

Still have barrels?

Depends on the ingredients.  Ingredients that contain water/juice will lose water content and gain ethanol content. 

The only way to do it properly is to distill it per the TTB test, or run it through an alcohol meter like an Anton Pair Alcolyzer and Density Meter.  Or, spend $30 and send it to White Labs for a measurement on their equipment. 

You'd be surprise how far off your manual questimate can be based on the ingredients macerated. I was.

Interested. Cooperage?  Price?

Hello!  This is a topic with many posts, but most of them are a number of years old.

Our current insurance company has no interest in covering our new distillery.  We are looking for an incurance company that will cover both, as we are a single legal entity.

We've found Philadelphia Insurance Companies, but want to shop around a bit to see what other costs/options there are.

Anyone have an insurance company (not a broker) that they recommend?  Contact info please.