Mike Fiore

TCA normally is a flaw that affects wine, i had never heard of TCA affecting spirits. Simply because I managed to distill it out in the past and for the most part a lot of flaws that normally would destroy a wine will come out in the head of the distillation run. I can not see how TCA could affect your hose, pump, or anything like that. Anytime you buy a used piece of equipment, you should always have a detergent cleaning and this can be achieved by running detergent that is food safe through the hoses until they are clean. A remedy to eliminate TCA is to put a piece of polyethene plastic, so if you have any affected product just store it in a polyethene tank and the problems should vanish. TCA is a fungus and cleaning is a great prevention and at times a great cure.

from past experience the final product is very expensive it is made in France and retails approx. $90 or 375 ml

I do not know bot it is e good question

Welcome aboard, I am Mike Fiore from Fiore Winery and Distillery - Harford County, I would like to meet up with you any time that you are in the area. My number is 410-879-4007.

If you use a 250 mil Graduated cylinder on a level table fill the cylinder up to 225 ml + - read the hydrometer compensate + - for the temp.

304 or 316? Ive been told over and over that 304 stainless steel is adequate for wine, beer, & spirits. I could not understand the reason why you would spend the money for 316 when 304 is perfectly adequate to use. 316 is more expensive and is not quite as common as 304. I asked colleges and wine makers from all over the world and everyone unanimously has told me that 304 is perfectly fine to use. 316 is mostly used in the pharmasutical industry the only people that disagree with this are the Canadians. Is it possible that Canada knows something that the rest of the world has found out yet? In that case can anybody educate me on what could happen if you store spirits in 304? Ive been doing this for seven or eight years now, and i dont want to keep on doing it if it is totally wrong. Thanks.

GW KENT 1 800 333 4288 hase stainless steel barrels up to 75 gallons and 151/2 gallons keg

I have not, but WOW!!! what an Idea, and if the violate the space limit i recomend death by torture. Of course after the rain tax Maryland is the most liberal state

Nick, you are bringing up some very good points thinking about it we aireate our spirits from beginning to end probably more then once. from when it falls from the parrot to the holding tank to proofing until we bottle it. so i dont think it has that big of an input, simply because the large amount of alcohol will protect it from extreme oxidization as a matter of fact one would have to be very careless to do some damage. What i want to point out to you is, let me explain to you how we messure VA in wine, we simply take 10 mls of wine pour it into a catch still, we collect 100 mls of distillation, and we titrate that product to messure the right amount of va that exists in that wine. there is a number that is acceptable all over the world i always had a theory that if you can smell it or you can taste it you have already exceeded that number, however i have seen some pretty good brandys made from wines that had traces of VA. can you explain what is taking place. another problem that wine makers experience occassionally is h2s. what do we do to get rid of h2s, we use copper sulfate i have seen wines with a h2s problem go into a copper still and with some good airiation come out of there 100% clean. i remember when i was a young boy and studying hearing one of my teachers saying "i dont messure a great winemaker on how many gold medals he wins but on how many wines he brings to the market." yeah sometimes you have to work to get fine results... if its not broken dont fix it.

One thing is for sure I always learn somthing from my buddy Sherman. I have a theroy on wine making air is wine's worst enemy but in every rule there are exceptions. At what point in time do you introduce oxygen and for what reason, we introduce oxygen to wine almost immediately after fermentation simply to eliminate traces of H2S that was hidden in the wine. Whiskey and high alcohol spirits, I do not know. Thats when i depend on friends like you Sherman to set me straight. I bought a 30 gallon barrel from a reputable barrel co. to test it and see what it would do to my brandy, & personally i think in two years it did a great job. I was so excited that i ordered 4 more barrels from the same people, and boy what a dissappointment. The 4 brand new barrells didnt even hold a candle to the first one. Some questions that came to mind were, what is the desired ABV prefered when you first put it in wood and secondlly i have some french oak barrells that were used for chardonnay wine, they are medium toasted but if you look at them you would probably call them very light toasted, would you recommend useing them for rye whiskey. Personally i do not think they are toasted enough to do what i want it to but i understand that people are buying used wine barrells to age whiskey. What is your opinion on that sherman? Thanks.

Hey Rick first let me thank you for that info on independant staves this has got to be the cat's meow ive been buying barrels from Jerry DeLorenzo for the past 25 years and after i looked at the price that they are quoting me for hybrid barrels i feel like ive been overpaying for the wine barrels. Either that or whiskey barrels have to be a lot cheaper for whatever reason. I bought some barrels from another cooper, and the first one i got was beautiful so i turned around and bought 4 more and they left a LOT to be desired but i will definantly give my buddy Jerry a call. I figure if youre happy with what you are getting i should be happier too. Thanks.

Where do you get new barrells for $150 each plus shipping? Can you give me that information? I could use about 4 barrells...

In Maryland you can use the same fed. and state sales tax numbers. The items you sell should somewhat relate to wine. You will need to get A Traders License from your local Clerk of the Court. The license fee is determined by the inventory totals. Ofr course in MD now we will be paying a rain tax so go figure.

There are many reasons why I am honored and proud to be a member of ADI. The forum plays a big roll for me. I have been following it for several years now and what I really love is how one of us has a problem or thinks he has a problem how many great guys are out there willing to help. I raise my glass to all of you and I want to thank you with all my heart.

My biggest concern is if you have 5 wineries and 5 distilleries within a reasonable distance from one another, these customers would drink wines and spirit samples from 10 difference sources towards the end of the day somebody should take the car keys away from them and very polietly tell them they are not going to drive out of here. What i have found out over many years of experience is that some people have no sense of their limitations.

I've been part of various wine trails and even though we are a winery and distillery nobody has ever complained about it. Until now all my distillation consists of brandy, grappa, & from those spirits we made some infusions like limoncello and etc. We have some whiskey distilleries comming up in the neighborhood, and the question was brought to me if they can be part of a wine trail. Frankly I have no objection, but my only concern is that we give away 6 1oz samples to customers on the wine trail, but when it comes to spirits we charge a minimum fee to sample it and that helps minimize the amout we pour and helps people not comsume too much alcohol. Another reason we are doing this is because I thought it was illegal to give away spirits. I was wondering if there is a state law or a federal law that restricts you on what you can give away. If a customer visits 10 winereies in one day, that 10th winery should be careful because the customer could be inebriated, and if we are talking about whiskey a person could be alot worse at the end of 10 distilleries. Can someone help explain to me any ideas or help me understand whiskey trails? & Is there a law that determines the amount of samples allowed to be give to customers when they are visiting your distillery?

Hi Denise Im glad you enjoy the blueberry wine if you're ever in MD stop by and see us and be our guest we have a lot of goodies you might like. We use our steam generator to clean practically everything we got mostly wine barrels, the bottling line, and wine tanks. We used to use hot water, we have a boiler that heats uo to 180degrees and we would use that to steralize the bottling line. The difference the hot water and steam is that that the hot water only steralizes what it touches and it takes a minimun of 20min at 180F the beauty about steam is that it will sneak into areas that it would surprise you. the very first time we used it to clean wine barrels i was amazed at what came out of there. spirits are already a disinfectant and you dont have to worry about mold or britanomisis or other problems that appear in the wine business. but since we have it we'll take advantage to use it of course we do a final rinsing with cold water that always helps. Cheers and happy distilling. -Mike

Steam Generator greater effciency

EC 118 is yheast, a champagne type yheast used mostly for fruity wine ferments to dryness -2r/s dependes of what you are making its a matter of preference as far as a distilletion for vodka i think it would be irrelevent sinse you are distilling a product that is fermented and you are distilling to a neutral point .

I have a GAI 1300 botoling line I did buy from Prospero Equipment .Contact Richard Tturner ph# 315 719 0480 and yes you can olso use simpply air for wine i pref CO2

Great let me know when its finished and where its going, Im sure it would be worth wild for me to take a look at it.

What size still are you building Jim I would like to see it finished looks like you are doing a great job.

The beauty of an auto. bottling line after it rinses it, it dryies with co2 and it does it in a matter of seconds. Do not get me wrong for the amount of spirits that we produce and sell it, I could bottle it by hand one bottle at a time. But because of the winery that we go through over 12,000 cases yearly, we had to buy the line, so it takes us half an hour to bottle six months worth of grappa and six months of limoncello etc. Licening in the state of md has improved so coming April we will be able to produce vodka, wiskey etc. But John remember, I am 68 years old I am training my 26 year old grandson, I love the business I am having a great time. All this was not built in a day, cheers

For many years we got away without washing bottles, it only takes one bad experience to change your ways. What I found out is that the people that you buy the bottles determine more or less the route you will take. For the past 15 years we had a fully amotomated bottleling line that we can bottle 2000 bottles an hour. Even today, I have to be aware of those bulk bottles, fancy and pretty that come from Europe and they come wrapped up in plastic wtihout a box. Sometines on top and botton layers dust gets in there, be very carefully with that. REgular wine bottles purchased locally for the most part it was probably made within 3 or 4 weeks from delivery and it rare that you find them dirty.