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Sorghumrunner

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  1. Sorghumrunner
    Been working on this issue for a couple months. Finally realized I'd been misidentifying a sulfur heads smell with vinegar or acetic acid. Finally today took a heads sample, diluted it to 50 proof and adjusted the pH to 6 with KOH. I'm running that through my lab still and am quite impressed with the results. I've been having to take deep heads cuts because of the overpowering sulphur burn that lasted well into the hearts. The heads off of this lab sample now are so much cleaner, and the I've been able to get a pretty sizeable hearts cut off of what I thought would be throwaway heads. It even still has some decent aroma.
  2. Sorghumrunner
    oh yeah, you should be fine with a small compressor on that sparger. it's air pumps and agitators that can use up a lot of cfm, requiring a bigger tank and pump that can handle longer duty cycles. you will want to put a good filter and regulator before the sparger, you don't want to blow water or odor into your bottles. you can find a selection of filters and air equipment on mcmaster-carr.
  3. Sorghumrunner
    Not sure what you are using it for, just the bottler? You should be able to look up air consumption rates for the equipment, and compare that to what the air compressor can provide. A small portable compressor would not be sufficient for most air pumps, it'll run constantly and you'll wear out the motor.
  4. Sorghumrunner
    They used the NC/SC combined outline, it looks to me like it is in the normal position, nc outer banks on the right, tennesee/nc state line on the left...
  5. Sorghumrunner
    There are generally some requirements for inspection of compressed air tanks above a certain volume (5 gallons?), but they are straightforward, proper pressure relief valve... This is usually inspected by the state boiler inspector, in NC that is in the department of labor. Only thing I can think the fire marshall would be concerned about would be having an electric motor in a classified area. We have our air compressor in a separate room and pipe the air in to the classified areas.
  6. Sorghumrunner
    seriously? aren't you already plastered all over these forums, but you still have to hijack other suppliers threads? kinda rude.
  7. Sorghumrunner
    I've had good success working with freightquote.com. Had 10 pallets shipped from KY to NC for about $800. That's much closer and not cross border, so your results may vary. Barrels are heavy! Make sure that your shipping agent is getting the correct freight classification, that can change pricing some.
  8. Sorghumrunner
    The whole thing just seems odd. ADI should be here to help support this growing community of legitimate business and craftspeople. I spent 10 years in the biodiesel world, and saw it boom and bust. On the way there were many vendors of ill-repute who took advantage of a booming business to sell products/services that were either low quality, non existent or without sufficient customer support. One had to rely on the support of the online community to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Having it this way, ADI can profit from the distillers and the wolves. Doesn't quite seem fair.
  9. Sorghumrunner
    I have to say that this is extremely disappointing, and you are taking away a valuable resource from us. I recently had a very negative and even dangerous business transaction with a copper still maker. I emailed Bill Owen after the experience and sent a truthful and fair account of what happened. He responded that he would remove this small manufacturer from the ADI directory. A few days later he let me know that he was unable to remove the supplier from ADI 2014 Directory. Now you have removed my post on this forum, which was nearly the same as the email I sent to Bill. I feel strongly that if I had heard feedback from others who had experienced anything like what I did with this supplier, I would have picked another supplier and saved myself MONTHS of headache and financial loss. What other forums are professional members of the distilling community interacting on? I may need to find these so I can get honest information so that I can run my business in a knowledgeable manner. There is a real difference between senseless bashing and honest representation of a bad experience with a vendor.
  10. Sorghumrunner
    In our jurisdiction, it seems that the Fire Marshall and Building Inspector are the ones enforcing ADA compliance. One question I got was 'is this going to be a public facility?", answer was no... we will be giving tours, but they will be by appointment and tasting will be across the street in a building that has ADA compliant bathrooms. I don't think we'd be able to do that in our existing building.
  11. Sorghumrunner
    way to represent, fellas.
  12. Sorghumrunner
    confined space entry permit obtained i presume
  13. Sorghumrunner
    It's backsweetened, so perhaps more of a pommeau. I'll be sure to follow up on the formula requirements...
  14. Sorghumrunner
    Well, over all I am happy with the cider wine that was made with these apples. I fermented them out in January, and chaptalized with some domestic apple juice concentrate from Michigan. Reached 10.5-11% across the six fermentations I ran in totes. I made one tote of fortified apple desert wine at 18%, which is now in barrels. Used a neutral brandy for fortification that I make from scuppernong wine. I am stripping the other 5 totes in our neutral still while I wait for our Hoga to arrive for a second distillation. Will be aging that brandy in bourbon barrels, and plan to release some late this year for our first spirit release. I plan to be able to get our juice earlier this fall as we weren't ready for production during harvest season last year.
  15. Sorghumrunner
    I don't know that they do organic (but I bet they do) I've used Loffler Chemical and they were very helpful and knowledgeable Brian Campbell Sales Manager Loeffler Chemical Corporation Telephone: (404) 629-0999 Facsimile: (404) 629-0690 campbell.brian@loefflerchemical.com
  16. Sorghumrunner
    Well, these were storage apples in January, so that may have been part of it, and were from eating apples. And they did show me their belt press, what is the more sophisticated press to use?
  17. Sorghumrunner
    Hey thanks for that. What brix do you generally expect? On our first batch I was expecting around 14, but when I tested it back at the winery, it was 10.5, that was a hard finding.
  18. Sorghumrunner
    We paid about $2.40/gallon in western north carolina for fresh pressed juice, bought multiple totes in one trip. They were able to get us unpasteurized juice specially. This was just standard variety apples, wasn't able to source 'cider' apples. Charles, would you be able to share the varieties you find common or are willing to use for distilling stock?
  19. Sorghumrunner
    Beautiful building. But I think you'd have trouble locating a distillery beneath residential apartments. amiright?
  20. Sorghumrunner
    Stillwagon, I'm also interested how the Arroyo project worked out. The two yeast product Dr. Cone recommended to me was very expensive.
  21. Sorghumrunner
    Yeah it was pretty easy to do. Copied from Woodinville's system. Bought the pallet racks used for a good price, and just had to make sure I had uprights and beams that were the correct dimensions for my barrels and could handle the weight of the barrels when full. My plan is to put another set directly in front of these when my capacity grows, and roll the barrels in and out on a continuous wood rail.
  22. Sorghumrunner
    Thanks, I figured it out. Just being lazy!
  23. Sorghumrunner
    We built our own using pallet racks and lumber. Cost was under $1000 for two racks that hold 32 barrels each. Easy to forklift to, and pretty space economical.
  24. Sorghumrunner
    So I was able to get a clean hearts cut at 172 Proof yesterday. I ran a stripping run through our pot and thumper, then a spirit run through the pot and thumper, hit about 164 proof here, and I wasn't content with the quality. Combined the batches and did one final spirits run just through the pot and yielded 92.9 PG's at 172 Proof. So 5 distillations, if you will. It's a clean spirit, with a nice, almost candy grape aroma. We'll be using this for fortifying wines and possibly bitters. Now, this took 960 gallons of wine, about 212 PG wine delivered, so the hearts cut was a 43% yield. That seems very low to me...
  25. Sorghumrunner
    Hey folks, So we are a small distillery in Central NC, and one of our intended products requires a high proof brandy for fortifying wines. We're using Scuppernong grapes for the distilling stock on this. I'm wondering if anyone else out there has some experience with these grapes and distilling. I've heard from a couple of other wineries in the region that they have to make huge cuts to the distillate to get a decent hearts cut. After about 4 batches with the wine on our pot still, I'm finding some similar results. I'm trying to determine how much of these faults have to do with fermentation and storage, and what if anything, could be attributed to the grapes themselves, or possibly the farming practices. We've had lots of acetaldehyde and sulfur aromas from the batches. I had suspected some oxidation issues, but even a very new batch of wine had these same faults. It's the cheapest grape we can use in this area to do a fortifying spirit, so I'd like to find an economical way to distill it and eliminate the faults.
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