Silk City Distillers

I've seen similar Vendome continuous schematics with the doubler. For anyone with deep batch distillation experience, it's incredibly confusing, because at first glance, your impression should be that it couldn't work at all. I too saw these and thought to myself that they had to be running the doubler as a batch still. There's actually one schematic that's floated around a while, from Michters. It can't possibly be running the doubler as continuous, as there would be absolutely no mechanism for a cut to be drawn.

Talk to Journeyman, their Silver Cross whiskey has a charitable aspect to it.

I mean, if I ran a well known charity, and someone went rogue to do this (essentially attempting to ride the marketing coattails of my charity), I would have them served with a cease and desist immediately, probably follow it up with an IP lawsuit, and force a recall. If I was having a really bad day, I might even tell the press I think you are stealing the money.

If I was in your situation, I would ink an agreement with the charity. It would be a mutual agreement whereby they provide you with approval to use their logos, , trademarks, or otherwise, on your labels in exchange for the donation. The agreement should lay out the business terms both sides agree to, what is permitted or not permitted, what the termination clauses are for both sides, the term of the agreement, the actual label to be used, the mechanism to validate the accuracy of the contribution, etc etc. Not that you would, but you shouldn't just use their logos and execute the program without their approval.

Empty ones? Sure.

The basis for the question is serving cocktails in the tasting room. How does one make a Manhattan, if you can only sell your own products? At first you might go down the path of making a vermouth-like spirit, like @bluestar mentions, or perhaps just skip that entirely and bottle the cocktail, for sale in the tasting room.

What are the US TTB implications of this? Technically this would not be considered distillation, correct?

In case it's not obvious, the siphon needs to be installed vertically pointing upwards. The tubing is primed with water before you mount the gauge. The water acts as a buffer between the steam and the gauge, preventing hot steam from hitting the gauge. Instead, the steam pushes on the water, and the water pushes on the air pocket above the water. If you want to maintain your back mount gauge and come straight out, you need a coil siphon like this. This one is installed horizontally.

With any steam gauge, it's good practice to use a steam siphon (pigtail) to protect the gauge from high temperature. It's cheap insurance. However, if you are center back, you may need something like a 270 degree pigtail, and instead use a bottom input gauge.

Primarily the table in the BAM, Chapter 7. HCFBM Allowed - Yes, May Exceed 2.5%, as well as the Qualification notes.

I'll second that, mine also seems to be much quieter running at 50hz than 60hz.

Recommend going back to the still. With the vodka, run it again, this is easy, all 24 plates. If the intention for your rum is white, you can redistill as well, but only run through your short column (4). In both cases, your focus is going to be on the tail cut. This is entirely based on your comment of visible clouding, which you should not be seeing. This is making me think that carbon will *not* be efficient here, as you'll quickly overwhelm the adsorption capacity, and waste a lot of carbon to get where you are wanting to go. Chill filtration, there's not a whole lot out there for the craft market, most I've seen have cobbled together their own systems out of jacket tanks, freezer chests, plate and frame filters, etc. As far as something turnkey you can just ring up and order? I've never seen one. I'd love to see something work with a smaller 10" Code-7 style filter housing, as opposed to trying to run a smaller volume of spirit through a gigantic plate and frame, losing 25% of my spirit volume in the process.

I don't know where you are, but if the ambient temperatures in the distillery are in the mid to high 80s, it's very easy for a IBC to push well into the high 90s during fermentation. Heck, pitching into an 80f tank in even the mid 70s ambient would probably push into the high 80s. Overtemp fermentations are going to result in higher fusel and ester formation, giving you either a lower yield, or a "dirtier" product. Depending on what you are fermenting, and what your fermentation/yeast protocols are, you might find that you get stuck fermentations as well (>100f, yeast cell death, etc). Generally, fermenters are expensive because they have cooling jackets, so not just a metal tank, but typically two metal tanks with the cooling mechanisms, etc. Not to mention additional ports for racking, draining, maybe CIP for cleaning, manways, etc. It all adds up. There's no magic to a fermenter, you could line up a bunch of old hot tubs along the wall and use them to ferment (Hot Tub Time Machine Bourbon sounds delish). A blow up kiddie pool would make for an awesome sight too. One time I had a line on a big cedar plunge pool the was supposed to go in a fancy mountain house that never ended up getting assembled. That would have been pretty cool too.

That and if I tried to use of spherical boiling flask, I'd just end up rolling it off my table or spilling it at the least.

No no, talking about adjusting sample temperatures for measurement. Not using the bath as a Bain Marie for distillation. If it's any help, I've found that it's easier to just distill in an erlenmeyer on a hot plate. I've got a ton of heated stir plates for yeast propagation that work just fine.

I've got two, nice tanks: 200l and 400l. I ordered them with 1.5" triclamp fittings and separate lids (not variable cap). They are thin, like all the others (Letina, etc) so cranking on a big butterfly valve doesn't inspire much confidence. But, they are durable, looks good, and work just fine.

Turn down the air conditioning in your lab? You can fill the bath with cool water and slightly cool the sample to start. However, you are correct, the longer you wait the greater the chance the sample temp starts increasing. Refrigerated baths are very very expensive and you generally wouldn't go to all that trouble here.

That's a killer deal actually, so if you aren't going to buy it, I'm going to buy it to have a spare.

For example, nice smaller Cole Parmer water bath, perfectly suitable - $655 https://www.coleparmer.com/i/economical-poly-bath-5-5-liters-110v-60-hz/3906410 Looks like the same one, brand new, surplus on ebay - $79.00 + Shipping. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cole-Parmer-39064-10-115V-5-5L-Cap-Utility-Water-Bath-/232206538959?epid=2136105879&hash=item36109698cf:g:ZDsAAOSwq1JZJaTd Bet if you offered this guy $60 for it ($100 shipped) - he'd take it. Saved you $500. I take payment in beer.

Lab equipment and glassware? Depends what you want to pay. If you are feeling like the CFO of a billion dollar global pharmaceutical company, go to Fisher Scientific and pay $700 for a water bath. If paying $700 for a water bath seems insulting to you, check the lab surplus companies who sell on eBay, and you can probably get the same one, used, for 1/4 of the price.

Sussman is very well known in this space.

My comment has more to do with having to gauge and record 5-6 separate tanks, every time. You can move a tote around easily enough with a pallet jack, you don't need a fork lift.

Filter your product to at least 1 micron, pollen can be as small as 4 micron, and anything a little bit larger than that can be visible as particulate. Ensure your honey is filtered and free from wax. It's highly likely that commercial honey flavored products are using standardized and processed natural flavors.

While a stainless tote would be ideal, you can get by with a poly tote. I wouldn't bother with stainless drums, expensive and not ideal. It's much easier to gauge a single tote on a pallet scale than gauge 5-6 drums. Just so happens a tote is nearly the perfect size for you too.

There is no simple equation, it's why the tables are published.