vsaks

Which scales are you using ? Are your tanks bolted down for seismic reasons ?

50 minutes ago, Micah Nutt said:

We weigh everything.  

Most of the peaty smell will come towards the end, so taking cuts is trickier than unpeated malt, because you can't just cut off early and discard the feints. With just 15% peated malt it'll be even harder figuring out the hearts to tail cut. You might want to take multiple cuts and then combine them to figure out where the actual cut should be. If you are doing a smaller pilot run, you could do what Old Portero did when developing their rye. They took cuts in mason jars and combined to figure out when to cut.

On ‎9‎/‎20‎/‎2016 at 3:28 PM, ADKdistiller said:

Hi Everyone,

I plan to do my first run of malt whiskey in a few weeks. I plan to use peat smoked malt for 15-20% of the mash (I love peaty scotch if you can't tell). Having never done a single malt run or a run with smoked grain I'm curious about how difficult it may be to discern my heads/tails, mainly the tails. I have a lot of experience running bourbon and rye. Also, I plan to distill directly off the wort.

Can anyone give me any info/advice? How the two would compare (bourbon/rye vs single malt)? Tasting notes? How the smoke affects the distillate flavor?

I did do one malt whiskey run. The very first time I ever ran my still. A local brewery goofed on a batch and gave it to us to run through the still. No hops were added. I remember the tails being much sweeter than bourbon or rye.

Cheers!

I was wondering how most of the folks measure the quantity of spirits during the process for reporting to TTB ? We were planning on using level sight gauges in the tanks, but were told that it is better to have the tanks on industrial scales. Would welcome your thoughts on what has worked for you.

Dave,

   Thanks again for your reply. I knew that they wanted a consent signed by the owner. I guess if we sign the sublease, we should put in a clause that the actual owner will provide consent for the use as DSP.

dhdunbar,
   Thanks for the detailed and very informative reply. We have been talking to the local authorities, and have found some cities friendlier than the rest. So we know which cities we could get an approval (non CUP) in 1-2 months if the sprinkler density and zoning and adjacent occupancy (and the phase of the moon) all align. While 1-2 months might work with the landlords, the 6-7 months was a real sticking point for most landlords.

I know the TTB needs some paperwork filled out by the owner for a DSP. Are there any complications if the space is subleased ?

Regards,

Virag

Hi,
  I wanted to know if there have been cases where the TTB permit did not get granted.

We are considering signing a lease without an out clause if TTB permit is not granted. The real estate market is the bay area has been really tight, and for any reasonable place, there are lots of prospective tenants who don't have such contingencies. We have lost out on a couple of spaces because we wanted an out clause and the landlord had other applicants without any contingencies.

We have clean records, no tax issues, and can show funds for the distillery (possible reasons why TTB might not grant a permit). Just trying to figure out what the risk or chances of an application being denied might be.

Regards,

Virag

Mike,
  Thanks for the information. So even with the low profile 4" racks, you can't get 5 barrels below 12 feet (to avoid going into high pile storage) ?
I'll reach out to you to come check out the racks.

I am trying to figure out whether to use 4" (low profile) racks or 7" (standard height) racks and had two questions for folks who might be using them

1. How hard is it to get a sample from a barrel in 4" rack with another barrel above it ? What is the typical gap between them ?

2. If we want to keep the height to below 12 feet (for fire reasons), how many barrels can we stack with the standard (7") or low profile (4") racks ?

On ‎5‎/‎2‎/‎2016 at 0:40 PM, eganter said:

Does anyone know of a good supplier that sells in large quantities for "Ferm Cap S"?

Country Malt Group has 1 gal and 5 gal sizes for something very similar to Ferm Cap

3 hours ago, Afilters said:

I can help you with dewatering if need be.

 

 

Thanks. We'll be lautering so our main concern is liquid COD/BOD

That works if you have farmers close by. In suburbia here we are out of luck

We'll have to pay to have the spent grain taken to a compost pile too, but that's not that much.

Interesting topic.

Traditionally, in Scotland, draff would be mixed with pot ale and used as animal feed. Old books say that pot ale was used as a high quality fertilizer.

Given that we are going to be used Organic certified cereals, we hope to team up with organic farmers (the feed for the cows has to be organic certified). Other options are to have a bio gas ingester and you can harvest some gas for burning and have a high quality fertilizer as a by product or to dry out the draff and burn it in a biomass burner.

What are you making ? That sounds like a bourbon grain bill. But then you shouldn't be putting your corn through a lauter tun. You need to keep the corn separate from malt initially as you cook it at higher temp to gelatinize it (that temp would denature the enzymes in malt). Then cool it and add the wort from malt to convert your sugars.

What is your usage per day ?

You can get a 75 gpd system for about $125 at hydroponics stores or Amazon

It'll be 100% accurate only at that temp. Choose where you make one of the cuts as the calibration point ?

Thanks for the feedback. The surcharges are for lbs of COD and TSS.

But I suspect TSS is easier to manage with filtration.

Since the COD/TSS costs are per pound, spreading it out over larger volumes by diluting doesn't help.

Our pH is just about right, so adding backset will drop it too low.

Ozone looks like an interesting option, is anyone using it, or have recommendations for a solution.

We are planning to distill with the yeast for a fuller flavor, so what we'll get in the end is a brown bread/yeast smelling pot ale. Wondering if the boiled yeast will actually settle, or if there are some options to do encourage it to flocculate.

There seem to be aerobic treatment units for $5-6K, which'll process a daily volume of 500 gals each. They don't smell like anaerobic digesters. Has anyone tried them for pot ale ?

COD or BOD, or both - and what about TSS?

Couple options...

Low cost/easy options:

Recycle 20% as backset in new wash - you take 20% right off the top, free money, you save on both sides.

Dilute spent wash with cleaning water - use alkali cleaners - not only will you reduce overall COD, but you'll help shift pH balance.

Dilute spent wash with cleaning water and cooling water - depending on your sewerage costs, you might find it to actually be cheaper to waste water for cooling, dilute your wastewater to the point at which you pay no additional surcharges. If there is a chiller in the mix, you might find co-mingling of all wastewater to actually be cheaper than running a chiller and disposing of stillage directly.

Make sure you are side-streaming your high-test waste - no yeast down the drain, ever.

Medium cost options:

Dilute spent wash with cleaning and cooling water - inject ozone to drop COD - if you use an oxidizing cleaner this will help, but you'll then need to manage pH separately. This may not impact BOD.

High cost options:

On-site sewerage treatment facilities - pond or tanks - microbial digesters.

Or ... Just pay ...

Thanks, good point about needing to run the chiller when other equipment is not running.

We were planning on a large chilled water tank anyway so a we could cool 450 gals of wort with a smaller chiller sized more for the stills.

Amount of GPM needed from your chiller system will be small, but you will need to run the chiller when not running the rest of your equipment, otherwise the fermenting action being exponential as far as heat rise, you will need cooling during the entire time of it.

Another good reason to have a water reservoir for your chiller, it will keep the chiller from short cycling, on and off, with only the small load of fermentation in the cooling loop.

Mike

Do you process your spent wash/pot ale/spent lees before discharging it down the sewer ?

I am looking at the sewer rates here in California, and the COD load surcharge (based upon the expected COD load of 46,000 mg/liter) will add 10x to the cost of just discharging water.

This is all being done by your contractor, and the gas company is just connecting the pipe, and the meter, correct ?

I am talking to them about this option too.

I just got a quote of about $8900 to install a new 3" gas line approximately 150 feet from my building to the main.

Scrounge,

Thanks for the lowdown. I talked to their second line of representatives (you have to wait 2-3 days for a callback), but didn't get into detailed usage, as they wanted me to submit an application to engineering for a property I haven't yet leased. I am hoping that they'll cut me a similar break on the gas side based upon usage.

Double check with your pg$e rep. I have done 3 service upgrades at different locations and a new service when I built my distillery. They will have you list all your usage requirments during the engineering phase of the project. They will calculate a new price based on your planned usage. They then reasses you after 3 yrs to make sure you hit the target usage, if not, they bill you for more on the old install price. For example- a new 400amp service to a new glass blowing facility I built 5 yrs ago was bid at 14k from them(new transformer and service drop), then after they considered my planned usage the total I paid was right around 700$. My distillery was same thing. Brand new service(transformer and drop to my panel) once my anticipated usage was factored in 13k became 1600$. This has all been for electric, but done with pg$e. they also give you an option at pay time of a 50%reduction in fees and its said and done or you pay full price and receive 10% back as usage credit each year for 10yrs. Make sure your getting the whole story from whom ever your talking to. If you just inquired unofficially they may not have explained everything, and of course maybe they work differently on the gas projects?

Pete,

Thanks for the suggestion, but not sure how that would work with the low NOX requirements they have over here

Not answering your question directly, but have you considered waste oil boilers, used fryer or motor oil?

You need storage tanks and filters but running costs are almost zero.

Or use the gas you have and boost with waste oil when you need it.

Yes, the line is small. I was hoping they could run a higher pressure through it rather than .25 psi.

Basically the cost covers replacing the service line from the main on the street to the meter, and included trenching.

I am now looking at the option of another contractor doing the trenching like Huffy2k

The existing gas line you are describing is pretty small. It's possible that they have to connect to a high pressure line that is a considerable distance from your facility.

Have you asked for a detailed explanation of what the $60,000 covers?

So you/your contractor are doing the trenching, and the gas company is covering the line of street excavation ?

I had budgeted upto 10K for gas, are you going over that ?

I'm in the process of upgrading a 2" line with a 700k btu capacity to a 3" line that will supply my 1mm btu boiler. I'm not seeing anything remotely close to what you are quoting. My only responsibility is excavating and running the line to the main (not cheap), the gas company is replacing the meter and covering the cost of the street excavation.

We've been looking at suitable sites, and found some sites which are perfect (sprinklered, heavy power, zoned industrial) but don't have a big enough gas line. The existing line to the meter would only support about 400,000 BTU/hr, not enough for a proposed 1.5 M BTU boiler.

When I called PG&E, to check on the property, they told me it could cost $60,000 to upgrade the existing 1/4" 0.25 psi (7" Water) line to the meter. I am just reeling in shock.

Any body else had to upgrade a line ? What did you pay ?

Marketplace on NPR did a segment on the business of whisky and the hardships of starting up. Bill Owens was featured there, challenging new distillers to get their doors open within two years