iglomski

Distillery has been sold.

Thanks! We love the space and even won an architecture award with it!

Best,

Ian

Distillery has been running for 7 years. You can hit the ground running.

See more here: www.vitaespirits.com 

Walk through the distillery using this 3D rendering where most of the equipment and exterior of building is visible https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=LUDdMAUae5q 

Asking Price $2.1M as a complete turnkey distillery including ownership of the building. Terms negotiable.

Serious inquiries contact info@vitaespirits.com 

Equipment:

250 gal all copper Vendome pot & 4-plate column still

3x 550 gal Custom Metalcraft jacketed fermentors

250 gal Vendome cooker

30 HP Hurst steam boiler

24 HP ProChiller chiller

400 gal holding tank

180 gal mixer tank

hand bottling line

Many other relevant items

Building(s):

7500 total sf

M-1 zoning

Roll up door bay

~1200 sf tasting room at distillery

~1200 sf tasting room leased on high traffic downtown pedestrian area

Licenses:

Federal TTB: production, storage, processing

Virginia: two distillery licenses

City: Distillery and Retail Merchant 

Placements:

6 standard items in Virginia ABC system

19 additional distillery only SKUs

Distributed in New York and Illinois 

I just have a comment or two, though your question is a tough one depending on what exactly you are asking.

"Stable" can mean a lot of things. 

If you just want your liqueur to be biologically stable, i.e. microbes will not grow in it, above 20% ABV/40 proof is pretty safe unless you get some pretty exotic microbes in there.

One the other hand, if you mean stable, as in your liqueur will not change, that is a harder thing to achieve. I have found that very few natural ingredients maintain their color over time. The red from your raspberry is likely to brown over time. You can add preservatives to help slow the process, you'll have to do research to find which one works for your colorant, but they will not completely stop all color changes with time. I liked this article on anthocyanins https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.12244

If you also mean "stable" by not developing haze or solid precipitates, there are a bunch of ways to filter or fine your product, but they often strip out flavor and/or color.

You production methods, like minimizing exposure to oxygen and light can make a big difference too.

In short, from my point of view there isn't a single easy answer to your question, that's why people resort to much more stable artificial colors.

Good luck!

I know this is a pretty old feed, but I just thought I'd add a few observations.

I've done a decent amount of grape wine distillation for local wineries who plan to use their distillate in port-style wines. They usually give me their wine that isn't suitable for straight-up drinking as wine, i.e. poor quality wine. I have found that the reason it is defined as "poor quality" greatly affects the quality of the distillate. If it is simply boring wine or is long past it's maturity peak or has oxidized, these can yield rather tasty distillates. However, if they are truly "spoiled" wines that have gone far down the road towards vinegar or have major brettanomyces influence, don't bother distilling them. Even with my best distilling efforts, the distillate is awful with low yield, and in the vinegar cases the acetic acid trashes the copper of the still, stripping off a ton of copper and coloring the distillate blue. 

I now taste test the wines customers bring to me for distillation to avoid the headaches caused by truly "spoiled" wines in my still.

Funny, the TTB made us send off our gin (which includes licorice in it's botanical bill) off to a lab for Glycyrrhizin testing, which is what they really care about in the end. The sample was way below their allowable limits, but it was still an unexpected pain, expense, and delay since they didn't have any issue with the licorice the first time the recipe was submitted with identical licorice quantities.

The best deal I found for Glycyrrhizin testing was at Covance Labs, but it was still $250 I wasn't planning to spend. 

Sorry pump has been sold. See message above. Sorry there is no way to delete this thread.

Never used it for grain transfer, but FIPs can handle a lot of solids.

Pump has been sold.

Kelvin Cooperage, I'll let you know if our current offers fall through.

Cheers

Yes, it is.

Are you interested?

Looks like you are driving distance from us...that would make things easier.

1.5"x 1.5" (improved pressure capability) 1-25gpm, 30psi, Stainless steel cart, Wireless remote control, 1.5hp, 1750 TEFC motor, NEMA 4 VFD, 1ph 230V with L6-20 locking plug.

Used lightly for less than 1-year and just refurbished for sale with a new impeller and rings. We grew out of it and replaced it with a larger pump.

New models are $2,899, we are offering it for $2,600 + shipping from Virginia and handling paid for by the buyer. We accept credit cards, but buyer pays 3% processing fee. If paid by check, will not ship until check clears. On-site pickups welcome.

Just speaking from experiences with mead making, I have run into grassy/vinyl flavors many times in my mead. It was totally dependent on the type of honey I used. I would bet a lot of those flavors could make it through the still too.

I would do some small scale test fermentations and just taste them straight before even getting the still in the process. 

Just my two cents.

We use Custom Metal Craft square jacketed totes for fermentation. They work great, they have a smaller footprint than the round tanks, and are easy to pallet jack around. The rounded corners clean fine with CIP, but even if you have tough gunk they are easy to clean with a brush.

Hi Jim, could you give me the dimensions on these tanks?

Are you willing to sell less than 4?

Dick and Kristian, do the machines you suggested from St. Pats and Midwest supply only work on full PVC capsule (like on wine bottles) or do they also work with PVC bands that are just a tube with no top enclosing the top of the closure?

They both seem to be marketed to people using wine capsules, so it wasn't clear to me...

Thanks

Hi all, we are engineering our steam system to feed steam directly into our wash in the cooker. This means that we need to have "food quality" steam being injected.

Since standard steam lines are made of carbon steel, is there a concern that our steam will carry in rust/off flavors into our wash?

If so, what is the alternative; stainless steel pipes, food-grade anti-oxidiant addition to the feed water?

Many thanks!

ADI just posted some of these presentations, though only a subset despite promises otherwise.

I received an email with the link and password.

The organizers promised me again and again that all of the presentations from the 2014 conference would be posted online, but I still can't find them. I took fewer notes and photos than I would have otherwise because I was counting on access to them.

Anyone else know if they are up somewhere yet?

-Ian