SlickFloss

We saw the specific mechanical design at ADI one year and came home and welded our own up. The exact one in the picture above was made by MAC mfg and is much larger and more substantial than the one specific made. Mac mfg specialize in barrel handling equipment. We have a matching dumper and auto filler coming from them in October. Is not cheap but filling a barrel in 2 minutes vs 7 minutes is going to really change my overhead around here. Same thing with 1 man dumping 7 barrels at a time vs 2 men dumping 2, also frees up our forklift so its not tied to barrel dumping. Cheers. Slick Floss

I opened on a 240 Gallon system. I am looking to sell a 240 gallon skid mounted still with cooker, 4 x 240 gallon fermenters, 3 x additional combination 240 gallon cooker/fermenters. The cooker fermenters stack on top of each other and I have a platform built around them. All available. DM me for my contact info for pics and specs.

Unless you're highly incentivized to do this from a personal standpoint I would recommend against this. It doesn't sound like you are the appropriate size to deliver a contract distilled product at a competitive rate. Do you run 24/7? if not you could run it over the course of a couple weekends to try and keep you producing your own.

I don't agree with everything you have written here. Distilleries go out of business every year utilizing strategies where they try to take on roles of distributor and effectively lose all sales power that a distribution network provides them. realistically you don't need a "sales staff" if you aren't managing multiple markets. if you think you do you're not managing the distributor appropriately. Your two boots are not the equivalent of their hundred + boots and preexisting person relationships in accounts. PROGRAM and manage distributors through whoever manages your brand in your distributor house. Educate distributor sales reps on how to sell your product, work with them and sell a ton of cases for them and prove the value of your brand to them and they might sell it. Their willingness is 1/2 the equation, an actually good product worth buying is the second half.....half the time craft quality is kinda garbage, that's okay [for now] thats why most of us are here [but this needs to change, thats why we're here]. The exception, not the rule, in the craft industry is people successfully programming distributors. That is why most craft producers are destined to flounder and fail. Perfect your product, learn the craft of distribution in your home state county etc market, and leverage the assets you have (distributor sales reps) to push your brands. You know who sells cases? Big Boys. You know who programs distributors? Big boys. Not all programming requires spiffs or money, you can get your due if you have a solid product that actually sells. You can say whatever you want from your experience, Ben's experience, whoever's experience I cannot deny your claims of expertise. But no one can deny my over 5.7 MILLION 12 pk 9 liter equivalents. Just my $.02. If anyone that is actually making marketing and selling their own products has any questions on distro holler at me I don't charge fees and give honest open feedback. Have tough skin if you hit me up I'm not here to baby anybody. We as an industry need to focus on winning mega corporate market share and not patting each others egos; so I take care to do that with all of my intentions. Even if that means they're not nice.

Gotcha thanks..... I have seen it in my malts that we hit with toasted Limousin. Phenomenal contributions here, wonderful share very valuable. Thanks again.

My financing for my distillery came from another brand I market and sell with my father. We never spent a dime on marketing until we hit 80% market distribution. We have blown brand up to about a half million cases a year annually (12 pack 750 ml nine liter equivalents). Up 3% this year! Didn't spend a dime on marketing until 80% distribution. Purvey a stellar product. Leverage distribution network for coverage because you deserve it with your stellar product. Protect your margins.

Hey bluestar are the oligosaccharides from hemicellulases in the barrel? My thoughts being lower char levels don't burn these up as much thanks for sharing your knowledge

Have sold out in another industry- great decision. massive component of success is luck. You hit it, maybe a gold mine of it, realize your gold mine. If you sell out to the right people they'll pay you to keep running it. Non competes run out and you can start fermenting somewhere else some time later. You can also go distill other stuff in the mean time (what I am doing). You developed this skill set, you can develop others. Maybe you're not Jim Beam, maybe you're Jeff Bezos and you don't even know it. Just .02 from a dude with a stack full, jack! Rock on, congrats on moving cases! (remember Murphys law; Also a lot of people who will never get legitimate offers to sell will tell you not to. In this scenario you have few peers, especially on this board. This isn't criticism this is me calling a spade a spade. Theres way more fifty gallon pots for sale than acquisition offers on the boards.)

We run 2 Miuras in tandem using RO water and all stainless steam lines so we don't have to blow chemicals into our mash on the columns. We believe in it so we did it. We still have a blowdown separator. Blowdown removes garbage from your boiler and to my understanding is necessary no matter what boiler you run, there may be a design I am unfamiliar with that doesn''t require I cannot speak to what I don't know. Miura's are expensive but the best (most efficient, quickest for steam, and easiest to maintain), I would buy whatever I thought was better and this is the best I've found. Just my .02. Good luck.

We got a load fo custom racks from a local guy here he's great Palmer Manufacturing Address: E14480 County Rd DL, Merrimac, WI 53561 Phone: (608) 493-2317

Take an old 53 gallon barrel and steam all the tannin out of it until it is inert. Ferment your whiskey using something that is not a traditional whiskey yeast Rest your white whiskey for six months in the inert barrel to blow off the heads Boom you have made a wonderful product that consumers would have a more enjoyable experience drinking rather than a money grab to shove in a bottle ASAP

Palmer Manufacturing in Wisconsin does great work for the members of our guild. We have bought literally hundreds from him. https://palmermanufacturing.com

We also aren't very fond of Atlas here. Initially ordered a few hundred 53 gallon containers from them, paid by their terms, and had similar experiences as y'alls. They didn't return calls, they were late on shipments, and they kind of just disappeared on us. They split the order on us for delivery, and both loads when the product came off of truck it was clear things were very inconsistent. The most notable thing about them is their work has little uniformity. Barrels will vary in length. Some heads are more recessed than others. There are barrels with drastically different numbers of staves. They don't sit on racks uniformly. Most of them tend to have an odd shape to them. Some hoops were nail fixed, some were not; none of them were supposed to be. We had a lot of barrels that point blank wouldn't hold 53 gallons of fluid, which is what we paid for. When they filled the second order nothing was better. So now we're a few years down the line filling Atlas 53s (we've bought a bunch of different barrels in between) and we are just about done with our inventory. Many of the barrels had literal holes in them. I would say 25-30% of the inventory needed an extreme amount of recooping (tons of spiles, wax, and bungs) on both the heads and body staves on brand new fully steam hydrated barrels. About 5% of inventory was completely unusable. Pin holes all over body staves. I have lost so much product in leaks. We have so many barrels we store standing up because we couldn't get head seams to seal. The ones that look the best perform the worst, which is ridiculous. So get this, we also bought mini cocktail barrels from them. They look great but they're absolutely awful. So many customer complaints about leaks and inventory loss it was a nightmare. So they short filled the order, we actually ended up sending it back for quality reasons. They wouldn't give us our money back and insisted on fulfilling the order, so they sent back the supposedly recoopered barrels with our full order amount this time. Still wouldn't hold fluid. Still wouldn't take money back, so we sent back AGAIN. and guess what, we sent back a third time before giving up. This order we were smart enough not to pay in full ahead of time. I realize this is an exceptionally old thread but people need to understand how these people operate. They are still taking orders. They are still taking advantage of the trust of our community. They re still making shitty product. They need to be held responsible. They are the Corson Manufacturing of cooperages.

Thanks Amigo! Emailed you!

How big of a b in the a is it to get both kettles equalized?

One of the many rigs we operate is a specific so if you want any info on the dynamics of how our heads and Lyne arm are detachable/interchangeable drop me a line it may be good insight for your design Good luck

I am looking for someone to bounce ideas off of that is running a Carl stripping column. I do not care if they are running a reboiler system with hx or a steam sparge. If you are running this system please make yourself known to me below or via PM, or if you know someone running one you can point me towards I would be eternally grateful and you guys might get to see some really cool shit.

It depends on the type of product you are trying to make. If this is a simple compound product of artificial flavors in gns than your flavor company can consult with you on texture additives that won't compete with your flavors. There are also natural botanical options if you are doing more of a craft product. Gum Arabic, as mentioned, is one of many solutions for you. I do not do research for people though, but I will throw you a bone. The term many herbalists would use is "Demulcency", there is info out there, especially if you can get access to EBSCO host or similar. Good luck.

Yeah give us some more technical info here there some gnarly chemists round these parts. Whats your ABV? When you say "put it in a cocktail with water in it" do you mean a few dashes or make a cocktail out of the bitters itself?

I am in the process of liquidating a large distillery we purchased from bankruptcy, I'll PM you my e-mail hit me up for a quote... I think the system we have available may be beyond your needs though

Saponification. Also, this is posted in the incorrect section.

PH drops through fermentation as a result of acidic by products of fermentation...... this is standard...... what are you actually asking for light to be shed upon because based off your process listed above nothing irregular is happening or at least you haven't pointed it out..... REPHRASE

If you got this far with low overhead/debt and seem to hav e a knock for this business, sell it if you can, get back on your feet, and reopen a new facility with lessons learned. If you're truly good, you're good and you will succeed in this industry. If you were lucky the first time so far maybe this is a godsend. either way sell it and heal it would be so shitty to watch the business rot around you. Realistically though you probably won't get what its worth without real distro and case sales

Kookaburra Oyster flavored Whiskey from a Bourbon Mash aged in new charred american oak and finished with Maillard staves. Px . The new frontier of North Australmerican Whiskey.

Please report back on efficacy amigo. As per your other comments, I have an interesting conundrum in which I am trying to make highly estered bourbon for a rebarreling experiment. I wonder if utilizing sulfuric and or formic for adjustment (likely in conjunction with backset) would help provide more of that heady bouquet for us to pull out