captnKB

Hi @LonePineDistiller ive worked with a few Corson systems and understand your frustrations and troubles. The last "automated" Corson system I saw had the same problems you described. Shoot me a PM and I can try to help walk you through some trouble shooting on it.

Hi Dave welcome to the forum and the wonderful world of distilling. Best of luck in your journey

not sure what calculator you used but these numbers are way off. 

a 55 gal drum of molasses will need to be mixed with closer to 200 gallons of water to achieve a starting brix of 20

We are allowed to ship direct to consumers in Arizona, but in our case fedex or UPS will not ship alcohol direct to consumers they will only ship to business addresses. So it it a bit of a catch 22.

@jbdavenport1 you may have luck getting more people to fill this survey out if you send it off to state guilds and ask their members to contribute

@paclawyer hit up the guys at Cage and Sons I know they make whiskey thieves and have them for sale

Hi @Rhody-O the answer to many of your questions are quite specific and will be up to you or a professional to determine.

There is a much work that goes into creating a product that is shelf stable and determining the exact stability of it.

my two cents is that if your product is not shelf stable for at least a year I would reccomend reformulating.

I prefer to rinse with spirit. tcw equipment makes a great bottle rinser 

Hi @BMGdistilling welcome to the forum. I had helped your previous manager with some planning for an expansion of your place a while back. If yall need some help in planning to grow drop me a line.

Distillerynow@gmail.com

dupont also makes some killer enzymes for cereal conversion

@kleclerc77 to clean my condensors ( that do not have a cip port) I like to back flush the condenser with heads. then follow that will a hot water flush. Back flushing insures that all surfaces come into contact to be cleaned. 

I would agree with @Roger throw in some beta once it is cool, aerate and pitch. The beta will chew up any remaining starch while the ferment gets going

very cool setup

below is a link to a fantastic discussion on the production of gin. Just about all of your questions are answered in this thread.

Hi Jon, welcome to the forum. congrats on getting opened up and running

I find the best fruit based spirits come from pot still as they allow more of the flavor of the fruit to carry over to the spirit.

We do an apple brandy at my distillery on our pot still and it amazing with notes of fresh crisp apples.

There are many factors that will drive the decision of when to make your cuts. Type of spirit, type of yeast used, temp of ferment, type of fermentable, end product are all important factors that will determine when your cuts are made.

When we make whiskey we intend to bottle as an unaged (white) spirit, our tails cut is made rather early to produce a cleaner easy drinking white whiskey, but when making bourbon whiskey and malt whiskey we intend to barrel age for 4 years the tails cut is made much later. Aging of a heavier spirit will create a more complex whiskey.

@Georgeous I offer affordable one on one distilling training at my distillery, if you need some training on how to distill award winning spirits. feel free to

drop me a line at Distillerynow@gmail.com

I use them both. Hydrometer and refractometer are both the right tool to use based which ever situation it is needed to measure

a properly built and run continuous still can separate heads just as well as a pot still. Ive run multiple continuous stills and submitted samples from those stills for chemical analysis, and they were well below the limit for both America and EU standards on methanol content.  

@bierling have you ever operated a continuous still?

check out the folks at High Proof Creative. They do fantastic original marketing work

Those Flojet pumps are great. I have used them for years, they are well priced and very reliable

@bluestar did you submit formula as a flavored rum or a distilled specialty spirit (DSS)?

If you submited as flavored, the TTB expects the word flavored on the label

If you submit as a DSS you can get a lot more creative with your label and avoid the word flavored

depends on what your cleaning. Steam is fantastic for barrels. We use ozone for the last step in cleaning vessels.

 a standard neoprene impeller is rated to 180 degrees F. Sounds like your pump is likely being run dry, running them dry causes fast impeller failure. Id suggest putting a sight glass inline to visually verify flow.

@Rookie I run an affordable distillery consulting service. Distillery NOW. I would be able to help you out with all aspects of your distillery.

Check out the website or send me an email and lets talk.

https://distillerynow.wixsite.com/spirits

Distillerynow@gmail.com

Cheers,

---Kris