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rtshfd

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Everything posted by rtshfd

  1. Yeast, temperature of which you ferment (jacketed fermenters? hot ferment? Climate controlled space?), Nutrient use, mashbill makeup, Starting Gravity...all these things effect how long it takes to ferment. In my mind I can't have too many fermenters. It will always be my bottle neck. If I have the space and schedule to let the ferments run longer than 4 days, let the cap drop and some lacto/bacteria action start I get my best product. I've ran ferments that sat for 2 weeks, and I've ran ferments as fast as 3 days to complete attenuation. Rye in particular runs hot and fast. I swear it's 90% dry by 48 hours after pitching.
  2. Thank you eb! I did find absinthe herbs website, they seem responsive. I was hoping to find some other providers to shop around but man is this stuff hard to find. I have every other botanical lined up (we do a lot of gin), but this pontica was rather elusive. I may take you up on the start offer, I'm thinking of starting a gin poly culture this season and might as well make an absinthe guild too!
  3. I'm taking my first steps into producing an absinthe and I'm finding it particularly difficult to source roman wormwood/petite wormwood/artemisia pontica. Anyone have a recommended source?
  4. I'm curious if anyone has any experience with infusing absinthe and it's related botanicals in the vapor path vs macerating in the kettle? I'm equipped with a gin basket that would make sense for all sorts of herbal spirits. Is a louche able to be maintained (did the vapor infusion contribute enough oils)? Are there any ovious flavor implications vs macerating?
  5. Lenny, We are doing exactly that for juniper. Works great. I have it mounted in a 5G bucket with a hole cut in the bottom that we can set into another 5 G bucket that it mills/squashes right into. Hopper and all. The thought of using that mill for the rest of my botanicals? Yikes. I don't have a huge volume of supporting flavors so i think the corona would be overkill/pain in the ass to adjust to a standard grind every time.
  6. I'm having an inconsistency issue with this crappy coffee blade grinder i'm using to mill the required botanicals for our gin. I'm milling Grain of paradise, cubeb, cloves and coriander. Does anyone use a burr grinder and if so what type? Any suggestions on what botanicals do need milling and which don't?
  7. We were approached to produce a distilled water line for someone looking to sell some upscale bottled water (meh). The numbers were atrocious. They couldn't come anywhere near offsetting the opportunity loss. I would imagine it would be the same case to produce your own DI water for your own use. You have better things to do with your time.
  8. Seems the consensus is to stick with the treated water (RO/DI). Good discussion.
  9. Our municipal water is from one of the finger lakes and it's pristine. Perfect mineral profile for fermentation. I'd like to use it as a way to incorporate a unique provenance to our spirits but i also don't want to run the risk of damaging a batch. Do you have clouding issues?
  10. Great response, thank you. The adjacent space is right next door. We already hold exclusive access and leasing rights, and use it as dry storage for non-bonded materials.
  11. What type of water is everyone using to dilute whiskey to barrel entry proof? We have RO and filtered municipal as options. Municipal is easier. We use RO for final bottling dilution but for whiskey I'd prefer to use local water where possible. I just don't want to get to the other side of a long aging process to find out that our municipal caused off flavors.
  12. We'd like to expand production and barrel storage to an adjacent warehouse space that's not covered by our current bond. Does anyone have any experience with that? Any insight on whats required?
  13. The size of your ferment is an important indicator if you need a jacket. Also your ambient climate in your production space. Is it climate controlled? That's more of an issue of ferments getting cold during the winter and being too slow. If you're in a hot climate you run the risk of overheating during summer. We work in 300G batch ferments atm and I've heard through the grapevine that around 300G is when you need to seriously consider cooling. Any bigger and you definitely want jackets. We use square tanks with jackets that keep our ferments below 90 deg F. We also ferment in bulk tanks with no jackets. The jacketed ferments consistently yield more per batch by maybe 3-5%.
  14. Thanks for the response. We're adding non-holiday related graphics, drastically changing the logo and changing the copy to something completely new. From what I'm seeing those all require a new COLA unless I'm misunderstanding. Quick question, can an amendment be done through the colas online UI?
  15. We're currently redesigning the label for one of our products. It has an approved COLA, but we would like to change the fluff text and rework the graphics/design (from 2 labels to 1, adding a bit and taking away a bit). I'm pretty certain I need a new COLA for the new label. We don't have a finalized version yet. My question is: can I submit with what we have currently and then swap out for a final version later? I want to get the queue time moving but I also don't want to waste that time if the approval comes back rejected because of a placeholder image. Thanks for any insight
  16. I will throw my hat in with Whiskey systems. They're incredibly helpful and continuously improving.
  17. Any insight on good talking points for tours? Just walk through the production process with them? Is that enough to hold attention and excitement?
  18. The single spout enolmatic/enolmaster has been wonderful for us. We get through about 500-600 bottles in one 8 hour shift. That's with one person manning the entire bottling line so there's a lot of downtime with the bottler itself while capping/sealing. I intend on upgrading to the 4 spout simply because the single spout was so good. Keep in mind if you use long neck/tall bottles you need the correct attachement which is $100-150 off st.pats.
  19. Great comment Michael. I must look into my pumps specs. Thank you!
  20. We have Artisan's tube-in-shell shown above and it's a tremendous piece of equipment. We use it with our impeller mash pump.
  21. I've come across a stainless steel auto-off nozzle similar to what you see at gas stations. I'm reading that this type of nozzle can't be used with gravity. Does anyone use this type of nozzle and if so what type of pump are you using? I have a small double-diaphram air pump I move spirits with but I don't know how it would work with this nozzle. Thanks!
  22. The control unit for our still connects to thermocouples like this. Does anyone have any input on specific types of wire and connectors that would seal the conduit connection on the end? Our electrician wants to run hardconduit to each thermocouple and that is excessive in my mind as low-voltage/class 2 wiring is safe for class 1 div 1 areas. I can't seem to be able to find an appropriate explosionproof/dustproof wire and nipple to connect to the probe. Any help is greatly appreciated.
  23. 37.5 gallons of heads sounds incredibly high. Is that not assuming any reflux and compaction of heads? I'm into hearts after less than 5-8 G of a 300G 40% low wines run after 30 min reflux period.
  24. I see it from a different perspective. At least with smaller barrels (5-15 G), you could gain yourself some goodwill from the small craft brewing community/homebrewers by providing them used barrels for a cheap/reasonable price. Craft beer drinkers are the same customers that craft distillers would want. They're discerning, respectful of the effort required to make a good product, and they're vocal about what they do and do not like. While we don't have first hand experience with this approach yet (still aging our first batch), I fully intend on using low/reasonably priced used barrels as an olive branch to that community of potential customers. This is an especially good approach if you have a strong social media presence for your craft beer community in your area.
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