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We are in the midst of designing our labels and waiting on our DSP license. We went public on social media and we were very well received (people go crazy when you bring up the fact that you're opening a distillery!) and we want to keep feeding content to manage the hype as we build up to first fire. Would it be inappropriate (or even illegal?) to add to our website/social media images of our bottles with the finalized artwork but unapproved labels?

I'm wondering if anyone has any insight on sources for medium to high char new american oak barrels (53 gallons) at a reasonable price and within a reasonable time frame. Thank you in advance.

Yamada seems to be a brand many people here use. Thank you jamesbednar for the input. One Eight D, we have a huge compressor on site that's networked all through the facility as it used to be a manufacturing warehouse. I'll have to play with the numbers to size it right, but how big (or small) would you go for 300 G of rye, corn and malt mashes for the air diaphragm pumps?

I know there's a lot of discussion on pumps used in distilleries here. I'm looking for specific recommendations on size and brands to pursue for the two types of pumps we want to use. first is a spirit pump, SS/ptfe internals, double diaphragm pneumatic pump. I'm only planning on using this for spirit transfer. Considering that, does anyone have a suggested size? We have a huge onsite compressor already. Second is a grain-in mash pump. This is where I'm a bit lost. I've seen centrifugal and flexible impeller thrown around here. We're planning on moving 300 G grain-in from cooker to fermenters and then to still. What are the pros and cons of the two I mentioned? Considering our scale is one better than the other? What size would be fitting? Finally how does everyone mount or otherwise locate their pumps? Stationary? on carts? Am I missing something? Thanks for any advice you all can give!

ebstauffer, wonderful resource you linked there. Thank you!

I'm looking for some advice for water treatment. So our water is really high quality for brewing and just a simple carbon filter would suffice to remove chlorine i believe. the water profile is notorious for it's quality and lack of unwanted minerals. I was planning on using carbon filtered water up to dilution and just get a small RO system for that. Am I missing something completely obvious?

delete pls

Are there any standard formulas for properly sizing a general purpose cooling system? Our equipment is as followed: Heating: * 300 G steam jacketed still * 300 G mash-tun * 1,000,000 btu steam boiler Cooling: * Product condenser: 3-8 G/min flow rate * 4 jacketed 300 G fermenters * Flow-through wort chiller Assume 1-2 runs a day. I understand it's a balance between chiller capacity and resevoir size. To draw from someone elses analogy i found here: if the boiler is the engine, what would be the most cost efficient way to "break" this system? I'm thinking a small chiller with a large water resevoir...what size though?

You guys are wonderful. It's quite funny that i'm sitting here fretting over the cost of a hole in the ceiling and I never thought about digging down. I've been working with contractors to get our trench drains planned out and didn't put two and two together. Yeah. we only need a foot or so.

Does anyone have any input on the pros and cons of splitting a vodka column in half and doing a side-by-side to make an 18 ft column fit in a 17 ft ceiling? At this point our only other option is to blow a hole through the roof to accommodate. How has everyone else addressed a problem like this short of finding a new location?

no problem. We have a huge boiler thats well oversized for our current equipment so heat availability is a non-issue. We are hesitant about their numbers but they're pretty clear that they're correct. We're being managed by reps now that have actual equipment experience and we're going to visit them to see first hand. BTW, our plans have been to expand into a 1200 G stripping still to complement our 300 G spirit still. I just haven't spoken about those plans here yet so thats why I was surprised by your comment. Do you want to expand on why you wouldn't suggest a beer/stripping still? The way I see it it allows us to get two things done at once. Strip to low wines and do spirit runs much more often.

Thanks for the input so far! The question arose when space was a premium for us and the idea of a smaller footprint for the same fermentation space was almost needed. The space we are nearly settled on is much larger so it's not that big of an issue. I was looking at it from the angle of facilitating future expansion. It seems like multiple smaller tanks is the way to go. Thank you!

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with using larger fermenters than their mash-tun and/or still and how it effects their efficiency/workflow. We're looking at a 300 G still/cooker and weighing using 4 separate 300 G fermenters vs 1 large 1200 G setup. The obvious benefit of a larger fermenter is growing capacity when we inevitably...hopefully...add more fermentation space along with a 1200 G beer still. My big concern is how easy/hard is it to service a 1200G tank with a 300 G mash cooker? 4 cooks in a row...also obvious would be a larger mash cooker but something has to give to the pocketbook as we get started... Thanks for any insight...feel free to put me in my place if i'm overlooking something here.

Just to cap off the subject...only about a week after we struggled with the previous location the town government and the building owners worked with us to find a location. An amicable population makes for a wonderful launch point. This is really happening...we have a location, equipment is kitting out nicely, funding, and support from the locals...I have to pinch myself! Thanks for the help and the good discussion here! I'll have more questions, surely, in the future.

Are your referencing me? We have no intention of running a stripping still yet so I don't quite understand the point of your comment. The idea about retaining condenser heat as an input to heating the next wash is interesting. I need to get off the ground before we can toy with efficiencies. Our manufacturer quoted us 4 hours for their 300 G still and I wasn't sure if that included warm-up time. Still waiting on word back from them, but at this point I'm certain that's actual run time not including warm-up.

That's an amazing point. Having a local government that's helpful and knowledgeable has been a boon for us. The small town we're in is a suburb of a larger city in New York. They have a large brewery already established which has paved the way for us. They know the right questions to ask, they know the processes and regulations and they're very accommodating. The mayor himself threw his support behind us. The problems we ran into was with a particular location we thought to be suitable. That owner was less than cooperative so we've moved on. The town itself has been amazing to this point thus far.

The simplest and most obvious answer. This should easily facilitate two stripping runs per shift all else being equal. Thanks for the input!

I don't want to get too specific on the terms, but they provided a significant amount of our start up funds, enough to cover capital equipment and initial COGS. It was through a local bank we had strong connections with. Nothing beats face to face local contacts and relationships, along with a thorough business plan.

A small reprieve: the bank approved our financing yesterday so we have money to buy equipment but no place to setup...

I figured some people here would get a kick out of what just happened this morning: My partner and I have been entertaining two different locations to great lengths ultimately ending in a bust. For the most recent one, we were turned down this morning from leasing or outright buying the property due to moral reasons because "they've seen what alcohol can do to people." This is after ADVERTISING that the building would be great for a brewery (a distillery isn't that big of a jump in my mind). This is after jerking us around for the past 2 weeks allowing us to look at the place multiple times, bring contractors in, and over all just waste our time. In full knowledge of our intentions. I want to find someone to buy the place just to lease it out to us in spite (yes, i'm joking...kinda). Guess we're going to put up a cheap pole barn in the middle of no where at this point...

Thank you everyone for your responses thus far. More detail: The prospective equipment is a 300 G hybrid still, 4 plate 12" whiskey column with an attached 12" 16 plate vodka column and gin basket. Steam heat jacket w/ agitator. I was assuming the times included heatup but not cooldown which is why I was able to convince myself we could get two runs in one shift. At this point I have a nagging sense that this isn't the case. It's probably 1 hour warmup, 4 hour distillation, and 1 hour min cooldown before it can be vacated and charged for a second run (shorter warmup?). I don't know where I got it in my head we could squeeze two runs per shift. Luckily we aren't too far into this process and relatively little money is committed yet. It's back to the drawing board for us, however.

According to the (potential) manufacturer 4 hour run. While it seems like an obvious answer I feel like I"m missing something though. 1 hour warm up is a figure i'm commonly seeing, and a 1 hour "cooldown" between each run (forgot what it's called). 10 hour days would be daunting. but doable to make this work. How feasible this is as we get off the ground with only 2 people max...that's the big question.

I'm trying to get a grip on our production schedule and planning. Is it realistic to get two distillations per shift? How many runs a week is realistic to expect from a small operation (1-2 people)? We're looking at a 300g still and supporting equipment.

lol I love that last bit. Thanks for the response, it was inline with what I was thinking.

Lets say I end up with 300g of a bad fermentation that must be disposed of. We have a great relationship with our farmers and they are going to take our stillage and use it as feed. Could a bad fermentation of higher abv be disposed of this way? After dilution? The local government is interested in our BoD, TSS and how we are going to handle a bad batch. Anyone have any suggestions on a response? We are going to have a 300g still, to put our scale in mind. What other sources of BoD and TSS would we need to look into besides stillage and wasted batches? Thanks in advance