Meeting with town planner this week, how to prep and need corn stillage lab report

[kckadi]

Hi everyone,

Anyone have a lab report from corn mash stillage (or anykind of stillage)? I meet with my town planner at the end of the week and they want to know what, potentially, will be going down the drain to the towns WWTP. I explained that its basically stale non-alcoholic corn beer but they want a report. I plan on giving my stillage to local farmers but there will be still be occasions when I'm sure it will have to go down the drain.

Also, what types of questions have others been asked by their town/city planners when meeting for the first time to pitch the idea of a micro-d in their town? Did you present your business plan? What type of info have you brought with you?

Thanks

[Brothers Vilgalys Spirits]

Can't help you on the stillage question (I use GNS and blend liqueurs), but as dealing with town governments, it can vary a bit depending on the disposition of the city manager you're talking to, and your own social skills in talking to them. They can either make things very easy for you or completely impossible. I always approach those things with "This is what I'm doing, these are the resources I have, tell me what I need to do to satisfy you." I was lucky enough to be in a town that is very pro-growth and pro-small business, and most of the folks I talked to were genuinely interested and helpful.

For wastewater, I just had a list of the chemicals I'd be using and we had to install a grease trap to keep them happy. I tried very hard to explain that we never use grease or oils or whatever, but they just said that that's what the code required and so that's what I had to do.

It would also help to at least be familiar with the fire code requirements and to have a plan for how you'll deal with those. Mainly you'll want to show that your methods are safe and that there will be no way for ethanol fumes to come in contact with fire. I keep the GNS in a fire safety cabinet and this made my fire inspector very happy.

I'm assuming you've already answered the question of zoning as well.

Hope that's helpful, it's hard to be specific as local requirements are always well, local.

[kckadi]

Thanks, I'm busy reviewing and printing material for my meeting tomorrow. Lots of items to do in a short time!