Invaluable equipment vs

[jbdavenport1]

Okay here’s one for the peanut gallery. 

We are still acquiring our equipment and my question is:

what has been the biggest waste of money for a piece of equipment...namely because it was useless. 

Concersely, what is the most valuable piece of that you may not have initially planned to buy or didn’t realize how useful it would be. 

Thanks in advance. 

[Hudson bay distillers]

my wife ....lol im jus kidding she was money well spent . depending on the size of your operation SS used beer kegs are very handy there cheep and can be used for a ton of stuff . 

tim 

[MGL]

Waste of money = Almost anything new.

Everyone is so quick to build out their entire distillery with all that loan or investor money they now have. We have probably saved nearly $100,000 by sourcing quality used equipment.

That is $100,000 more in my pocket, $100,000 less debt to pay off, $100,000 less risk, and $100,000 worth of ownership I did not have to give away.

[mjduheme]

biggest waste= chinese equipment,  most valuable = a good network of peers

[ChrisSD]

That's an awfully broad statement @mjduheme. Not all things made in China are bad.  Just like not all things made in the U.S. are good!  As for the network of peers, I whole heartedly agree with that.  A good network of peers is valuable in any business venture.

[Huffy2k]

Good question, the biggest waste was probably our 80 gallon air compressor.  We anticipated moving all of our mash with our pneumatic diaphragm pump and we did for about a month until we invested in a flexible impeller pump from US FIP (which turned out to me our most valuable piece of unplanned equipment).  The FIP is so much quieter, easier to use, flexible, reversible and easily able to handle our grain-in mashes.  We still use the compressor and pump to move high wines and finished spirits but we could have gotten by with a smaller, less expensive, compressor for that job.

[mjduheme]

1 hour ago, ChrisSD said:

That's an awfully broad statement @mjduheme. Not all things made in China are bad.  Just like not all things made in the U.S. are good!  As for the network of peers, I whole heartedly agree with that.  A good network of peers is valuable in any business venture.

Ah, but the question was what was the biggest waste of money, for us it was our chinese still pot.  never even got to use it, it ended up going to the scrap yard.  and our fermenters look like they were polished by using a tiger locked inside. 

[Southernhighlander]

mjduheme,

That can happen when you order directly from a Chinese company.   There are lots of reason's not to do that.  Which Chinese company did you buy it from?

[jbdavenport1]

Hudson Bay.....I didn’t ask what your most costly investment was?//??

[HedgeBird]

1 hour ago, mjduheme said:

for us it was our chinese still pot.  never even got to use it, it ended up going to the scrap yard.  and our fermenters look like they were polished by using a tiger locked inside. 

That seriously sucks, and I am very sorry to hear it.  You should certainly share the name/info on the company you purchased from so others can hopefully avoid something like that!  Hope your up and running with a new/better still now!

[whiskeytango]

Just start with nothing and buy what you need when you need it.  Biggest wast is getting a bit ass loan and just buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff. 

 

[mjduheme]

35 minutes ago, HedgeBird said:

That seriously sucks, and I am very sorry to hear it.  You should certainly share the name/info on the company you purchased from so others can hopefully avoid something like that!  Hope your up and running with a new/better still now!

the equipment was purchased before I came aboard, don't know the name of the company.  All I know is the company must had gone the cheap route and now ended paying for it in the long run. 

We purchased a G-Still to replace the chinese still, and very happy with it, just a little small for our production. 

Do have to say though, Paul at Affordable Distilling Equipment is a great guy, and I would highly recommend him for somebody looking to purchase equipment.  He and his staff are very helpful.  We had purchased a copper column from them for our crappy still, ended selling the column to another distillery and scrapping the pot before we ever got to use it.  Long story.

[mjduheme]

We purchased equipmet made by the Zhejiang Dafeng Light Machinery Co., LTD and the Wenzhou First Branch Light Indrustrial Machinery Co, LTD.  Don't know who made what.