opening a legal distillery in the U.S.

[Big J]

="Uncle Jesse"
As far as selling online, I'd love to but I am not sure I could pull that off. California is a "3 tier" state which means I cannot be a producer and a retailer. I have to sell to large distributors who sell to the liquor stores and bars.

St. George's Spirits, in their emails, refers to a 'distillery store.' Maybe ask them how they pull it off.

Cheers,
J

[Uncle Jesse]

No still yet. Here are some photos of my current equipment. As you can see the Bohemian is probably overkill but it will give me the flexibility to create any mash I can think of off the top of my head.

10 barrel stainless steel fermenter:



boiler for making steam:



my brand new, made to order grain mill:



mash tun side of the Bohemian brew setup.



couple of pics of the top half of the mash tun, internally:




controls for the works:



the lauter tun side of the Bohemian:



view of how the controls are situated.



Note the box with the note written to me by Jere, the founder and original owner of Revenoor. It's something I keep close and I constantly use it to remind myself of it's simple wisdom.

[AfricaUnite]

Who makes that fermenter in the first pic? Looks like a ganemede tank.

[Uncle Jesse]

Who makes that fermenter in the first pic? Looks like a ganemede tank.

no idea, i bought it used!

[possum]

Wow.
That mash rig looks great.
I bet you could make some great stuff with that fermenter and mash unit.

Are you licensed for beer or wine? I guess that it is easier (and less expensive) to get certified for spirits alone instead of spirit and beer/wine.

Do you plan on using heads and tails for fuel to keep losses down?
The proffit may or may not be worthwhile depending on the paperwork and the free market value for fuel.

[Uncle Jesse]

i won't be licensed for beer or for wine. i don't think i could get licensed for them, to be honest. wineries get a special dispensation for making brandies but that's because the wine lobby is strong here in the U.S.

heads and tails will be used as feints and those which aren't will be saved for occasional runs of "the kings own cask" type spirits. i will be using gas to power the boiler so there's really no way i can re-use my waste products. i'll simply try to be wise with them. obviously with the kind of cuts i take i'll have a higher percentage of heads and tails than most commercial distilleries and i'll have to learn to be wise using them.

[partsbill]

[quote="Uncle Jesse"]
i will be using gas to power the boiler so there's really no way i can re-use my waste products. i'll simply try to be wise with them. quote]

Will you be turning your spent mash into cattle feed as the ethanol producers do?

[goose eye]

what your labels gonna look like.

[Ricky]

saw a show last nite on ngc called ultimate factorys. they were talking about moonshine. a family went legit in virginia making theyre family recipe. the name of the spirit was virginia lightning. all they made was moonshine marketed as less than 30 days old. dont know what there volume was but they appeared to do quite a bit. might be worth investigating and picking up some tips. i dought that your markets would overlap anytime soon. although i definantly wish you all the luck in the world. i guarentee that the first i here of your stuff getting within 150 miles of my house i will have me a bottle. again uncle jesse i wish you luck!

[Virginia Gentleman]

Great pics, thanks for sharing all the details. At least the rest of us can dream and live vicariously through your distilling adventure. That's some cool equipment you got, can't wait to see the Revenoor still. You got the best toys here!

Hey Ricky, that distillery in Va. is called Belmont Farms and they're right up the road from here. Wish I got that channel, I read about the show on their web site. Check it out: http://virginiamoonshine.com/vaLightning.html. They did a lot of work locally to be able to sell their product on site, think they even pushed for legislation to make that happen. Wine makers here have faced the same problems. Of course, Va. law on all that is different from Ca.

[Samogon]

No still yet. Here are some photos of my current equipment. As you can see the Bohemian is probably overkill but it will give me the flexibility to create any mash I can think of off the top of my head.

mash tun side of the Bohemian brew setup.

couple of pics of the top half of the mash tun, internally:

the lauter tun side of the Bohemian:

Judging by the screen shown in your 'mash tun', it looks like a mash/lauter tun, with both operations being done in one vessel. The bottom half of the tank should be your hot liquor for sparging, and the 'lauter tun' in your picture is the brew kettle, in fact it is labeled as such on the control panel. I'm not sure what you'll do with the kettle in liquor production, I s'pose you might want to boil something to sterilize it before fermentation sometime. Maybe you can sell it off separately, but it'd be shame to break up the system. Or you could cut the top off and use it as a hot tub!

Are you going to try and keep the grain solids in the fermenter, as in, say, the UJSM? I'd guess you'd need a solids capable pump, like a positive displacement or something. And then pump it back to the mash/lauter to strain out the grains before pumping to the still?

Once you had such a pump, you could mash in the brew kettle and just lauter in the mash/lauter. This would let you actually heat the mash without adding water, if you wanted to do a non-infusion mash program.

Looking forward to your still pics - I, too enjoy 'living vicariously' through your startup.

[stillvodka]

the USA is so,sooo big, massive market , endless opportunities, I do truly hope you do well UJ.

I would love to by a bottle of what you are going to produce in your still.