wadewood Posted September 18, 2013 Share Posted September 18, 2013 Texas oldest true craft distillery (grain to glass) is Railean Rum located in San Leon. It's about 1 hour from my house. I've been a couple of times and have known the owner Kelly Railean for a good while. I had asked if I could come down and work a day in the distillery. She agreed and and today was the day; well really half day - plan was from 10am to 2pm.I arrived and she let me know she was distilling Vodka and we would be cleaning fermenting tanks and getting next batch of rum started. She has 3 fermenting tanks; not sure of exact capacity, but 2 are about 10 ft tall by 6 ft across and the 3rd is a little smaller. Process is remove the tops and clean out with garden hose. The tops are on pulley system so they are easy enough to lift up and move to side. We clean out the 1st tank and I proceed to drop a pole mounted scrubbing brush to bottom of empty tank. At 1st she thought we would have to get ladder out and climb down, but then we decided we might be able to snag it with a hoe. Took a few tries, but was successful with hoe. Cleaned the other tanks out without issue.We start filling one of the tanks with water and also to pump molasses to tank. She buys a food grade de sulphured molasses from Louisiana in around 70 gallon plastic drums. The pump is a diaphragm pump powered by a large air compressor. The molasses viscosity is very thick and normal pumps do not work well; also the pump needs to be food grade. The pump is kinda a push pull and not a smooth flow. The hose going into tank has to be held in place as uneven pump flow makes the end move about. There is plenty of dried molasses on light fixture above the tank to show what happens if not held in place. We pump the 1st drum into tank and it's about 2/3 full with water and molasses. We pitch the yeast to get it circulating. Kelly knows the ratios needed and we still need to add about 20% from another drum. It's at this point pump decides not to work. We find a hole in the air line to pump. It's towards the end of line, so we cut off the bad hose section and reconnect the fitting. Fire the compressor back up and still nothing. She has another smaller diaphragm pump that she uses for pumping finished product that we decide to try. We have to connect some different size hoses to adjust for this application. Power up compressor but this pump is just too small; it will not pump up the lift distance we need. At this point I'm thinking we will need to cut top off drum and transfer using 5 gal bucket. Kelly decides to try to main pump one more time and after a few rough starts it finally gets going albeit slowly. The plan was to fill all 3 fermenter tanks, but with the pump issue we stop at just one. Kelly's husband is an engineer and I suspect he will tearing this pump apart tonight to see what is wrong. We then have to clean up the mess. We dripped a fair amount of molasses during process and both pumps have to be cleaned as well. The Republic truck for pickups showed up unexpectedly. She did have 2 pallets ready to be shipped. We got the 1st on the truck fine. We moved 2nd pallet out using hand pump jack. This pump jack had been having issues and it's at that time it busts and lets goes of it's hydraulic fluid. Now the pallet is stuck. Using the forklift we lift up some and are able to remove part of the way. We had to hammer of a few boards of bottom of pallet before we could completely remove pump jack.Did I mention that space is un airconditioned and weather is about 88 degrees and 75% humidity? I learned there is a lot of hard work that goes on a craft distillery and that you really need to be a jack of all trades. 99% of the time Railean Rum is a 1 person operation. They will be expanding soon so that will probably change. Her Vodka by the way was distilled from a corn mash that she fermented. I'm not sure anybody else in Texas truly makes a Vodka from scratch. She also has plans to make a whiskey. Her products are also reasonable priced; basic white rum is $17 a bottle and barrel aged XO is $21. Her aged rums have no color or other flavorings.While it was fun to hang out with Kelly, I think I'll stick to drinking it rather than making it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squire Posted September 18, 2013 Share Posted September 18, 2013 Thanks for the report Wade, I've not had a similar experience but if I had I believe I would've ended with the same conclusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverfish Posted September 19, 2013 Share Posted September 19, 2013 I learned there is a lot of hard work that goes on a craft distillery and that you really need to be a jack of all trades. What a great view from the inside. While I'm sure you (& the distiller) would have preferred a problem free day, I was pleased to hear you encountered a few minor glitches. Small bumpslike that can really make you appreciate all the effort that goes into making the spirits we enjoy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmckenzie Posted September 21, 2013 Share Posted September 21, 2013 What a great view from the inside. While I'm sure you (& the distiller) would have preferred a problem free day, I was pleased to hear you encountered a few minor glitches. Small bumpslike that can really make you appreciate all the effort that goes into making the spirits we enjoy.There are no problem free days. And pumps are the nightmare of all distillers large and small. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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