Diary of a Distiller

Happy Independence Day Everyone, and X-mas in July too!

Well if it isn't one thing it's another. We have been at a standstill in building The Distillery, again. We've been back ordered for six weeks on delivery of a large, low pressure, multi-ring propane burner to heat the still. The large size we need limits us, and seems to be unavailable in the US, except from one company who imports them from overseas. I have been looking to order a smaller, temporary version that I hope to use for when we build the stills heating unit, called the firebox. It is going to be basically a brick oven that heats the still from below with a direct propane flame. Since we are a commercial space with an indoor set-up we want safety to be the #1 priority. So our firebox has to be well ventilated with an outside air intake and a flue to exhaust the unit up through the roof like a chimney on a fireplace.

Follow up:

I have also been searching like crazy on the Internet for stainless steel fermenting tanks and other pieces of equipment that I hope to get cheap. They're hard to find and expensive, and we need them so we can finish building the rest of the distillery, and maybe get a small bit of brewing done as well. Our brewery permit should come through in the next few weeks and we want to make a small batch of beer for the fun of it. We don't really plan on being a full scale brewery at this time because the equipment is so expensive. So we hope to pick up odds and ends, here and there, over the next few years. I'd love to have a full scale brewery as well as the distillery, but just don't see it happening any time soon.

Last week I was warned by my partners, Mike and Jody, that on Monday I had to have my camera and be ready for a road trip. They wouldn't say where or why, but that I could only make one phone call, if I even had cell phone service. Then they clammed up and wouldn't say more, letting me stew on it all weekend.

Well, first thing Monday morning Jody stopped by and dragged me off on the road trip. I was starving and hadn't had any breakfast, or dinner the night before. I had spent the weekend sleeping through boring classes for my car insurance and was so tired out of sheer boredom and ennui Sunday night I went to bed early and without supper. Then I slept so deep and hard that I had to rush to meet Jody 12 hours later. I usually tend to wake up naturally just before dawn, a remnant of my years spent working in the wilderness as an Outward Bound Instructor. So for me to sleep from 8:30pm to 8:30am is unusual to say the least. I asked Jody if there was going to be anything to eat wherever we were going and he said, "Eventually." He was having a blast teasing me and chortling away as I tried to ignore him, but to no avail.
My stomach startled growling like crazy and I chatted about everything not food related that I could think of, to take my mind off my hunger. Finally when I asked Jody about gypsy moths and how this area was doing, I finally got distracted as we talked about bugs and trees and such for the next hour. He knows his stuff since he was a forest entomologist for twenty years working all over the state of Maine. I love anything to do with the outdoors and can talk and listen about forests, animals, plants, bugs and other critters all day. I worked as a State Park Ranger in the Catskill Mountains a few years ago and if I could go back in time to when I was younger I would have gotten my graduate degrees in forestry and botany; instead of strategic business management, psychology, and outdoor education.

After an almost two hour drive we ended up in the suburbs, and we came to a stop by a driveway that had a huge rental moving truck in it. I figured that the whole secret road trip thing was that they just wanted to rope me in to help a friend move, since they had helped me move a few weeks ago. Fairs fair, but I wished they had told me, so I could have worn some old clothes instead of nice shorts and my summer trademark, a gorgeous Hawaiian shirt. From Memorial Day to Labor Day I like to wear bright, summery shirts whenever possible; preferably silk if it's a breezy day. There's nothing like the feeling of silk rippling across your body in a breeze. I have dozens of them I've picked up over the years and every now and then a friend gives me one as a gift. I really didn't want to get all hot and sweaty and filthy in the brand new, beautiful deep blue and gleaming white silk shirt I was wearing for the first time.

Then I noticed that there was a lot of stainless steel stuff lined up in the driveway and the very large double garage. I grabbed my camera and hopped out. There were stainless steel tanks all over the place. A full micro-breweries worth of brew and mash kettles, lauter tuns, filters, fermenting tanks, pressure tanks, chilling plates, coolers, ice machines, etc. You name it, if you need it for a brewery, it was there. Mike and Jody let me in on the secret. For the past few weeks they had been negotiating to buy a brewery and kept from me. They told me that from reading this journal they had realized that I was totally stressed out about everything and wanted to surprise me. They sure as heck did! It was X-mas in July. I was absolutely speechless. Hot Damn! A full seven barrel size brewery, just what I always wanted. And people say there isn't a Sandy Claws!

It seems that a local micro-brewery had to go out of business due to personal reasons and so we bought every piece of equipment. Now, a brand new brewery is a mighty expensive endeavor. As I said earlier, I was thinking that it would be a several year process before we got to this point, if ever, but the deal was so good that Mike and Jody just couldn't pass it up. I knew of the former brewery and they had made some mighty tasty brews. The equipment is top of the line and basically new, just a trifle dirty on the outside from being stored for a few months. A few weeks of steam cleaning, sanitizing, and polishing; and everything would be as good as new.

There was even a beer stripper, which is a type of large still used for the first run of distilling whiskey. So now we had another still so our production will triple or quadruple when we get the distillery up and running. I was in a state of shock, and even now, a few days later, I still am. We went overnight from the possibility of a tiny little brewery and a small distillery, to a full size brewery and a nice sized distillery. I still can't get my brain around the whole thing. Wow! Then Mike told me that we had also gotten our federal brewery permit faxed to us that morning. Not only did we have all the equipment, but we could start working on recipes and get into production as soon as we want to. What a great way to start the week. Especially after several annoying weeks and a lousy weekend.

Of course we are going to have to do some major changes to our facility. The new equipment is all steam heated and so we now have to get a boiler and run steam pipes to all the kettles. At least working hard is fun and much better than hardly working, as we wait for pieces of equipment to be delivered.

Here's a gallery of photos of the brewery equipment.
Gallery: Diary of a Distiller: Chapter Seven - Happy Independence Day and X-mas in July

This has been an event filled week and the start of my first vacation in several years. Some people would say my whole life is a vacation, but I do work, occasionally. A few days after the shock of the brewery equipment my friend Ben Jones, General Manager for Clement Rhum, USA, and great-grandson of Homere Clement, came to visit for the day while on his vacation. Then fellow blogger, Joe Distefano and another buddy, Rob, who runs a fine wine and spirits shop on the Upper East Side in NYC; came up for a week vacation. We are going to check out some small town Independence Day parades and the fireworks down at the Waterfront in Bangor, then head Down East to camp, visit my friend Doug's winery, Bar Harbor Cellars, and brewery, Atlantic Brewing, in Bar Harbor. I have to drop off a box of brochures to him that I helped design for our new Maine Winery Guild's, 2008 Wine Trail, so I can take care of that while visiting.

By the way if any of you Slashfoodies are in Maine and want to tour the Wine Trail visiting some of our 17+ wineries, stop by any winery or the State of Maine Tourist centers. They should have the brochures available by next week.

After visiting Bar Harbor and finding out which are the best restaurants in town, we'll spend the night at another friends restaurant and inn, Fisherman's Inn, located in Winter Harbor. Carl Johnson is a great chef who has won numerous awards and been written up in several magazines for his smokehouse, Grindstone Neck of Maine. Saveur Magazine rated his smoked crab claws in their 100 best foods, and Joe D. wrote about a product I asked Carl to make for me last winter, cold smoked uni, for Gourmet.com. I ate at his place last week for the first time and the food was so excellent I'm looking forward to another visit. I'm sure it will be a week of carousing and getting ourselves outside of as much fine food and libations as possible. I'll tell you all about it next week after I recover.