Diary of a Distiller

Wow, it's already August 22nd and the summer is almost over. The past three days have been the best weather we have seen since early July. Until this recent weather change we had only two sunny days out of the prior 41. Now it's nice and sunny, and will be for a week at least, but already there is an Autumn nip to the air. High 70's with blue skies and puffy clouds during the days, it was actually cool enough last night that I had to close the windows and turn on the heat.

Follow up:

You've heard me complaining again and again about how we have so much equipment back ordered and it's keeping us hanging on building the distillery and brewery. Finally it looks like some of the last obstacles are getting cleared up. Our propane burner for one of the stills arrived yesterday. Of course it seems that the box of parts opened up during shipping and was re-boxed and delivered to us missing one part. One of the air venturis is floating around out there in the back o some truck. So we have to return the burner and get a new one shipped to us. Personally I felt that just the missing part needed to be shipped, but that's not how the shipper and seller feel.

The other thing we have been waiting on is our steam boiler that will heat the brewing kettle and some of our stills. We were originally going to go with propane, but after crunching numbers decided on an oil burning boiler instead. Now next week we will get some quotes and move on to get it installed as fast as possible. (Which means not as fast as we would like.)

This week we worked on several wines. Some are just getting started and some are finally ready to bottle. Some need to be adjusted and blended like our soon to be released, hard cider. Cider is one of those products that require a careful hand. The blend of different types of fermented apple juice needs to be adjusted so that you get it exactly as tart. sweet, tangy, aromatic, etc. as you want.


The majority of the hard cider will be bottled immediately and sent out to all the folks waiting eagerly to try it. Some we will put in used whiskey and rum barrels to further age, as a special reserve cider, that will only be sold out of our restaurant by the glass.

I mentioned last week that it is the Maine wild blueberry season, and that we are making our blueberry wines. I thought you might like to see some of the process. Here are photos of a 1/2 ton of organically grown, wild, low bush, tiny, bursting with flavor, Maine blueberries. We set up a fruit grinder on top of one of our 250 gallon stainless steel fermenting tanks and pour the berries in to the hopper. We have it set to partly crush and grind the berries, but not turn them into total mush. This way we will get total flavor and color extraction, but won't have problems separating them out later.

A thousand pounds of blueberries only fill a fermenter part way, so we have been getting deliveries every few days of fresh from the field, just picked, berries. This batch you see here is earmarked specifically for the distillery for when we get our permits in a few months. We're starting to make many wines that we will make into eau de vie and fruit brandy this coming winter. They will ferment at cool, cellar temperatures; nice and slow. This way the wines will have the optimum of fruit fresh flavors and aromas to carry through on the distillation.

Working in a winery/distillery is the epitome of long term planning. We are starting to make wine that will ferment and age for many months. Then we will distill it several times. Then put it away in barrels to age and mature. Then cut it to a lesser strength with pure water and put it back in the barrels to mature more. Then cut it to an even lower strength of just above what we will bottle it at, and put it back in the barrels for even more time. Finally we will bottle the fine, aged, fruit brandy when it is silky smooth, rich, and like velvet on the tongue. Some of what we are starting now won't be sipped for quite awhile. Of course some of it won't be aged much at all, just long enough to make it smooth, then bottled as a clear, young, vibrant, eau de vie.

Making the Blueberry Wine
Gallery: Diary of a Distiller: Chapter 14 - Blueberry Wine