Some Distillery Photos
Here are some random shots from today's working at the distillery. In these first several shots, you can see Becky has shined up the still with some copper polish. It is amazing how well it shined up, and though we both liked the patina of the copper, most people want to see that still shiny. The second photo shows the incredible contrast between the newly polished copper (bottom portion below the steel band) and the top column which was as yet unpolished. The fourth photo shows the completed job. Beautiful!
We did a mash run today too. In the first photo, you can see last week's mash, all fermented out to about 10% alcohol. You can see how the mash crept up the side of the fermentation tank as the yeast was expanding. This is typical. The second photo shows today's mash already bubbling away. It will be really foaming by tomorrow. The fermentation locks we use are just like people use in home brewing or home wine making... only BIGGER.
Our guard dog seems to think that our gift store box is his own personal nest.
We got 160 gallons of pear wine today from Doug Fabbioli. We will distill this into more pear brandy. Some of the wine came in old A. Smith Bowman casks -- this was very cool! And of course, here are some casks of our own, just in their infancy!