Diary of a Distiller: Chapter 11 - Another brick in the wall...

Building our brewery and distillery is much like building a wall. first you have to lay the foundation. Then the first course of bricks, then corners, edging, etc. If you goof up in one area, it affects the whole thing. So you have to tear it down, correct the problem or make the change, and start all over again. As you can see above, we are taking apart every piece of equipment, one by one, and cleaning sterilizing them, replacing any wort out or broken parts, and putting them back together.That specific piece of equipment with the parts laid out on the floor is the diverter and chilling plate. It's the arteries and veins of the whole brewery. By placing the elbow joints in various configurations we can send water or wort (freshly brewed but unfermented beer) to any piece of equipment such as fermenters, filters etc. and heat or chill it.

Well, this has been an intense week. As I mentioned, a few weeks ago we got out federal brewery permit, but the state permit is the one that makes us official. On Tuesday the state inspector came, and even though we still have lots of work to do before we can start brewing, we now have our state and federal brewery permits and are an official micro-brewery. Hooray! Now we just have to locate the rest of the equipment we need and finish putting it all together. Then we can work on recipes for our beers.

Once the brewery is up and running it won't take much at all to finish off the distillery. Of course the simple, small distillery I imagined at the start of this whole journey, is nothing compared to what is in store. One small still is rapidly becoming two, then three...

By the way, remember back in Chapter Two, when I ranted about the sealant I was using on the still to keep it nice and bright? The stuff that turned out to be alcohol soluble and melted right off at the first touch of alcohol? I finally got around to calling the company and telling them about the problem. They were very nice and realized they had made a mistake. I was informed that they were in beta testing for a new product that was alcohol and chemical resistant, and that they would send me a small amount to try out and test for them. So some time soon I may go back to polishing the still and sealing it again. This time any polishing will take place outside or in a sealed bubble. The polishing compound gives off a fine dust that makes everything filthy as soon as water comes in contact with it. I would be polishing and done for the day and only look slightly dirty, then as soon as I started to wash my face it would turn completely black and would only come off with several applications of scrubbing with a soapy sponge.

Now that we are a micro-brewery I am having to study up on all I have forgotten in the 15 years since I worked in a micro-brewery in Seattle during grad school. I haven't even brewed a batch of home brew in several years, and it's been at least 12 years since I did an all grain batch of home brew where you have to control the temperatures to take the steeping grain through all the enzyme reaction steps.

So I ordered a few professional brewing texts to catch up on all I have forgotten over the years. This is going to be fun, but also daunting at the same time. So far two of the texts have shown up, one is 853 pages, the other 949 pages. Both chock full of important and useful technical information.I dove in to them yesterday afternoon for a few hours and finally surfaced when the alarm went off. I would have spent all day and night studying if I hadn't set the alarm to remind me to go out and eat. I'm very glad that I am a very fast reader, and that if I understand it I remember it. My only problem right now is that I also tend to forget stuff if I don't use the knowledge every now and then. I guess my brain is like a businesses filing system. After awhile old files get put into long term storage and if they are no longer useful or needed they get destroyed. Although I bet that as I goof up here and there I will remember, all too late, that I shouldn't have done whatever I did. Isn't that always the case?

I really miss living in Owls Head, outside of Rockland. the restaurant scene there is great and was only two minutes from my house. If I didn't feel like cooking it was only a few minutes to any of the great local places to eat. Here in Winterport it is fifteen miles and 25 minutes to the nearest good food in Bangor. Also, while there are some very good restaurants in Bangor, the Asian restaurants tend to be mediocre. The supposed best place for sashimi and sushi made me feel like crying because it was so boring.

As a reward for my diligent efforts in studying brewing science I decided to drive the 50 miles to Suzuki Sushi in Rockland. I have become fast friends with everyone there, and the food is fantastic. Having tried the sushi and sashimi in the best places in the state, I have no problems saying that Suzuki's is the best of them all. So good that The Boston Globe just wrote an article about them on July 30th. You have to be good if a major newspaper in a state that isn't even adjacent to you, has articles about how great you are. especially with a title like "Suzuki's and the zen of freshness." So after a nice, scenic, 75 minute drive, I managed to find parking in Rockland. It's the week of the Lobster Festival and the town is packed with visitors from as far away as Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa. You would think this is a terrible time to go out to eat, but with all the crowds chowing down on lobsters at the festival, the restaurants are actually emptier than normal. I got there fifteen minutes before they opened and ran into Erin, the hostess/waitress at Suzuki's. She told me that they had some special items on the menu and to stop by while I was in town. I told her that I drove all this way just for dinner and couldn't wait. She gave me a big grin and a wave as she ran back into the restaurant.

I went next door to one of my other favorite restaurants, In Good Company, run by Melody Wolfertz. I know I have mentioned this before but this is the place that brought me to move to Maine. A small cafe and wine bar with exceptional food, they were looking for an assistant chef Spring 2007 and a mutual friend asked me to come interview for the position. I wasn't sure if I wanted it, but drove up from NYC anyway, just to look around. After chatting with Melody I knew that I didn't want the job. I had the skills, but the tiny kitchen and fast pace was the exact opposite of where I wanted to go with my life. The kitchen actually scared me since it is so small that I could easily touch all the walls with partially outstretched arms. But for Melody and her staff, who tend to be about half my height, it's actually a comfortable space with everything within reach, to spin out amazing food in a very short time.

I chatted with Melody and she asked me when I was going to bring in some samples of our new products. She had just gotten a liquor license and wanted to add a few premium spirits to her line-up of fantastic wines and beers. I told her that it would be awhile before we had any spirits available, but that beer would be some time relatively soon, and in just a few weeks we would have a hard cider. I said that as soon as we got federal label approval I would stop by with the cider. We started it last December and has been aging, partially on wood, since mid- January.

The feds have to approve every label we design and until they do we can't sell the product. The cider, called Back Porch Maine Hard Cider, has a beautiful label. I think it is the best one that Winterport Winery has had so far. We use a burgundy background for all our labels, which makes them stand out, but in an elegant way. Centered is a painting done by Rachael, my partners Mike and Joan's daughter-in-law. It's of the view from a back porch in Maine. Rolling hills, burbling brooks, serene ponds, fields of corn and blueberries. I really like it and think that it's a real eye-catcher. As soon as we bring it to market I'll show you the label.

I sat down at the small bar in a nice high chair, and ordered a glass of a cold, crisp, dry rose wine. The perfect wine for a summer evening, and I sat and sipped while I recovered from the drive. It was nice to be back in Rockland, just chilling out. After I finished my wine I strolled back to Suzuki Sushi and sat myself down at my favorite seat at the left hand side of the sushi bar. everyone came over to say hi and made me feel very welcome. It has been two months since my last visit, which is a very long time since over the past year I usually showed up at least once a week. Keiko Suzuki Steinberger and her husband Joe Steinberger came in just then with their son Takuma who just turned one year old. having seen him from when he was all of a month old I was amazed how much he had grown, he was HUGE. You can tell he will be a big guy when he grows up, and handsome too. Joe handed me a copy of the article from The Boston Globe I mentioned earlier and took Taku off of Keiko's hands so she could change and get ready to make sushi and sashimi.

I ordered an excellent Geary's Pale Ale on tap and Keiko and Yuki, the kitchen chef, came over to tell me about all the specials. I finally asked them to put together the meal for me, that I trusted them, as long as it included an order of Yuki's amazing shrimp shumai. She makes them from the tiny, sweet, local Maine shrimp, and they are so delicate and flavorful, that I sometimes dream of them

The first item to come out was a small bowl of a delicately cured and smoked tuna; laid on top of locally grown, organic Mizuna, which are Japanese mustard greens; with a slice of lemon on the side. I asked about the tuna since it tasted like no tuna I had ever had before. It was the cheeks of a locally caught, Atlantic tuna. I forget which of the eight species of western Atlantic tuna it was: bluefin, bigeye, yellowfin, skipjack, albacore, blackfin, bonito, or the little tunny; but the restaurant next door, Lily's Cafe, had smoked it for them. i was really surprised since I hadn't thought to well of Lily's after a few horrible experiences when they first opened late this past spring. this dish really changed my mind about them and I can't wait to check them out some time soon. I also like the fact that some of the restaurants in town have such good relationships that they will help each other out and share the creation of certain dishes like this marvelous fish. I squeezed a bit of the lemon juice onto the Mizuna, and dug in.

Next out came a small bowl of home made pickled kelp stipe. The stipe is the shaft, or stalk, of the kelp seaweed plant. Yuki had gone out recently with a local seaweed scientist and harvested that and several other types of seaweed as well. how many restaurants do you know that are so fanatical about fresh food that they go out and harvest their own seaweed? Yuki and Keiko had been working on this pickle for awhile and felt that it was pretty good. I agreed and asked them if I could work with them so I could possibly have it on our menu when we open our small restaurant in a few weeks. The pickled stipe went great with my ale and is a great beer snack. crunchy little rings that looked like pickled jalapeno slices at first, but much firmer and crunchier; and with this light, bright, green, marine flavor boosted with a hint of vinegar. Kelp is one of those super-foods, chock full of 25 different vitamins, around 60-90 macro and micro-nutrients, and is also very good for your intestinal flora. It is the only rich, natural source of vitamin D, contains sterols which are good for correcting cholesterol levels, and sodium alginate which removes trace amounts of radioactive and heavy metals from the body.

Then I had my fabulous shumai, followed by a tray of sashimi and sushi. I can't remember everything but the ones that stuck out were all locally caught seafoods; scallop, hamachi (yellowtail), and toro (the prized fatty tuna belly) sashimi. As well as tiny and delectable, local oyster nigiri, maguro (regular tuna) with jalapeno maki, and toro temaki (hand rolls.) After a feast like that I couldn't even think of dessert, although Yuki makes some great ones from local fruits, and I went for a walk around town before heading home. I can't wait for my next visit to Rockland to see what surprises they have in store. When I do I'll make sure I take my camera so I can share photos of their amazing food.

Have a good weekend folks, next week I hope to share some photos and stories about the Lobster festival. If you want to see what it was like last year check these out, there are some great photos of the festival.

60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival Announcement

60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival Part One

60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival Part Two

60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival Part Three

60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival Part Four

60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival Part Five

60th Annual Maine Lobster Festival Part Six