"WinterportWinery" news and stories

Over the weekend we had a very busy time at the Winery. Saturday night was the culmination of a month of work by several dozen people from the area who entered in our Gingerbread House competition for charity. We have had several classes a week on how to make and decorate gingerbread houses and ended up with almost thirty contestants. There were five categories: Professional, Under 17, Traditional, Historical, and Fantasy. There were some absolutely wonderful creations, and I was surprised at the quality of all the entries, especially the fact that some of the best were by people who had never done this before.

Sunday night I went to a Sunday Night Cocktail event hosted by my friend and award winning mixologist, Lydia Reismueller, formerly of the speakeasy style cocktail bar PDT and restaurant/cocktail bar Elettaria in NYC. Lydia has been having these Sunday events for the past two months at the Westcot Forge restaurant in Blue Hill, ME and they have been a big success. I tried a few of her new creations and said my good-bye's for the season, as she heads off to travel the world until March with her chef boyfriend. I'm already looking forward to when she starts up the Cocktail Sundays again next Spring when she comes back to manage one of the excellent, local, organic farms.

Today is the 75th Anniversary of Repeal Day, a day of celebration and rejoicing of the end of one of this nations debacles in judgment, Prohibition. Although Prohibition only lasted for 13-14 years on a national level, it was in force for many decades prior in several states. Here in Maine it started in 1851.

I'm starting off my day with a business meeting of the Maine Winery Guild. Last year I kick-started the association into forming and this will be our third business meeting. Owners of most of Maine's 18+ wineries will be there. I also invited the owners of the State's micro-distilleries to attend, so we can decide whether to join the Maine Winery guild, or start a separate association. I know that after-wards a few of us will be celebrating Repeal Day by tasting each others products.

After that I'll be going back to the winery to bottle Cranberry Wine. The job just got much easier. When we bought the brewery equipment a large filter was part of the deal. We never got around to cleaning it up and using it until this week. It's four times the size of the one we were using before. With that much more surface area the pump works much faster and easier. So running a 500 gallon tank of wine through the filter takes only forty minutes, compared with 1/2 a day or more with the old filter. Wine needs to be filtered sevral times through finer and finer levels until it is crystal clear. So what took three days before, we can now due in one day before lunchtime. Mike was practically dancing with glee.

In the last of the photos below you can see the old filter, without its plates, in front of the much larger new one.

Over the weekend we finished installing new steam pipes and condensate returns for the brewery boiler. Late Saturday afternoon we fired the boiler up and it seemed to work fine. When we got in Monday to check on things, the sight glass on the brew kettle was broken. We think it probably had the wrong gaskets or some other small problem and cracked during the cool-down. We ordered a replacement, and some valves, and then we're set to start brewing.

Later Monday we got our first shipment of brewing ingredients: crushed malt, hops, yeast, and assorted adjuncts and fermentation nutrients. So as soon as we clear up the last little things we will be brewing beer!

Much of the rest of the week was spent in the winery, bottling wine, re-arranging storage, and all kinds of things to get ready for our busiest time of year, the Holiday Season. Later in the week we found out that we still had some major problems with the boiler. Actually, not the boiler, but the configuration of the piping, where and how parts are located, steam condensate traps, pumps, etc. An expert came in and very soon was able to figure out the problems and we ordered some more parts and started what we hope will be our final re-design. Just another week or so and we'll be able to brew.

This week went by very quickly, even though it was a six day week for me. On Monday I went in to the winery even though we were closed, so i could do some paperwork and research. The boiler guys showed up as well, to do some more work. They had to re-do a section of pipe work near the boiler where they hadn't tightened down the pipes enough and there were steam leaks. Tuesday we were closed as well for Veterans Day, but I was back again, doing more research and paperwork. I had the place to myself for most of the day and it was nice and quiet.

On Wednesday, just before lunch time, the delivery of 6,000 pounds of peach puree arrived. Twelve drums, each weighing 500 pounds, stacked four to a pallet. As the first pallet load was being lowered on the gate lift to the ground, it started teetering, and almost fell. But made it semi-safely to the ground. The second load got out of control and came crashing down onto the asphalt of the parking lot. As you can see they were torn open, dented and partially crushed like soda cans. Luckily, the puree is packed aseptically inside very thick Mylar bags that have a breaking strength in the thousands of pounds. So with a huge struggle we were able to right the drums and manhandle them down into the winery. It took us almost two hours to get the twelve drums down the ramp and into the basement. Leaving us sore and aching in every joint.

Then on Thursday the boiler guys came to correct some other minor problems, and we powered up the boiler. Everything seemed fine, except for the cloud of smoke wafting along the ceiling. As the steam pipes heated up for the first time any oils accumulated on their surface burned off. So we walked around in a haze, and daze, choking on oily smoke. We set up some exhaust fans to vent the winery, and turned on the big exhaust blower in the distillery, which helped a lot. Then we started to have some more problems with the boiler shutting down due to pressure problems, so we spent the day re-thinking the installation. Friday and Saturday were spent adding new sections of pipe for the condensate return to the boiler. Hopefully this will be the last hurdle in the boiler drama, and then we can make beer. I REALLY need a tasty brew right now!

Last week was a busy, busy, week. Lots of hard work that brought us much closer to our goals of opening the brewery and distillery. At the end of the week I came down with a mild version of the flu, thanks to the open and sharing nature of my friends and partners. Finally on Saturday morning I ground to a halt at work. I was feeling pretty under the weather, not so bad I couldn't work, but my mental faculties were slowed down.

I decided to do some photography of bottles of the very rare, and out of production, Tanqueray Malacca Gin in my collection; to send to a potential customer who also collects rare spirits. As I was putting things away and moving cases around, I stumbled back in forth in a daze. Then due to my clumsiness a case of empty wine bottles fell from the top of a pallet onto my big toe. Usually I have pretty fast reactions and can catch falling stuff, or at least slow down or break their fall. This time I didn't even notice it until a few seconds after it landed, directly with the pointy corner of the case in the middle of my toe. It didn't hurt at first. Mike was near me hunting for some tools and I pointed out the case balancing on it's corner, sitting on my toe. He just shook his head and shrugged with a rueful smile. I knew it should hurt, but my reflexes were so slowed down that I felt nothing.

I picked up the case and heaved it over my head and back onto the pallet. Grumbling under my breath that this was going to hurt like hell. I started to make my way up the stairs to my office and as I did so my toe started to get warm, then hot, then to burn unmercifully. By the time I hobbled up the stairs and sat down at my desk in the distillery my toe really, really hurt!