On the left is the beginning of a 1,200 liter, wheat mash. The wheat is mixed with filtered water and enzymes are introduced to break down the starch. Once the starch has been converted to sugar, yeast is added to convert the sugar to alcohol. The mixture is pumped into a fermenter and sits for five days, at which point it is 11% alcohol by volume (scroll down).
Here's a picture of Will mixing in 16 bags of wheat, which weigh 50 pounds each. The wheat is shipped from Aurora Mills Farm in Linneus Maine, a small town on the border of Canada. On average, we go through 1,600 pounds of wheat a week (Scroll down).
Once the mash is finished fermenting, we pump it into the still (more on that in an upcoming post). Once the cuts have been made, and the best spirit has been separated, we blend it down to 40 alcohol by volume with filtered water. In the case of our vodka, it is then chilled to 30F and carbon filtered, after which it is filtered again using a particle filter (scroll down).
The production board. Keeping track of what mash finishes when gets confusing (I know. Sad). We take down the date of each mash, the BRIX (percentage sugar), and the specific gravity at which the mash finished. The specific gravity helps us determine the alcohol content.
A new delivery of wheat. Watching the eighteen wheelers back down cramped Cedric Street while angry commuters spew vitriol gives me the sweats. Those drivers have nerves of steel.
A man and his forklift. Willbur's favorite activity: Moving stuff, in this case a 3000 pound tote of Blackstrap Molasses. The molasses arrived from New Orleans. The guy who delivered it got blocked in by a school bus and spent two hours looking over our shoulder and trying to convince us to participate in an underground moonshine ring. Truckers are phenomenally entertaining and consistently the most interesting people we deal with.
40 gallons of molasses and 600 liters of filtered water are the base of our rum "wash." Watching the molasses flow into the "mash tank" is deeply relaxing. Cleaning the tank at the end of the day is not. Actually its torture. It usually involves one of us climbing into the tank and scrubbing it by hand. Not fun for two lanky guys.
The hydrometer, which measures alcohol by volume, reads 85, which means the spirit is coming off the still at 170 proof. On the left is wheat whiskey. Yes, whiskey is clear when it exits the still. It's the barrels that give whiskey it's distinctive hue. At 170 proof, I don't recommend putting this in a mint julep. We'll cut it down to 60ABV (120 proof) with filtered water. It then heads into the barrels to mature. Once it's done mellowing, we'll cut it down to 40ABV (80 proof). Mint Julep time. 
The vapor flows through the condenser and then out the spout pictured on the left. We collect it in gallon jugs and separate out the "hearts," which is the middle portion of the run. The gallon jugs allow us to separate the best spirit with precision. We'll combine a small portion of the "heads" (front portion of the run) and "tails" (back portion of the run) for complexity and flavor. The still fills a gallon jug every fifteen minutes (roughly).
