Day 12:  We started the morning by checking out our fermentation started the previous day in the bioreactor.  The first two pictures here are the agitated fermentation chamber and then a shot of the whole bioreactor.  We ran spectrophotometer readings on the two samples.  If you look at the two different fermentations in the next two pictures you will see F1 on the left run at 30C was running a healthy fermentation.  F2 on the right is visibly thinner suggesting a weaker fermentation.  When we ran the test we got a cell density in F1 that is more than 2xs the density of F2.                                                                                                                                                  

 Adam taught Jake and I a new test method available for our experiments.  It is called a HPLC or a High Performance Liquid Chromatograh which runs a test similar to the Gas Chromatograph but runs the separation as a liquid rather than heating the volatiles to a gas state like the GC (see image on the right).  In the pictures on the left you see adam showing us how to prepare the samples and setting up the tray which goes into the HPLC (seen in the right photo).   Below right I am setting up a small lab fermentation of my project whiskey.  Below left Adam showed us what the yeast from our other experiment looks like under the microscope so we see the difference between good healthy yeast (F1) during fermentation and what yeast (F2) looks like when it is struggling for whatever reason.  In our case the temperature on F2 was a bit high for the optimal range of the Distilamax LS yeast we chose for this.  Tomorrow we are going to attach a computer to the microscope so we can use the mounted camera to show you the images of the yeasts.  The images are visually fascinating for the artist in me and telling of what is going on in the two fermentations for the science side.  The very bottom photo is the grains for my project Rye Whiskey and the bottle we are storing our weighed mash ingredients in until we mash them tomorrow.  So here is the recipe I chose after consulting with Justin Aden.  67%Rye, 20% Rye Malt, 13% Caramel Malt 60L from Briess.  I like Prime numbers.  Sadly with three ingredients you get to use only two of them to make 100%.  Lets hope 13 is a lucky number for this one.  Ari helped out with getting my ingredients for the bigger project batch when I get back into the distillery.  Tomorrow I will start the day talking with Kris about preparing an application for the TTB in the morning and then running the lab fermentation in the afternoon.