Day 8:  Kris and the guys started out the day with a business meeting.  My curiosity makes me really wish they would include me in this part, but I respect their need to operate the business without the new guy prying in.  So I chose to walk the 3 miles to the distillery to meet up with them when the morning meeting was up.  We started the morning by making a change over on the big still.  The columns stills are named the 21st Amendment.  It still makes me chuckle every time I hear one of them actually say that complete name when discussing it.  There is a reason you name dogs with one syllable names.  So the change over consisted of removing the pipe which connected the two columns to the Pot still, and putting in a longer replacement to bypass them, to connect directly to the condenser.  This allowed the big still to do a stripping run, running as alembic as possible.  This was done for one more Working Bugs project.  They had the state inspector in to check up on changes made in response to an initial inspection.  It appeared to go great as the inspector was smiling most of the time.  While this was going on Kris and I had a long conversation about dealing with inspectors and local officials who will be involved in building a distillery.  The one thing I think all of  you new to this industry should get from our talk is that it is never too early to begin talking to people like your fire marshall.

 The first picture here is Justin removing the first threaded clamp on the bottom of the pipe which connects the big pot still to the columns.  The next two images are of Justin and Junior putting in the bypass from the Pot Still to the condenser.  The final picture shows the bypass in place and ready to run.
The last order of the day was to discuss my mash recipe with Justin for my project.  I am doing some research tonight and tomorrow I will post what I decided to go with and why.