Day 9:  So today was a short day as I am taking a break to head down to Toledo to what the other half of me is interested in which is Glass.  I am a demonstrating presenter at the Glass Art Society's 42nd annual conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Studio Glass Movement, which started with a small demonstration at the Toledo Museum of Art back in 1962.  So if you are interested in my work you can view some slightly outdated stuff at www.rickschneiderglass.com.  I will be gone for the weekend but I may post some cool glass stuff for fun.  I will try and acquire and post some pictures of the demo I do tomorrow morning.  If not I will be back in action on Monday at the distillery.

As for what we did today, I got my final mash bill planned which will be Rye whiskey consisting of Rye, Rye Malt, and a Breiss specialty malt which I will name when it is in the barrel.  I completed the finishing on the outside of the combination Mash tun, fermenter.  I errantly said that it was also a still in previous posts.  Apparently that is something Justin wishes he had available to him.  So my mistake.  Anyway this equipment affectionately called the beast should get put together and plumbed into the steam tomorrow or friday while I am gone.  Pictures to come ASAP.  Ari was kind enough to drive me 2 hours down to Toledo and we discussed a lot of interesting possibilities for how to start up a distillery, marketing, and working with investors.  I am currently thinking about taking my test batch and scaling it up to the big fermenter and making two or three runs of this whiskey as part of the internship.  That would give me about 18 barrels in storage to have a product to run with when my distillery opens and we begin to produce the aged whiskey I want to make.  I'll try and give some more details of how my thinking is working on this idea soon.  Maybe that would be a good filler for the week.  As for now I am in Toledo and need to get moving to register for this conference and set up my demo.