What's the river in the middle for?

I was just looking at this picture of one of the fermentation rooms at the Lagavulin distillery:

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Looks like there is a river of water running down the middle of the room under a metal grate. What's that for?

The big exhaust fans I can understand; the fermentation must produce lots of CO2 and other weird fumes. The brewing vats look about like what I'd expect. But the river in the middle puzzles me.

Reply to
Robbie Hatley
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Good question. I suspect it's a drain, in order to allow them to hose the room down.

But I could be wrong :-)

Jim

Reply to
Jim

Wow, what I'm taking for ground level is 3 meters high? That's basically one story up in the air! What an illusion! I thought the metal grate was ground-level.

Yet another optical illusion, then. Sured looked like water to me. Whiskey distilleries can be disorienting places for newbies, apparently.

But on second thought, the "water" has straight-line edges runing left-to-right at fixed intervals. I think I know what that is. Hard, thick, clear plastic floor protectors such as are used under office chairs. My feet are resting on one!

Thanks for the links. I was looking through that album just last night (having seen the link in an earlier post), but I never realized that I was only seeing the very tips of the washbacks.

Also, I might be mistaking the pipes and pumps above the washbacks; are those for ventilation of fumes, or for pumping of liquids (such as, wort into the washback, or wash to the stills)?

Cheers, Robbie Hatley East Tustin, CA, USA lonewolf aatt well dott com triple-dubya dott tustinfreezone dott org

Reply to
Robbie Hatley

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