The last few days have seen one or two technical hitches with the environmental controls in the coolroom. Things slowed down for a while, thaw-wise. But we made and will continue to make as necessary, a few adjustments to the room’s running temperature so that the air temperature and the humidity level in the area around the crate itself remains conducive to a slow but steady thaw.
As the ice retreats we are seeing more of the bottles and their straw covers. You can see the straw is gathered at the head of the bottle, and stitched around the body. Biodegradable and rather beautiful as well!
Where the base of one bottle emerges from the ice, we can see there is also a paper wrapper around the bottle. And, through the neck, a tiny glimpse of an amber liquid….
The straw cover gathered at the head of one of the bottles
When Sasha and I checked the crate this morning there was a noticeable amount of melt around the base of the foam support, and we collected about 200ml of light brown-coloured melt run-off via the drainage hose.
Of course, we wondered straight away if the melt would smell like whisky – and there was a definite smell of whisky initially. Once the run off was in the bottle and we had another sniff, the aroma was the rich smell of damp wood. We’ve left the sample on the work table in the cool room for the time being, meanwhile further melt run-off will continue to be collected.
Change to the large chunk of ice visible in the top corner of the crate (front right in the webcam view) is slow, that chunk of ice looks to be several centimetres deep.
The fastest way to remove ice is to physically remove it, so this morning we investigated the possibility of chipping some of that ice chunk away. However, it so solid, and currently so well connected to the crate walls and contents, that chipping the ice will cause vibration to the rest of the crate so we decided against ice-chipping. We will re-investigate that possibility as the thaw progresses.
Today’s monitoring of the whisky crate shows the timber is holding at 100% moisture content. While there is no distinctive visual change to the timber, Sasha says that the ice on top is looking more translucent and there is a visible glossy line, which appeared yesterday, along the bottom of the crate. The video shows Sasha carrying out the monitoring of the crate this morning and I have also posted today’s images of the top and side views.
Overnight we have seen a noticeable change in the amount of visible ice crystals on the wooden crate surfaces, and around what little we could see of the interior.
This led us to expect that the freeze-welded sections of the crate lid would now move freely again as previously seen in Antarctica. After a little cautious investigation, Sasha and I lifted off two separate pieces of the lid, revealing the familiar formed-straw bottle protectors with a tantalising view of what looks like the top of a bottle. Have a look for yourself:
The top view of the crate with pieces of lid removed
We’ve been able to lift the crate off its original transport board and it is now resting on a block of perforated ethafoam which supports the weight of the crate evenly but allows drainage of any meltwater. We’re not getting any great melt run-off at the moment, but the ice is definitely receding gradually by evaporation.
Over the next few days we will be monitoring the melt visually, documenting the changes, and continuing to measure the moisture content of the crate boards.
This footage captured on a web cam inside the cool room shows the whisky crate being moved into place yesterday morning…
Whisky connoisseur Michael Fraser Milne was able to get a whiff of the crate during the move. He said he could smell a nice floral, not a smoky smell, and a bit woody, but that might be the crate.
