The Minnesota Star Tribune Print Facility Tour

 Minneapolis, MN

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The Minnesota Star Tribune

Today Donna and I went on a tour of the printing faculty of the Minnesota Star Tribune and other newspapers.  The tour is given twice a month and it is FREE!  

We arrived a bit early so we decided to talk a walk along the greenway that is next to The Mississippi River.

This is not The Mississippi River

We arrived 5 minutes before the tour started and checked in.  I saw this chair that I liked and it was in front of a very vintage print type setting machine.

These are "robots".  They carry the heavy rolls of paper to keep things running.  When a roll gets low they are automatically deployed.

Donna poses in front of a stack of newspaper print rolls.

During the summer they keep about a week's worth of paper in the warehouse but they ramp up for winter to a month's worth.  This is because the rolls sit in a cargo train car outside and they take about a week to thaw out in the winter.

One of the really interesting things I learned on the tour today is that the rolls of paper are made in Thunder Bay Ontario and shipped by train down to Minneapolis.  The rolls sit in the train cars until the paper is ordered.  When the the printer needs more paper they put in an order and the rolls are delivered the rest of the way to the printer.  They are paid for as soon as they cross into the warehouse.  They trip to keep just enough inventory on hand as they need.  The rolls are about $700 each.

This Scissor Lyft has been sitting broken in the "Do Not Use" state since 2023.

These are the partial rolls that are left when a roll gets replaced.  They splice the rolls here to make complete rolls when they have enough.

This is the darkroom where the printing plates are made.

The page is printed on a sheet of aluminum.  The ink sticks to the blue and doesn't stick to the raw aluminum.  The ink is then transferred from the plate to a rubber roller and then to the newsprint.  

This is an old plate made of lead.  This plate used direct printing.  The ink was applied to this plate and then the plate transferred the ink directly to the newsprint.

This is the printing schedule.  Images are sent from different newspapers like The New York Times, USA Today, and The Pioneer Press to this room where the plates are made and then loaded into the presses when it is time to print that paper.

This is the room where the actual presses are.

This is us looking im"pressed" with the press.

They wouldn't let me push buttons.

This is our tour guide at the end of the tour.  He worked here for 40 some odd years.  He is describing using the type machine.  It uses molten lead to make letters and words.  Sometimes that molten lead would splash on your leg or arm.  He talked about it like it was just a part of the job.

That's it for today's post but we had a busy day so there are 2 more posts coming for just this day.  Check back soon.  If you missed, Spam Spam Spamity Spam! Museum, check it out.  We went to The Spam Museum in Austin, MN.

Tennessee Whiskey and More Fried Chicken

 Memphis, TN

Enjoying the smells of the barrels at Old Dominick's Distillery

Another Distillery Tour!

Remember this Tennessee Whiskey from the other day?  We found the source right downtown!  We booked a tour of the Old Dominick's Distillery.  We arrived and there was one other "on the road retired couple" with us.  The tour was great.  We got to see from the grain silo to the bottling line and everything in-between.  Every time we do a tour we learn a bit more about the process.  I will go into what we learned in the photo captions.  

Our guide was very nice and passionate about the process

One of the grains they use to make liquor, 

The 2 main grains are Corn and Rye so they are in these giant hoppers.  They come whole and get ground on premises.  

This is an empty fermentation vat.  The coils on the outside are cooling coils because the mash needs to stay at a specific temperature.  Yeast heats up as it does it's thing so they need to cool it down more than heat it up.  They do have heaters in the room for cold days.

This is what it looks like the day they put it in.  It is watery and not much is going on.

After about day 3 a crust forms and you can see bubbles and feel heat coming off the crust.  The guide asked if we wanted to taste it and let us dip our fingers in.  It seems weird to let this happen but this is all going to be distilled so contamination like this isn't a problem.  It's also picking up wild yeast from the room and everyone that goes in.

When it is almost done the curst is very thick and the bubbling stops.  At a certain alcohol level, about 6%, the yeast dies and fermentation is done.

I tasted the crust too.  It tasted like beer cereal.

After fermentation the liquid comes to the distillation room.  There are 3 stills.  One for Whiskey, one for Vodka, and one for Gin.

The Beer Well holds the liquid and then it gets pumped into the still.  When the whiskey is fully distilled its volume is reduced by about 66% by removing the water and concentrating the alcohol.

As the distillate comes out of the still it runs through these.  There is a hydrometer measuring the specific gravity to determine it is coming off at the correct alcohol percent.

This is the gin still. The steel cylinder on the right is where the botanicals are held.  The distillate passes through the botanicals before being condensed to add the gin flavor.  This is the big thing I learned on this tour.  I always thought gin was infused as a liquid but it is flavored as a vapor and then condensed.

We got to taste a few of their products and the guide put up with me asking to see and take a photo of the bottle.

There were a few others I wanted to taste that weren't offered on the tour so Donna and I split a flight.

We might come back for the crawfish boil.

Fried Chicken and Johnny Cash

After the tour we walked around downtown a little and went to Gus's Fried Chicken.  Our capacity for fried chicken is higher than BBQ I guess.  Gus's is a Memphis staple and usually packed but we got right in on a Monday at 1:30.  The food was great and the jukebox was playing Johnny Cash.  It was one of those perfect moments for the time and the place.

The Fried Chicken Excitement intensifies 

I tried the Chocolate Chess Cake.  It tasted like a really sweet brownie stuffed in a pie crust.

One of the old downtown buildings in disrepair.  Memphis hasn't fully come back yet and still has a lot of opportunity for improvement.  

That's it for today's adventure.  If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here.  I failed to mention that yesterday we took the opportunity to drive by Graceland.  I think that will be enough for us.  There is a lot to see here and the Graceland tour costs way more than I am willing to pay for a tour of a 70s mansion.