Dirty Jobs (2005) s01e07 Episode Script
Chick Sexer
My name is Mike rowe, and this is my job.
I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty You're gonna get a little taste of what it's like to be a septic tank technician.
hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Now, get ready to get dirty.
Ohh! Coming up on "dirty jobs" Oh, my god.
I find that chick sexing really isn't sexy at all, and brewing cool, refreshing beer is hot, sweaty work.
It's a dirty job.
Then I brave miles of miserable muck Ed, ed, yo.
to find an ugly, snotlike ball that some say is an aphrodisiac.
[ Gags .]
-- Captions by vitac -- captions paid for by discovery communications, inc.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? It's an excellent question, one that philosophers and great thinkers have wrestled with for centuries.
So today we've come to Webster city, Iowa, not to answer that question, but to ask an even better one "Are you a boy or a girl?" The rolling plains of Iowa, America's heartland -- blue skies and wholesome values.
But everything is not what it seems in Webster city.
There's strange things going on behind closed doors.
[ Chirping .]
And there's chickens involved -- lots of chickens.
So there are millions and millions of chicks here at the Murray mcmurray hatchery and lots of fascinating people.
Curt is one of those people.
How's it going? Oh, not too bad.
What are you doing? This is called "pulling" the chicks.
Pulling the chicks.
Weand counting?G right.
We got two different breeds in this particular box.
We're taking out the white orpingtons.
The white what? "Orpingtons"? Yes.
And what are the other ones? And these are g.
P.
Hamburgs.
Golden penciled hamburgs.
How many different breeds of chicks do you have here? Right at 110, 109, 111 -- somewhere in there.
How many breeds of chickens are there? There's over 400.
Get out of here.
How young are these chicks at this point? These were hatched late last night, early this morning.
They've been hatched 8 to 10 hours.
So as soon as they're hatched, you separate them.
We've got to count them.
This is a breed.
This is the hamburgs that we have to check for the comb.
So anything that has a comb goes in that box.
Combs over here.
And the smooth, non-combed ones, or the Rose-combed, go over here.
We will count every chicken four at a time.
We pick up four chicks at a time, count them.
Now, do you count your chickens before they hatch? Yes, we do.
See, I was always told not to do that.
That's how we came up with these numbers.
I have 5, I have 10 in there.
Eggs are hatched only once a week at mcmurray's, on Fridays.
By the end of the workday, all the hatchlings need to be sorted, packed, and shipped out.
That's a tall order because most weeks, the hatchery produces over 80,000 chicks.
4, 86.
[ Chirping .]
And what makes it even more difficult is there's another step in the process -- separating the boys from the girls.
This happens in the back room, where a band of experts practices the mysterious art of chick sexing.
[ Chirping .]
Oh, my god.
The sound of chicks being sexed.
Here's something you don't see every day.
This is Tom, and Tom is sexing these chicks.
I've got a lot of questions, Tom.
Okay.
Let me start withUm What are you doing? I'm sexing chickens.
I'm separating the male and the female.
Well, you're certainly throwing them through the air, but how can you tell the men from the women, the boys from the girls? All right, I'll show you.
Now, this is a cockerel.
A what? A cockerel.
That's a rooster.
Uh-huh.
Well, if he grows up, he'll be a rooster.
Right, if everything goes as planned.
Right, right.
Okay, I have to find you a pullet.
A pullet? Yeah, that's the female.
Here's two girls.
These are both girls? Yeah.
And how can you tell? You look at right here.
See the short feathers and the tall feathers? Right.
Okay, now I'll get you a rooster.
A cockerel.
There's one.
See how different it is? This is a boy, and this is a girl.
It doesn't hurt their wings to hold them by them? No, no.
[ Chirping .]
Those are squeals of joy I'm hearing.
[ Laughs .]
The reason behind all this sexing is money.
Hatcheries can charge more for a box of female chicks because the girls will eventually produce eggs, and the eggs give buyers more cluck for the buck.
So how many methods are there for sexing chicks? Well, as far as I know, there's four.
There's two vent, feather sexing, and color sexing.
Now, when you say vent, you mean Yes, you look -- you squirt and then look.
Oh! Oh, Tom, you just squirted poo out of the chick.
Well, I wanted to show you.
How by squeezing the poo out of a chick can you determine what sex it is? No, you can't by squirting.
Because the only reason we squirt is because -- it's fun.
No, it's not fun.
is we don't want to get it on ourselves.
Squirt the poo out of the chick, and then somehow you're able to determine a boy or a girl.
Mm-hmm.
How do you do that? There's a bump.
Now, can you see that bumpRight there? Right there.
That's a bump? Uh-huh.
That's a cockerel.
Well, their sexual organs are inside their vent? Yeah, well, you call them vents.
There's a poem by yeats, a famous poet.
"A woman can be proud and stiff when on love intent, but love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement.
" I don't know what that means, but I'm starting to understand that this is a dirty job.
Oh, yes, it is.
It is a dirty job.
[ Chirping .]
If you don't mind me pointing it out -- it seems like everybody who's involved in sexing chickens here is Asian.
Why is that? Well, that's not hard to explain because it came from Japan.
Sexing was originated in Japan.
Really? Uh-huh.
So some of these people from the states went to Japan to learn, or they came from Japan already knowing how to sex and start teaching over here.
That's why, right in this group, all Japanese.
Yeah.
Tom, how many of these can you go through in a day when you're moving pretty quick? About 20,000.
20,000? Not you alone.
Yeah.
Well, when you have 80,000, I mean, you got to do that many.
How can you do 20,000? How long is your shift? What do you work, eight hours? We work till we're done.
[ Chirping .]
Coming up, the colorful side of chick sexing We're just a couple of guys squeezing the crap out of chicks.
And I find what comes out of beer goes here.
Is everybody happy? [ Moos .]
[ Gurgling .]
Then, that sound right there? That's not me.
It's the mudReally.
That's a great sound.
[ Chirping .]
At the Murray mcmurray hatchery, the feathers are really flying.
80,000 chicks were hatched here today, and in the next few hours, all the males and females must be separated.
Tom can tell the boys from the girls just by looking at their feathers.
But not all species are so easy to differentiate.
The rest of the room is using a very dirty process called "vent sexing.
" Now, according to Tom [Clears throat.]
No one vents chicks like Steve.
And Steve has got a whole bunch of -- what kind of chicks are these? This is silver wyandotte.
Silver wyandotte? Mm-hmm.
And this is a can full of poo.
Yes, that's right.
And the reason the can is full of poo is because you've been squeezing Squeezing, yes.
And you're gonna explain to me how it is that you can determine whether it's a boy or a girl by looking at its vent, 'cause I'm still not sure I understand what's happening.
Okay, a boy's is, you know, bumpy.
Yeah, I hear the bump, but I can't see the bump.
Yes, it's very tiny, and then kind of shiny.
A tiny, shiny bump.
Shiny, yeah, uh-huh.
And then the female is kind of flat and then not shiny.
Oh, a dull, flat look for the girls and a shiny heinie for the boys.
Mm-hmm, right.
It's -- aah! Now, is it better to do it quickly like that? Yeah.
This is female.
No bumpy.
No bump, so she -- oh.
My god, the indignity of it.
Now, can't you see if there's a bump before you squeeze the poo out? No.
The poo out first? Yes.
This is truly something I'm a little scared to try.
You can try, yeah.
So, I mean, I don't want to squeeze the wrong place.
Just squeeze.
Like this? Your hand in there and -- like this.
Anywhere, you're not too worried about -- oh! Yeah, that's right.
Oh! And they open up.
You got to just -- ahh! Oh, look, there's a bump.
Do you see that bump? [ Laughing .]
No.
You don't see a bump? Not open enough.
It's not open enough? No.
Oh! Oh, look at its little heinie hole.
God.
I-I think it's a bump.
Could it be a bump? Let's see.
How the hell can you tell? I think I can see all the way into its womb.
I cannot see at all.
Oh, yeah, a bump.
You were right.
Well, all right then.
Now we're cooking with gas.
We're just a couple of guys squeezing the crap out of chicks.
All right.
It would be a lot harder to do when they were grown up.
You'd need both hands to [ Imitates farting .]
Chicken sexer.
It's a dirty job.
Yep.
So basically, curt, it is time to ship some chicks.
That's right.
We've got an actual order here.
We've got one here going to Oklahoma.
Just throwin the same box?Er yes, you do.
Five single-comb brown leghorns.
We've got a buff brahma, dark brahma, light brahma.
Single brown comb leg.
Single brown comb leg.
Single brown -- single-comb brown! The baby chicks will be shipped by air through the U.
S.
mail and will arrive at their new homes within three days.
Say goodbye to your friends.
"I'm going to Oklahoma!" Since new hatchlings don't need food or water for the first 72 hours of their lives, they can endure the trip quite easily.
Now, are the silver laced wyandottes gonna get along okay with the brown-tailed leghorns? Let's hope so.
Wyandottes, meet the leghorns.
[ Chirping .]
So these are basically set to ship right now.
Right through the U.
S.
mail, huh? Right through the U.
S.
mail.
Anything else -- we bless them, wish them luck? You sure can.
Let me look at the order here.
These need to be vaccinated -- vaccinated for marek's disease.
What's marek's disease? It's a poultry disease that's fairly widespread.
And if the customer wants it, we can vaccinate for it.
They have to be vaccinated the first day of life.
Let's go do it.
Right this way.
Do I need a vaccination, as well, you think? You will probably get one.
All right, so this is the final stop for the chicks before they go.
I mean, am I literally gonna inoculate them with a needle? Yes, you are.
It's not a syringe as such.
There's a air-controlled pressure needle here.
How's it work? You just put the chicken up there and push against this little valve, and the needle will come out and inoculate.
All right, well, does it matter where in the chicken it gets the shot? It's gotta be in the back of the neck.
In the back of the neck? All you do is take the chicken like this.
Pusure you push against theE [ Machine clicks .]
Oh, oh! [ Laughs .]
And then you just put him back in that box.
And that way, you know he's done.
He's okay! For having a piece of steel just slide through his neck, he seems to have rebounded.
There you go.
Nothing to it.
[ Laughs .]
Here we go, buddy.
Breathe through it.
It'll be over in a second.
I'm inoculating chicks.
You know what? This has been a very traumatic day for this chick.
I mean, he was born.
He had his rectum pulled open.
It was rubbed rather violently.
And now a little needle's gonna go through his neck.
And you're telling me it's all for his own good.
Yep.
[ Machine clicks .]
Just about got your finger that time, I think.
Yeah, I felt the breeze.
It grazed me.
But on the positive side, I'll never get marek's disease.
That's right.
[ Machine clicks .]
Inoculated, sexed.
They're ready to go.
Boxed.
Ready to go on its way to its home in Oklahoma.
You are going to love Oklahoma.
Trust me, I've been there.
It's beautiful.
So much to do.
There's Tulsa, there's Oklahoma city, there'sthere's Tulsa.
Anyhow, it's gonna be great.
Coming up I savor the fine aromas of brewing a premium beer.
Oh, yeah, it stinks in a very specific sort of way.
Thanks, Dan.
A friendly pub, a warm fire, a cold beer -- what could be more perfect? When I find myself here in the Vermont countryside, I like to enjoy a long trail ale.
If you find yourself in the neighborhood, you should stop by the brewery.
They're just down the road a piece.
You'd be surprised to learn what goes into making a premium beer.
You'll be more surprised to learn what comes out.
In this kettle, another batch of long trail beer is being brewed.
At the moment, it's neither cool nor refreshing.
Making it that way is a dirty job.
Step one in the beer-making process -- find your way over to a big stainless-steel tank they call a lauter tun.
I'm lost in a beer factory.
Inside the lauter tun, malted barley is mixed with hot water.
After the malt starches convert to sugar, the rich sugar water is strained out through the bottom of the tank.
The sugar water will be used to make beer, but left behind is a big old messy pile of spent grain, which looks like Well, I'd rather not say.
Dave, what's this thing do? This is a lauter tun.
Lauter tun, all right.
And what we're doing is we're taking the spent grains and sending it out to a truck.
So, basically, we have to open up the bottom section here.
Open the bottom section of the lauter tun by turning the wheel, perhaps? Shall I do that? Yeah.
What will you be doing? I'm gonna turn the auger on.
He's got the auger.
I've got the wheel.
The auger forces the spent grain through the tube.
It's dumped in the back of this truck, then it's taken to a local dairy farm where it's fed to the cows.
Is everybody happy? [ Moos .]
Yeah, happy cows.
[ Moos .]
Although it was interesting to see how a by-product of beer was recycled, I really wanted to learn the next step of beer making.
What the hell is this? Unfortunately, Dave told me I had to clean out the lauter tun first.
Basically, we use that ladder right there and we squeegee it out.
You go inside the thing.
Yep.
How hot is it in there? It's around 140 degrees.
Well, it's a dry heat.
Squeegee first.
Oh, crap.
I'll fix that when I get down there.
I'm going in.
It's kind of warm where I'm sitting if you know what I mean.
[ Laughs .]
A bit like threading a needle with a sausage, you know? Oh! Ahh! [ Grunts .]
[Panting.]
Okay.
All right, it's warm.
It's hot.
I broke a squeegee.
Sorry, Dave.
[ Sighs .]
I can fix it.
I'm handy with things like this.
All right.
All right, it's pretty simple.
Push the grain back down in the hole.
One of the most important tasks of making beer is keeping the brewing equipment clean and sanitized I've been here for eight hours, and I haven't seen a beer.
I'm not even sure they make beer here.
because contamination by bacteria makes bad-tasting beer that can make you sick.
This does not look like beer.
Of course, cleaning out a 110-degree lauter tun can easily dehydrate you, which can make you sick as well.
No matter, it's all for a good cause -- a clean, refreshing brew for thirsty beer connoisseurs all over the country.
[ Grunting .]
Now that I'm done Stupid job.
the lauter tun will be flushed with a cleaning agent that kills any bacteria I might have left behind.
Screw it.
Finally, after serving my time in the sweatbox, I was ready for Dave to show me step two of the beer-making process -- adding hops to the sugar water we strained out of the malted barley.
Rowe: So this is the point where the hops go into the vat, right, Dave? Right.
All right, what's the process? Basically, you open the lid, and you put the hops in.
It's complicated.
All right, you do the lid.
I'll do the hops.
What are hops, exactly? It's a flower.
Just a flower? Little rabbit pellets.
It smells good.
It smells like beer.
The whole thing goes in? Slowly, yes.
Oh, man, you really can't lean on that, can you? Hops are what give beer that distinctive bitter flavor.
You're gonna have a rush of hot steam coming at you.
They also add an earthy aroma to the finished product.
A little bit of antifoam.
"Antifoam"? So it doesn't boil all over.
Yeah.
Close the lid.
How hot is it in there? About 212 degrees, boiling point.
That's boiling, yeah.
That's why you keep that shut.
Yeah.
Safety first.
Where are your safety goggles, Dave? Uh Uh-huh.
Gonna have a chat with osha.
After the hops are boiled to perfection, the liquid is quickly cooled, then pumped into these tanks, where brewers' yeast is added and fermentation begins.
About 8 days later, alcohol and carbon dioxide is formed, and the spent yeast has settled to the bottom of the tanks.
Most people don't want this stinky old yeast in their beer, so it's pumped out to this holding tank.
Oh, god.
Pretty bad, huh? Pretty bad.
This is Dan.
Dan, tell us what we're looking at.
This is our yeast tank -- spent yeast tank, actually.
After the fermentation's over -- and whatever is left over, which you can't use, gets pumped into here.
From here, it gets pumped into a wastewater treatment center where it's processed further.
This yeast is like a wild thing.
Yeah.
It'll go out of control.
It's a single-cell organism.
It needs oxygen to produce.
So me, being a multicell organism, will now go into the holding tank and do battle with the single-cell organisms.
It seems like the odds should be with me.
This is hot caustic.
Caustic -- that's fancy talk for "poisonous.
" No, well, it's a cleaning agent.
Great.
You might want to put those on.
These? Why do I need these? Well, we're dealing with caustic.
You don't want it to get in your eyes.
You keep using that "caustic" word, Dan.
That's nice.
Oh, yeah, it stinks.
Yeah.
It stinks in a very specific sort of way.
Oh! [ Laughs .]
Kind of slippery.
Oh, man.
It's not really a finesse job, is it? No, just keep moving it back and forth.
Always concentrating, of course, on not getting the caustic stuff on you.
How often does this yeast tank need to be cleaned? We try and get it once a week.
Yeah, it just comes right off like a dream.
[ Laughs .]
Probably easier if you just keep it up around the top and let the liquid just kind of flow down.
Oh, yeah, technique.
You've never seen it done like this, have you, Dan? No, I haven't.
Careful.
Have you started to notice a tingle on your face any? Yeah, I am.
That's the chemical.
It's tingling.
That's the chemical in the yeast or the No, that's the caustic.
Yeah, it tingles.
It tingles on the skin.
It lets you know it's working.
Coming up, I shake things up at the beer factory.
[Bleep.]
[Bleep.]
Totally my bad.
Then How are you not stuck, and I'm stuck? An oyster farmer shows me the secrets of mud walking.
At the long trail brewery, I was learning that making beer can be hot, sweaty work.
And when it comes to discarding a certain beer by-product, well, that job can be stinky, too.
What in the hell is this? This is -- it's known as our yeast press, and the sign out front says the press needs scraping.
So that's our job.
That can never be good.
And the way you scrape the solids out is to take this scraper here, our stick, and plunge it in between the first two plates.
The stick? Is that the technical term? The scraper or the stick.
The press squeezes every last ounce of beer out of the spent yeast.
What's left behind is this chunky, unappetizing mess which, believe it or not, can be sold as a base for animal feed or even human food supplements because it's so rich in protein.
That's actually our friend saccharomyces cerevisiae.
That's what yeast is.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae? Yeah, kind of like cerveza, beer, as in the Mexican cerveza.
[ Grunts .]
You first add it to the beer, and it's actually pretty clean and nice-smelling.
But at this point It's not clean or nice right now, Joe.
There's nothing good about this yeast.
No, trust me.
Man, that's a lot of yeast.
Bad yeast.
[ Laughs .]
But really, Joe, without the yeast, where would we be? I'm just looking at the -- it's like the play-doh fun factory down here It's beautiful.
without the play-doh.
Somewhat peanut-butterlike.
We'll take it.
You can eat it.
No, you can't.
Yes, you can.
I wouldn't want to, but you can eat it.
For the record, the biggest ingredient in yeast is yeast.
In fact, it's the only ingredient -- single-cell microorganism.
It's got a nucleus and some mitochondria, but that's pretty much it.
It's yeast -- pure and simple unadulterated goodness.
This is Tom.
He's doing something integral with the hose to the beer-making process.
What are you doing? Actually, what I'm doing is spraying yeast off of the plates of the filter so we can get these pads out of here.
I'll put some new ones in, and filter beer as soon as possible.
So these filters are here all of the time, and all of the beer that ultimately comes out with the long trail label gets mashed through here? Exactly.
And you got to keep them clean? Otherwise you get dirty beer.
Exactly.
This is the actual filter per se.
That filters the beer, exactly.
The plates are simply to hold the pads together.
It's like a car mat.
I just put my thumb through.
I just destroyed a filter.
So, gosh, you know what? I'm just gonna shut up and step back.
Show me what you do again.
I know it's just a hose, but It's a simple job.
anything could go wrong.
Rowe: I'll come up with something smart to ask you Like this -- what does cold-filtered mean? The temperature at which we filter it.
That was kind of a stupid question.
But why, uh, cold-filtered's better than warm-filtered? That was the question I meant to ask.
Because it will be consumed cold, and we'd like to have it clear.
If we filter it while it's cold, it will be clear while it's warm.
Filter cold, clear warm.
If one were to filter it warm, it might not be clear cold.
Is that clear? You're a complicated man, Tom.
Come on.
You tell that to all the boys.
For a guy with a hose, you tell a good story.
One clean filter right there, Tom.
You can't be too clean when it comes to a long trail filter.
That's the truth.
A lot of little things hiding in there.
Nooks and crannies.
You're absolutely right.
I might as well ask you as I'm looking at these things -- what exactly -- what are we looking at here? Well They're little boogers.
We could, um -- well, that's a technical term.
But around here we would call that yeast and all those other portions of the beer -- large protein molecules, for example.
I mean, if I saw this floating in my beer -- you wouldn't like it.
That's why it's here.
And now in the future, should I come across one, I'll say, "Tom -- Tom was asleep at the hose.
" Or someone.
But probably not you -- what with all the experience.
Now that the beer has been filtered, packaging technician Jim o'Neil is going to show me how to test the beer for quality control.
Jim, right? Yeah.
This is Jim, and he's holding a very sophisticated device.
Tell us what you do with it.
I'm checking the co2 carbonation in the tank.
This is full of beer? Full of beer.
Okay, but we just don't know if it's got the right level of carbonation.
So we're gonna crack this a little bit so it starts coming out.
Then when it gets to 35, close it all down, then you shake it.
Shake what's in there? Shake what's in there.
Yeah, it looks like a 35.
35 -- 35.
So now we know the beer in here is the right temperature.
Yeah, and the beer in the tank is at 35 degrees.
Okay, so everything is as it should be.
Right.
Now we just need to check the level of carbonation.
Then you can shut off the tank, unscrew it, and then shake.
Can I shake it? You most certainly can.
Like this or up and down? Back and forth like this.
Maybe a little harder.
Oh, it's a motion I'm familiar with.
It's like making a good Martini -- shaken, not stirred.
Good? No, we usually want -- we want the pressure Gauge at least 10.
[ Laughs .]
There you go.
It is at 35.
At 10.
Then we can come over here to this chart.
Oh, I love a good chart.
So we go 35, and we go at 10.
2-5-2 -- it's ready.
Everything in that tank is ready now to go into a bottle or a keg or whatever.
Where do we do that? Over here.
Follow me.
I'll follow you.
It's a good tank.
Good tank.
How long does it take to fill a keg? Three to four minutes.
How much does a keg hold? 13.
2 gallons.
15 liters.
50 liters.
Well, whatever.
Okay.
Do a little of this.
Do a little of that.
A little crooked there.
How many of these do you do in the course of a day? Today there's 160 50-liters.
Then you ship it to fraternities across the country.
Whoop.
Now you want to close it.
[Bleep.]
Really? It's totally my bad, totally my bad.
Eight tapped kegs.
What's this weigh? 1,120 pounds.
So you want me to move half a ton of beer back there? Please.
Perfect.
Uh-oh.
Finally, a fresh batch of long trail ale is ready to be shipped to customers around the world who probably have no idea that behind every keg of beer is a lot of dirty work.
Coming up, I find out that dirty can be beautiful.
That's gorgeous.
Back in 1865, union forces were marching toward Charleston, south Carolina.
Along the way, they stopped right here in ed Palmer's backyard.
They made camp, and they had an oyster roast A big one.
In fact, here in south Carolina, harvesting oysters and recycling their shells is a big, big business and a dirty job.
In addition to beautiful scenery and historic landmarks, south Carolina's known for having some of the best-tasting oysters anywhere.
But as I found out, they're a lot harder to get than they are to eat.
I came here to do both.
That's how I met ed Palmer.
He's been gathering oysters for 40 years in oyster beds that have been in his family for three generations.
Fair to say, I think, that the situation I'm in right now is a treacherous one.
We're on the banks of folly creek in an oyster bed, which, essentially, is like standing in living razor blades.
You can see our footprints over here left in the mud.
You have to know how to walk.
You don't actually walk into it.
You, like, got to float into it.
Walk and your picking my feet up And what you're doing, you keep moving.
Not both of them 'cause you'll be in trouble.
Ooh! Damn it! As you're walking, you balance yourself at all times.
Once you're doing that, use one feet and you move the next one.
I got balance.
But you got to be stuck 'cause I'm stuck.
I'm not stuck.
How are you not stuck and I'm stuck? There you go.
Come on, come on up.
When you have a moment, could you hand me that boot? These oyster shells are sharp.
This is ridiculous, ed.
Normally when we go out, we go on tide going out.
So when tide make its turn, then we turn.
So the tide is turned.
It's coming in.
But for the time being, this oyster bed is exposed.
It'll be exposed for the next, uh -- matter of fact, you got three more hours.
Now, this is an oyster.
That's an oyster? How can you tell? Well, you're looking at the blade of the oyster, the length.
From this point to that point, and you know you got some oyster in there.
Break off the dead shell, leave it behind so that shell can reproduce this season, next season, or the season after.
Now, you got a bunch of everything on here.
Seashell, everything.
What you do Then you save -- you save the oyster.
Watch this and this.
So, I mean, I was wrong.
When I came up here and looked at this, I thought, wow, everything here is what we're gonna collect.
Well, this is like an easter egg hunt.
There it is.
Look at that.
That's gorgeous.
Now, here's the thing.
Some point in our history, some guy like you wandered around and opened something like this up and looked in there and saw that and said, "yeah, yeah, that's what I want to eat.
" It didn't take me long.
I was a young boy, 12 years old, to know what an oyster is good for.
I'm telling you, it's a -- you're talking dirty now, aren't you? This is romance we're talking about.
You take this and Man, you missing just -- you missing a whole lot.
Yeah, a man would have to be pretty hungry.
On a good day, ed picks about 30 bushels of oysters.
At $25 a bushel, that's $750, which isn't bad for a day's work, but not as good as the restaurants who sell the oysters for about $75 a bushel.
You understand, ed, why some people don't like oysters, right? No, I sure don't because oysters are something that I think everybody should love.
Well, I mean, they're these snotty little things wrapped in an unbreakable skin lying in the mud.
[ Laughs .]
You got to overlook that.
Yeah, you just got to get past that.
More seed.
Yeah.
See, I have a knack for picking up the wrong one no matter what I reach for.
[ Gurgling .]
[ Laughs .]
[ Laughs .]
That's a great sound.
Yeah, that's a great sound.
The ground is farting at me.
[ Laughs .]
You think you can handle that? I'm stuck in the mud again, ed.
Would you mind? Thanks.
The oysters we collected today will go to local restaurants.
After they've been eaten, the oyster shells will end up here.
What happens to them next was a real eye-opener.
Coming up, a place where oyster shooters are just a part of the job.
[ Grunts .]
After hours of oyster harvesting with ed in folly creek, I then met Andy and Chris of the south Carolina department of natural resources oyster-shell recycling program.
Andy, I say this as an observation and not a complaint.
But oysters stink.
[ Laughs .]
Oyster shells really have a -- they've got a funk on them.
They really do.
Why are they just sitting here? Well, they're in a quarantine period.
Before we plant oyster shell, we make sure they're free of any foreign pathogens or any hitchhiking exotic species we don't want to introduce into our waters here from another area.
We're gonna go through these oysters, and we're gonna try and separate some of the nonorganic shell material.
Any kind of trash or any kind of debris we want to get out before we plant it back in the marsh.
Let's separate the garbage from the trash, then, shall we? Sounds good.
The freshest load? Right.
You know where it came from? It came from one of our caterers in the program.
What's it called? How's it work? It's the oyster shell recycling program, and it started up in 2000.
And what it is, is we have about 16 bins in the coastal areas of south Carolina that people can take their bushels of shells that they used in their oyster restaurant, drop off, and we'll come along and pick them up -- whenever the bins fill up -- every so often.
So these shells that we're recycling are all being recycled to make more oysters, not to make something else altogether.
Right, just to make more oysters.
So is there a -- I mean, you know, I've read a lot about certain diseases that are associated with oysters.
Eating oysters can be dangerous if they come from polluted waters.
Because they are filter feeders, they accumulate colonies of fecal coliforms in their tissues.
Fecal coliform? Yeah, that's usually from sewage of some kind.
So once these have been out here sort of percolating in the sun for a while, they're moved back to the next area.
The next staging area, where we're gonna load the barge.
You got a barge? Oh, yeah, they've got a barge.
Where are we going and why? Well, we're gonna come over here to this landing and pick up about 700 or 800 bushels of shell for planting later on on a staged shellfish ground over here behind us.
During this time of year or the springtime, the oysters are spawning, and the free-swimming larva is looking for a place to start its life.
The department provides a lot of shell and different kinds of shell for them to do just that.
Now, it looks like we're about to crash here.
Should this cause any kind of alarm? [ Laughs .]
Just the normal kind.
How many bushels of shells are we looking at here? This is about 700 or 800, probably close to 18,000 pounds.
Well, a fair amount of it seems to be on my knees.
We happen to be conversing in the month of may.
There is not an "r" in this particular month.
Right.
What does that mean for oyster aficionados? Well, from a management standpoint, we close the season down for the summer months, and the summer months don't have "r" in them.
How long would he live? Between three and five years before finally something would either prey on the oyster, or else it would die from some kind of disturbance or just natural causes.
Now, I said, "he," but it could be a she.
They're hermaphrodites.
Different sexes can occur in the same animal.
But when it comes to time for spawning, usually they're either one or the other.
So there's no boy-girl gender differentiation in the house we're gonna be building for them.
No, sir.
It's like a frat house out there -- anything goes.
Right.
Great.
Well, let's get the oysters up the conveyor belt, onto the barge, and let's give them a home.
I have now assumed the role of load-meister.
According to Andy, the load-meister stands on the barge while it's being loaded and, with a pitchfork, assumes the responsibility for making sure that no oyster shells inadvertently slip off the side the barge.
I believe the load-meister is probably a made-up job.
And so I'm off to build a brand-new community with oyster shells.
There goes the neighborhood.
The goal is to blast the oysters between two pvc pipes that you have situated.
Man: Right.
[ Engine turns over .]
All right, you can start going now.
Right where that rail is.
This is how they did it in the old days? That's right.
I never cared for the old days.
After a day of harvesting, load-meistering, blasting shells, and getting stuck in the mud, there was only one thing left to do.
I didn't say it was gonna be pretty.
Oyster shells really are very sharp.
Just ask the cameraman.
Chicken sexer.
It's a dirty job.
Ohh! [ Laughs .]
Oh, no! Oh, no! Think you have a dirty job? Click on discovery.
Com/dirtyjobs and tell us about it.
You never know where I'll show up next.
That is a new low.
I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty You're gonna get a little taste of what it's like to be a septic tank technician.
hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Now, get ready to get dirty.
Ohh! Coming up on "dirty jobs" Oh, my god.
I find that chick sexing really isn't sexy at all, and brewing cool, refreshing beer is hot, sweaty work.
It's a dirty job.
Then I brave miles of miserable muck Ed, ed, yo.
to find an ugly, snotlike ball that some say is an aphrodisiac.
[ Gags .]
-- Captions by vitac -- captions paid for by discovery communications, inc.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? It's an excellent question, one that philosophers and great thinkers have wrestled with for centuries.
So today we've come to Webster city, Iowa, not to answer that question, but to ask an even better one "Are you a boy or a girl?" The rolling plains of Iowa, America's heartland -- blue skies and wholesome values.
But everything is not what it seems in Webster city.
There's strange things going on behind closed doors.
[ Chirping .]
And there's chickens involved -- lots of chickens.
So there are millions and millions of chicks here at the Murray mcmurray hatchery and lots of fascinating people.
Curt is one of those people.
How's it going? Oh, not too bad.
What are you doing? This is called "pulling" the chicks.
Pulling the chicks.
Weand counting?G right.
We got two different breeds in this particular box.
We're taking out the white orpingtons.
The white what? "Orpingtons"? Yes.
And what are the other ones? And these are g.
P.
Hamburgs.
Golden penciled hamburgs.
How many different breeds of chicks do you have here? Right at 110, 109, 111 -- somewhere in there.
How many breeds of chickens are there? There's over 400.
Get out of here.
How young are these chicks at this point? These were hatched late last night, early this morning.
They've been hatched 8 to 10 hours.
So as soon as they're hatched, you separate them.
We've got to count them.
This is a breed.
This is the hamburgs that we have to check for the comb.
So anything that has a comb goes in that box.
Combs over here.
And the smooth, non-combed ones, or the Rose-combed, go over here.
We will count every chicken four at a time.
We pick up four chicks at a time, count them.
Now, do you count your chickens before they hatch? Yes, we do.
See, I was always told not to do that.
That's how we came up with these numbers.
I have 5, I have 10 in there.
Eggs are hatched only once a week at mcmurray's, on Fridays.
By the end of the workday, all the hatchlings need to be sorted, packed, and shipped out.
That's a tall order because most weeks, the hatchery produces over 80,000 chicks.
4, 86.
[ Chirping .]
And what makes it even more difficult is there's another step in the process -- separating the boys from the girls.
This happens in the back room, where a band of experts practices the mysterious art of chick sexing.
[ Chirping .]
Oh, my god.
The sound of chicks being sexed.
Here's something you don't see every day.
This is Tom, and Tom is sexing these chicks.
I've got a lot of questions, Tom.
Okay.
Let me start withUm What are you doing? I'm sexing chickens.
I'm separating the male and the female.
Well, you're certainly throwing them through the air, but how can you tell the men from the women, the boys from the girls? All right, I'll show you.
Now, this is a cockerel.
A what? A cockerel.
That's a rooster.
Uh-huh.
Well, if he grows up, he'll be a rooster.
Right, if everything goes as planned.
Right, right.
Okay, I have to find you a pullet.
A pullet? Yeah, that's the female.
Here's two girls.
These are both girls? Yeah.
And how can you tell? You look at right here.
See the short feathers and the tall feathers? Right.
Okay, now I'll get you a rooster.
A cockerel.
There's one.
See how different it is? This is a boy, and this is a girl.
It doesn't hurt their wings to hold them by them? No, no.
[ Chirping .]
Those are squeals of joy I'm hearing.
[ Laughs .]
The reason behind all this sexing is money.
Hatcheries can charge more for a box of female chicks because the girls will eventually produce eggs, and the eggs give buyers more cluck for the buck.
So how many methods are there for sexing chicks? Well, as far as I know, there's four.
There's two vent, feather sexing, and color sexing.
Now, when you say vent, you mean Yes, you look -- you squirt and then look.
Oh! Oh, Tom, you just squirted poo out of the chick.
Well, I wanted to show you.
How by squeezing the poo out of a chick can you determine what sex it is? No, you can't by squirting.
Because the only reason we squirt is because -- it's fun.
No, it's not fun.
is we don't want to get it on ourselves.
Squirt the poo out of the chick, and then somehow you're able to determine a boy or a girl.
Mm-hmm.
How do you do that? There's a bump.
Now, can you see that bumpRight there? Right there.
That's a bump? Uh-huh.
That's a cockerel.
Well, their sexual organs are inside their vent? Yeah, well, you call them vents.
There's a poem by yeats, a famous poet.
"A woman can be proud and stiff when on love intent, but love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement.
" I don't know what that means, but I'm starting to understand that this is a dirty job.
Oh, yes, it is.
It is a dirty job.
[ Chirping .]
If you don't mind me pointing it out -- it seems like everybody who's involved in sexing chickens here is Asian.
Why is that? Well, that's not hard to explain because it came from Japan.
Sexing was originated in Japan.
Really? Uh-huh.
So some of these people from the states went to Japan to learn, or they came from Japan already knowing how to sex and start teaching over here.
That's why, right in this group, all Japanese.
Yeah.
Tom, how many of these can you go through in a day when you're moving pretty quick? About 20,000.
20,000? Not you alone.
Yeah.
Well, when you have 80,000, I mean, you got to do that many.
How can you do 20,000? How long is your shift? What do you work, eight hours? We work till we're done.
[ Chirping .]
Coming up, the colorful side of chick sexing We're just a couple of guys squeezing the crap out of chicks.
And I find what comes out of beer goes here.
Is everybody happy? [ Moos .]
[ Gurgling .]
Then, that sound right there? That's not me.
It's the mudReally.
That's a great sound.
[ Chirping .]
At the Murray mcmurray hatchery, the feathers are really flying.
80,000 chicks were hatched here today, and in the next few hours, all the males and females must be separated.
Tom can tell the boys from the girls just by looking at their feathers.
But not all species are so easy to differentiate.
The rest of the room is using a very dirty process called "vent sexing.
" Now, according to Tom [Clears throat.]
No one vents chicks like Steve.
And Steve has got a whole bunch of -- what kind of chicks are these? This is silver wyandotte.
Silver wyandotte? Mm-hmm.
And this is a can full of poo.
Yes, that's right.
And the reason the can is full of poo is because you've been squeezing Squeezing, yes.
And you're gonna explain to me how it is that you can determine whether it's a boy or a girl by looking at its vent, 'cause I'm still not sure I understand what's happening.
Okay, a boy's is, you know, bumpy.
Yeah, I hear the bump, but I can't see the bump.
Yes, it's very tiny, and then kind of shiny.
A tiny, shiny bump.
Shiny, yeah, uh-huh.
And then the female is kind of flat and then not shiny.
Oh, a dull, flat look for the girls and a shiny heinie for the boys.
Mm-hmm, right.
It's -- aah! Now, is it better to do it quickly like that? Yeah.
This is female.
No bumpy.
No bump, so she -- oh.
My god, the indignity of it.
Now, can't you see if there's a bump before you squeeze the poo out? No.
The poo out first? Yes.
This is truly something I'm a little scared to try.
You can try, yeah.
So, I mean, I don't want to squeeze the wrong place.
Just squeeze.
Like this? Your hand in there and -- like this.
Anywhere, you're not too worried about -- oh! Yeah, that's right.
Oh! And they open up.
You got to just -- ahh! Oh, look, there's a bump.
Do you see that bump? [ Laughing .]
No.
You don't see a bump? Not open enough.
It's not open enough? No.
Oh! Oh, look at its little heinie hole.
God.
I-I think it's a bump.
Could it be a bump? Let's see.
How the hell can you tell? I think I can see all the way into its womb.
I cannot see at all.
Oh, yeah, a bump.
You were right.
Well, all right then.
Now we're cooking with gas.
We're just a couple of guys squeezing the crap out of chicks.
All right.
It would be a lot harder to do when they were grown up.
You'd need both hands to [ Imitates farting .]
Chicken sexer.
It's a dirty job.
Yep.
So basically, curt, it is time to ship some chicks.
That's right.
We've got an actual order here.
We've got one here going to Oklahoma.
Just throwin the same box?Er yes, you do.
Five single-comb brown leghorns.
We've got a buff brahma, dark brahma, light brahma.
Single brown comb leg.
Single brown comb leg.
Single brown -- single-comb brown! The baby chicks will be shipped by air through the U.
S.
mail and will arrive at their new homes within three days.
Say goodbye to your friends.
"I'm going to Oklahoma!" Since new hatchlings don't need food or water for the first 72 hours of their lives, they can endure the trip quite easily.
Now, are the silver laced wyandottes gonna get along okay with the brown-tailed leghorns? Let's hope so.
Wyandottes, meet the leghorns.
[ Chirping .]
So these are basically set to ship right now.
Right through the U.
S.
mail, huh? Right through the U.
S.
mail.
Anything else -- we bless them, wish them luck? You sure can.
Let me look at the order here.
These need to be vaccinated -- vaccinated for marek's disease.
What's marek's disease? It's a poultry disease that's fairly widespread.
And if the customer wants it, we can vaccinate for it.
They have to be vaccinated the first day of life.
Let's go do it.
Right this way.
Do I need a vaccination, as well, you think? You will probably get one.
All right, so this is the final stop for the chicks before they go.
I mean, am I literally gonna inoculate them with a needle? Yes, you are.
It's not a syringe as such.
There's a air-controlled pressure needle here.
How's it work? You just put the chicken up there and push against this little valve, and the needle will come out and inoculate.
All right, well, does it matter where in the chicken it gets the shot? It's gotta be in the back of the neck.
In the back of the neck? All you do is take the chicken like this.
Pusure you push against theE [ Machine clicks .]
Oh, oh! [ Laughs .]
And then you just put him back in that box.
And that way, you know he's done.
He's okay! For having a piece of steel just slide through his neck, he seems to have rebounded.
There you go.
Nothing to it.
[ Laughs .]
Here we go, buddy.
Breathe through it.
It'll be over in a second.
I'm inoculating chicks.
You know what? This has been a very traumatic day for this chick.
I mean, he was born.
He had his rectum pulled open.
It was rubbed rather violently.
And now a little needle's gonna go through his neck.
And you're telling me it's all for his own good.
Yep.
[ Machine clicks .]
Just about got your finger that time, I think.
Yeah, I felt the breeze.
It grazed me.
But on the positive side, I'll never get marek's disease.
That's right.
[ Machine clicks .]
Inoculated, sexed.
They're ready to go.
Boxed.
Ready to go on its way to its home in Oklahoma.
You are going to love Oklahoma.
Trust me, I've been there.
It's beautiful.
So much to do.
There's Tulsa, there's Oklahoma city, there'sthere's Tulsa.
Anyhow, it's gonna be great.
Coming up I savor the fine aromas of brewing a premium beer.
Oh, yeah, it stinks in a very specific sort of way.
Thanks, Dan.
A friendly pub, a warm fire, a cold beer -- what could be more perfect? When I find myself here in the Vermont countryside, I like to enjoy a long trail ale.
If you find yourself in the neighborhood, you should stop by the brewery.
They're just down the road a piece.
You'd be surprised to learn what goes into making a premium beer.
You'll be more surprised to learn what comes out.
In this kettle, another batch of long trail beer is being brewed.
At the moment, it's neither cool nor refreshing.
Making it that way is a dirty job.
Step one in the beer-making process -- find your way over to a big stainless-steel tank they call a lauter tun.
I'm lost in a beer factory.
Inside the lauter tun, malted barley is mixed with hot water.
After the malt starches convert to sugar, the rich sugar water is strained out through the bottom of the tank.
The sugar water will be used to make beer, but left behind is a big old messy pile of spent grain, which looks like Well, I'd rather not say.
Dave, what's this thing do? This is a lauter tun.
Lauter tun, all right.
And what we're doing is we're taking the spent grains and sending it out to a truck.
So, basically, we have to open up the bottom section here.
Open the bottom section of the lauter tun by turning the wheel, perhaps? Shall I do that? Yeah.
What will you be doing? I'm gonna turn the auger on.
He's got the auger.
I've got the wheel.
The auger forces the spent grain through the tube.
It's dumped in the back of this truck, then it's taken to a local dairy farm where it's fed to the cows.
Is everybody happy? [ Moos .]
Yeah, happy cows.
[ Moos .]
Although it was interesting to see how a by-product of beer was recycled, I really wanted to learn the next step of beer making.
What the hell is this? Unfortunately, Dave told me I had to clean out the lauter tun first.
Basically, we use that ladder right there and we squeegee it out.
You go inside the thing.
Yep.
How hot is it in there? It's around 140 degrees.
Well, it's a dry heat.
Squeegee first.
Oh, crap.
I'll fix that when I get down there.
I'm going in.
It's kind of warm where I'm sitting if you know what I mean.
[ Laughs .]
A bit like threading a needle with a sausage, you know? Oh! Ahh! [ Grunts .]
[Panting.]
Okay.
All right, it's warm.
It's hot.
I broke a squeegee.
Sorry, Dave.
[ Sighs .]
I can fix it.
I'm handy with things like this.
All right.
All right, it's pretty simple.
Push the grain back down in the hole.
One of the most important tasks of making beer is keeping the brewing equipment clean and sanitized I've been here for eight hours, and I haven't seen a beer.
I'm not even sure they make beer here.
because contamination by bacteria makes bad-tasting beer that can make you sick.
This does not look like beer.
Of course, cleaning out a 110-degree lauter tun can easily dehydrate you, which can make you sick as well.
No matter, it's all for a good cause -- a clean, refreshing brew for thirsty beer connoisseurs all over the country.
[ Grunting .]
Now that I'm done Stupid job.
the lauter tun will be flushed with a cleaning agent that kills any bacteria I might have left behind.
Screw it.
Finally, after serving my time in the sweatbox, I was ready for Dave to show me step two of the beer-making process -- adding hops to the sugar water we strained out of the malted barley.
Rowe: So this is the point where the hops go into the vat, right, Dave? Right.
All right, what's the process? Basically, you open the lid, and you put the hops in.
It's complicated.
All right, you do the lid.
I'll do the hops.
What are hops, exactly? It's a flower.
Just a flower? Little rabbit pellets.
It smells good.
It smells like beer.
The whole thing goes in? Slowly, yes.
Oh, man, you really can't lean on that, can you? Hops are what give beer that distinctive bitter flavor.
You're gonna have a rush of hot steam coming at you.
They also add an earthy aroma to the finished product.
A little bit of antifoam.
"Antifoam"? So it doesn't boil all over.
Yeah.
Close the lid.
How hot is it in there? About 212 degrees, boiling point.
That's boiling, yeah.
That's why you keep that shut.
Yeah.
Safety first.
Where are your safety goggles, Dave? Uh Uh-huh.
Gonna have a chat with osha.
After the hops are boiled to perfection, the liquid is quickly cooled, then pumped into these tanks, where brewers' yeast is added and fermentation begins.
About 8 days later, alcohol and carbon dioxide is formed, and the spent yeast has settled to the bottom of the tanks.
Most people don't want this stinky old yeast in their beer, so it's pumped out to this holding tank.
Oh, god.
Pretty bad, huh? Pretty bad.
This is Dan.
Dan, tell us what we're looking at.
This is our yeast tank -- spent yeast tank, actually.
After the fermentation's over -- and whatever is left over, which you can't use, gets pumped into here.
From here, it gets pumped into a wastewater treatment center where it's processed further.
This yeast is like a wild thing.
Yeah.
It'll go out of control.
It's a single-cell organism.
It needs oxygen to produce.
So me, being a multicell organism, will now go into the holding tank and do battle with the single-cell organisms.
It seems like the odds should be with me.
This is hot caustic.
Caustic -- that's fancy talk for "poisonous.
" No, well, it's a cleaning agent.
Great.
You might want to put those on.
These? Why do I need these? Well, we're dealing with caustic.
You don't want it to get in your eyes.
You keep using that "caustic" word, Dan.
That's nice.
Oh, yeah, it stinks.
Yeah.
It stinks in a very specific sort of way.
Oh! [ Laughs .]
Kind of slippery.
Oh, man.
It's not really a finesse job, is it? No, just keep moving it back and forth.
Always concentrating, of course, on not getting the caustic stuff on you.
How often does this yeast tank need to be cleaned? We try and get it once a week.
Yeah, it just comes right off like a dream.
[ Laughs .]
Probably easier if you just keep it up around the top and let the liquid just kind of flow down.
Oh, yeah, technique.
You've never seen it done like this, have you, Dan? No, I haven't.
Careful.
Have you started to notice a tingle on your face any? Yeah, I am.
That's the chemical.
It's tingling.
That's the chemical in the yeast or the No, that's the caustic.
Yeah, it tingles.
It tingles on the skin.
It lets you know it's working.
Coming up, I shake things up at the beer factory.
[Bleep.]
[Bleep.]
Totally my bad.
Then How are you not stuck, and I'm stuck? An oyster farmer shows me the secrets of mud walking.
At the long trail brewery, I was learning that making beer can be hot, sweaty work.
And when it comes to discarding a certain beer by-product, well, that job can be stinky, too.
What in the hell is this? This is -- it's known as our yeast press, and the sign out front says the press needs scraping.
So that's our job.
That can never be good.
And the way you scrape the solids out is to take this scraper here, our stick, and plunge it in between the first two plates.
The stick? Is that the technical term? The scraper or the stick.
The press squeezes every last ounce of beer out of the spent yeast.
What's left behind is this chunky, unappetizing mess which, believe it or not, can be sold as a base for animal feed or even human food supplements because it's so rich in protein.
That's actually our friend saccharomyces cerevisiae.
That's what yeast is.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae? Yeah, kind of like cerveza, beer, as in the Mexican cerveza.
[ Grunts .]
You first add it to the beer, and it's actually pretty clean and nice-smelling.
But at this point It's not clean or nice right now, Joe.
There's nothing good about this yeast.
No, trust me.
Man, that's a lot of yeast.
Bad yeast.
[ Laughs .]
But really, Joe, without the yeast, where would we be? I'm just looking at the -- it's like the play-doh fun factory down here It's beautiful.
without the play-doh.
Somewhat peanut-butterlike.
We'll take it.
You can eat it.
No, you can't.
Yes, you can.
I wouldn't want to, but you can eat it.
For the record, the biggest ingredient in yeast is yeast.
In fact, it's the only ingredient -- single-cell microorganism.
It's got a nucleus and some mitochondria, but that's pretty much it.
It's yeast -- pure and simple unadulterated goodness.
This is Tom.
He's doing something integral with the hose to the beer-making process.
What are you doing? Actually, what I'm doing is spraying yeast off of the plates of the filter so we can get these pads out of here.
I'll put some new ones in, and filter beer as soon as possible.
So these filters are here all of the time, and all of the beer that ultimately comes out with the long trail label gets mashed through here? Exactly.
And you got to keep them clean? Otherwise you get dirty beer.
Exactly.
This is the actual filter per se.
That filters the beer, exactly.
The plates are simply to hold the pads together.
It's like a car mat.
I just put my thumb through.
I just destroyed a filter.
So, gosh, you know what? I'm just gonna shut up and step back.
Show me what you do again.
I know it's just a hose, but It's a simple job.
anything could go wrong.
Rowe: I'll come up with something smart to ask you Like this -- what does cold-filtered mean? The temperature at which we filter it.
That was kind of a stupid question.
But why, uh, cold-filtered's better than warm-filtered? That was the question I meant to ask.
Because it will be consumed cold, and we'd like to have it clear.
If we filter it while it's cold, it will be clear while it's warm.
Filter cold, clear warm.
If one were to filter it warm, it might not be clear cold.
Is that clear? You're a complicated man, Tom.
Come on.
You tell that to all the boys.
For a guy with a hose, you tell a good story.
One clean filter right there, Tom.
You can't be too clean when it comes to a long trail filter.
That's the truth.
A lot of little things hiding in there.
Nooks and crannies.
You're absolutely right.
I might as well ask you as I'm looking at these things -- what exactly -- what are we looking at here? Well They're little boogers.
We could, um -- well, that's a technical term.
But around here we would call that yeast and all those other portions of the beer -- large protein molecules, for example.
I mean, if I saw this floating in my beer -- you wouldn't like it.
That's why it's here.
And now in the future, should I come across one, I'll say, "Tom -- Tom was asleep at the hose.
" Or someone.
But probably not you -- what with all the experience.
Now that the beer has been filtered, packaging technician Jim o'Neil is going to show me how to test the beer for quality control.
Jim, right? Yeah.
This is Jim, and he's holding a very sophisticated device.
Tell us what you do with it.
I'm checking the co2 carbonation in the tank.
This is full of beer? Full of beer.
Okay, but we just don't know if it's got the right level of carbonation.
So we're gonna crack this a little bit so it starts coming out.
Then when it gets to 35, close it all down, then you shake it.
Shake what's in there? Shake what's in there.
Yeah, it looks like a 35.
35 -- 35.
So now we know the beer in here is the right temperature.
Yeah, and the beer in the tank is at 35 degrees.
Okay, so everything is as it should be.
Right.
Now we just need to check the level of carbonation.
Then you can shut off the tank, unscrew it, and then shake.
Can I shake it? You most certainly can.
Like this or up and down? Back and forth like this.
Maybe a little harder.
Oh, it's a motion I'm familiar with.
It's like making a good Martini -- shaken, not stirred.
Good? No, we usually want -- we want the pressure Gauge at least 10.
[ Laughs .]
There you go.
It is at 35.
At 10.
Then we can come over here to this chart.
Oh, I love a good chart.
So we go 35, and we go at 10.
2-5-2 -- it's ready.
Everything in that tank is ready now to go into a bottle or a keg or whatever.
Where do we do that? Over here.
Follow me.
I'll follow you.
It's a good tank.
Good tank.
How long does it take to fill a keg? Three to four minutes.
How much does a keg hold? 13.
2 gallons.
15 liters.
50 liters.
Well, whatever.
Okay.
Do a little of this.
Do a little of that.
A little crooked there.
How many of these do you do in the course of a day? Today there's 160 50-liters.
Then you ship it to fraternities across the country.
Whoop.
Now you want to close it.
[Bleep.]
Really? It's totally my bad, totally my bad.
Eight tapped kegs.
What's this weigh? 1,120 pounds.
So you want me to move half a ton of beer back there? Please.
Perfect.
Uh-oh.
Finally, a fresh batch of long trail ale is ready to be shipped to customers around the world who probably have no idea that behind every keg of beer is a lot of dirty work.
Coming up, I find out that dirty can be beautiful.
That's gorgeous.
Back in 1865, union forces were marching toward Charleston, south Carolina.
Along the way, they stopped right here in ed Palmer's backyard.
They made camp, and they had an oyster roast A big one.
In fact, here in south Carolina, harvesting oysters and recycling their shells is a big, big business and a dirty job.
In addition to beautiful scenery and historic landmarks, south Carolina's known for having some of the best-tasting oysters anywhere.
But as I found out, they're a lot harder to get than they are to eat.
I came here to do both.
That's how I met ed Palmer.
He's been gathering oysters for 40 years in oyster beds that have been in his family for three generations.
Fair to say, I think, that the situation I'm in right now is a treacherous one.
We're on the banks of folly creek in an oyster bed, which, essentially, is like standing in living razor blades.
You can see our footprints over here left in the mud.
You have to know how to walk.
You don't actually walk into it.
You, like, got to float into it.
Walk and your picking my feet up And what you're doing, you keep moving.
Not both of them 'cause you'll be in trouble.
Ooh! Damn it! As you're walking, you balance yourself at all times.
Once you're doing that, use one feet and you move the next one.
I got balance.
But you got to be stuck 'cause I'm stuck.
I'm not stuck.
How are you not stuck and I'm stuck? There you go.
Come on, come on up.
When you have a moment, could you hand me that boot? These oyster shells are sharp.
This is ridiculous, ed.
Normally when we go out, we go on tide going out.
So when tide make its turn, then we turn.
So the tide is turned.
It's coming in.
But for the time being, this oyster bed is exposed.
It'll be exposed for the next, uh -- matter of fact, you got three more hours.
Now, this is an oyster.
That's an oyster? How can you tell? Well, you're looking at the blade of the oyster, the length.
From this point to that point, and you know you got some oyster in there.
Break off the dead shell, leave it behind so that shell can reproduce this season, next season, or the season after.
Now, you got a bunch of everything on here.
Seashell, everything.
What you do Then you save -- you save the oyster.
Watch this and this.
So, I mean, I was wrong.
When I came up here and looked at this, I thought, wow, everything here is what we're gonna collect.
Well, this is like an easter egg hunt.
There it is.
Look at that.
That's gorgeous.
Now, here's the thing.
Some point in our history, some guy like you wandered around and opened something like this up and looked in there and saw that and said, "yeah, yeah, that's what I want to eat.
" It didn't take me long.
I was a young boy, 12 years old, to know what an oyster is good for.
I'm telling you, it's a -- you're talking dirty now, aren't you? This is romance we're talking about.
You take this and Man, you missing just -- you missing a whole lot.
Yeah, a man would have to be pretty hungry.
On a good day, ed picks about 30 bushels of oysters.
At $25 a bushel, that's $750, which isn't bad for a day's work, but not as good as the restaurants who sell the oysters for about $75 a bushel.
You understand, ed, why some people don't like oysters, right? No, I sure don't because oysters are something that I think everybody should love.
Well, I mean, they're these snotty little things wrapped in an unbreakable skin lying in the mud.
[ Laughs .]
You got to overlook that.
Yeah, you just got to get past that.
More seed.
Yeah.
See, I have a knack for picking up the wrong one no matter what I reach for.
[ Gurgling .]
[ Laughs .]
[ Laughs .]
That's a great sound.
Yeah, that's a great sound.
The ground is farting at me.
[ Laughs .]
You think you can handle that? I'm stuck in the mud again, ed.
Would you mind? Thanks.
The oysters we collected today will go to local restaurants.
After they've been eaten, the oyster shells will end up here.
What happens to them next was a real eye-opener.
Coming up, a place where oyster shooters are just a part of the job.
[ Grunts .]
After hours of oyster harvesting with ed in folly creek, I then met Andy and Chris of the south Carolina department of natural resources oyster-shell recycling program.
Andy, I say this as an observation and not a complaint.
But oysters stink.
[ Laughs .]
Oyster shells really have a -- they've got a funk on them.
They really do.
Why are they just sitting here? Well, they're in a quarantine period.
Before we plant oyster shell, we make sure they're free of any foreign pathogens or any hitchhiking exotic species we don't want to introduce into our waters here from another area.
We're gonna go through these oysters, and we're gonna try and separate some of the nonorganic shell material.
Any kind of trash or any kind of debris we want to get out before we plant it back in the marsh.
Let's separate the garbage from the trash, then, shall we? Sounds good.
The freshest load? Right.
You know where it came from? It came from one of our caterers in the program.
What's it called? How's it work? It's the oyster shell recycling program, and it started up in 2000.
And what it is, is we have about 16 bins in the coastal areas of south Carolina that people can take their bushels of shells that they used in their oyster restaurant, drop off, and we'll come along and pick them up -- whenever the bins fill up -- every so often.
So these shells that we're recycling are all being recycled to make more oysters, not to make something else altogether.
Right, just to make more oysters.
So is there a -- I mean, you know, I've read a lot about certain diseases that are associated with oysters.
Eating oysters can be dangerous if they come from polluted waters.
Because they are filter feeders, they accumulate colonies of fecal coliforms in their tissues.
Fecal coliform? Yeah, that's usually from sewage of some kind.
So once these have been out here sort of percolating in the sun for a while, they're moved back to the next area.
The next staging area, where we're gonna load the barge.
You got a barge? Oh, yeah, they've got a barge.
Where are we going and why? Well, we're gonna come over here to this landing and pick up about 700 or 800 bushels of shell for planting later on on a staged shellfish ground over here behind us.
During this time of year or the springtime, the oysters are spawning, and the free-swimming larva is looking for a place to start its life.
The department provides a lot of shell and different kinds of shell for them to do just that.
Now, it looks like we're about to crash here.
Should this cause any kind of alarm? [ Laughs .]
Just the normal kind.
How many bushels of shells are we looking at here? This is about 700 or 800, probably close to 18,000 pounds.
Well, a fair amount of it seems to be on my knees.
We happen to be conversing in the month of may.
There is not an "r" in this particular month.
Right.
What does that mean for oyster aficionados? Well, from a management standpoint, we close the season down for the summer months, and the summer months don't have "r" in them.
How long would he live? Between three and five years before finally something would either prey on the oyster, or else it would die from some kind of disturbance or just natural causes.
Now, I said, "he," but it could be a she.
They're hermaphrodites.
Different sexes can occur in the same animal.
But when it comes to time for spawning, usually they're either one or the other.
So there's no boy-girl gender differentiation in the house we're gonna be building for them.
No, sir.
It's like a frat house out there -- anything goes.
Right.
Great.
Well, let's get the oysters up the conveyor belt, onto the barge, and let's give them a home.
I have now assumed the role of load-meister.
According to Andy, the load-meister stands on the barge while it's being loaded and, with a pitchfork, assumes the responsibility for making sure that no oyster shells inadvertently slip off the side the barge.
I believe the load-meister is probably a made-up job.
And so I'm off to build a brand-new community with oyster shells.
There goes the neighborhood.
The goal is to blast the oysters between two pvc pipes that you have situated.
Man: Right.
[ Engine turns over .]
All right, you can start going now.
Right where that rail is.
This is how they did it in the old days? That's right.
I never cared for the old days.
After a day of harvesting, load-meistering, blasting shells, and getting stuck in the mud, there was only one thing left to do.
I didn't say it was gonna be pretty.
Oyster shells really are very sharp.
Just ask the cameraman.
Chicken sexer.
It's a dirty job.
Ohh! [ Laughs .]
Oh, no! Oh, no! Think you have a dirty job? Click on discovery.
Com/dirtyjobs and tell us about it.
You never know where I'll show up next.
That is a new low.