From Beer...To Whiskey
by Cameron Thompson
In six easy steps!
Welcome back! This section is where the magic really starts to happen. Our final three stages:
- Fermentation
- Distillation
- Maturation
In the last issue we spent our time creating a beer like product (wort). We took the Barley grain malted it to create soluble starches, crushed the grain into course flour, and added in our hot water to convert these starches in to sugar. So let’s turn it into beer.
The last 3 steps in the WHISKEY process are:
4. Fermentation:
So what is fermentation? It’s basically a chemical reaction that converts sugar into alcohol. During fermentation, the sugary water from the mashing stage is combined with our third ingredient – yeast. This yeast simply has an insatiable appetite for sugar, and by eating it – converts it to alcohol. This is a chemical reaction that gives off a large amount of CO2 in the process. This process continues for about 3 days to enable the maximum amount of alcohol to be created. Wort is an amber coloured liquid, about 6-8% in alcohol content and it has a big head of froth on it. So here is our beer.
So let’s turn it into Whiskey!
5. Distillation:
Now we need to take this beer and turn it into a spirit, we do this through the process of distillation. So we need to look at how the large Copper still operates. These still work just like an oversized kettle. It is really interesting to see how the different size and the different shapes of these stills give a unique taste to the spirit.
Alcohol will evaporate at a lower temperature than water, as we heat the still the very first vapor that rises off the surface is our alcohol. It flows up to the top of the still and curls around the neck where it is cooled down to create a crystal clear spirit at 60 - 80 % in strength. We call this the new spirit, (we are not allowed to call it whiskey yet as by the definition we have to age it in an OAK barrel.) but before we put our new spirit in oak I would like to examine the inner workings of the still and how it affects the final flavour.
In the Glenlivit distillery they use a still just under 17 feet in height, one of the tallest in Scotland . Due to the size of this still it will only allow the lightest of vapors to rise through. Any thing that does not reach to top will run back down the sides of the still into wort and begin the process again. The spirit reacts with the copper reducing the aggressive sulpher components giving it a much lighter and fruiter taste.
If you were to then look at a still like that at Strathisla which is just over 9ft tall we would receive a fuller more rounded, even oilier texture as a lot of the heavier vapors are carried through.
6. Maturation:
The big oak barrel, it leads us to the most magical and influential stage in our whiskey production, as here we take on 100% of the colour and up to 70% of the flavour (given it’s time in the barrel). In the production of Irish whiskey and Scotch whisky we use two different types of second hand or what we like to call Pre loved barrels. They can be either a Sherry barrel from Spain or a Bourbon barrel from the USA . As you could imagine they really offer very different characteristics to the whiskey.
Sherry Barrels: Either 500 liters sherry butt or the 250 litre Hogshead. Offering very red/ brown earthy tone with dried fruit and plums. The larger barrels with the greater surface area really produce heavier darker characteristics.
Bourbon Barrels: The smallest of the barrels used and are charred heavily on the inside, offering a golden caramel colour. The American oak is known for its spicy notes of cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper.
Our new spirit is filtered into the barrel at 69% alcohol and then spends a number of years drifting in and out of the oak gathering all of its colours and flavours. As the climate changes through summer it causes the barrel to expand drawing the spirit into the oak and expelling it in winter. As they breathe in this process the alcohol contents of the barrel will be lost through evaporation this is what we call the “Angels Share”.
A cask can loose up to 2% of it contents every year, In a 12 year old barrel we would have lost about 25% overall, a combination of both the alcohol and water. This brings the strength to between 50 - 60%. We will add a little water now to bring the alcohol content to a more manageable level at 40 - 43%. Add a nice label and a seal. And what do we have?
A bottle of whiskey ready to be drunk.