20 years of aging in 6 days

[thecroweater]

Perhaps I should clarify my statements made here in this thread as reference to them have been popping up in other threads not specifically related .
I personally find it very hard to swallow that there is any method that can identically replicate in 6 days what would conventionally take 20 years, there are just way to many variables at play. What I have not stated and nor would I that this guys technique does not make a fine libation. He uses a wooden still and I have found the rums I have tried made in this type of still to be of a far superior flavour (to my tastes) than commercial rums made in metallic stills. I am sure copying the chemical profile of an average 20 year old drink and adding those to a new, well made spirit would go along way to replicating an aged product but copying exactly how all these esters and chemical compounds react gradually as given volatiles reduce and ullage increases under all sorts of varying environmental conditions, it just would not be possible. Sure you could calculate a tropospheric composition atmosphere of a given studied location from which source you have based your aged spirit chemical composition. You could probably map out the molecular size and structure of all the components that make up most of the surrounding atmosphere and by that have some chance of guessing the ratio that these elements and gases are likely to interact at a given temperature and pressure but this will tell you nothing as temps, humidity and atmospheric pressures vary wildly
All of this is just one aspect of dozens that lead me to believe that you can not with all credibility make the statement that you have categorically replicated a 20 year old rum in 6 days

[S-Cackalacky]

Don't know if this was covered and I don't care to go back and read again to find out, but I assume at some point people with decent liquor tasting palates evaluated what came from this apparatus. When it comes down to flavor quality, the only measure of success will be how fast it leaves the store shelves - at least as related to commercial production. If this apparatus produces anything near the quality of long term barrel aged liquor, I would guess that many commercial distilleries will embrace it and abandon the barrel. No doubt the traditionalists will scream about it at first, but the average Joe probably won't give a crap one way or the other.

[Dr_Breaky]

Seems like if you couldn't taste the difference between a 6 day age and a 20 year age then either you ain't good at telling the difference or this machine is working really well.

As a scientist I think it's pretty cool and it sounds like the guy knows his craft on the traditional end already and is just trying to make something work better now that we understand more of how the physical / chemical properties of aging are working. I think it's completely possible to make a batch of false aged liquor taste the same as true aged. If you can measure the chemicals involved in the process then it should be able to be duplicated. Whether or not this guy has done it will be fun to find out.

[thecroweater]

If such were near true we would all be using essences but we ain't .

[Soggy Bottom Boy]

Don't know if this was covered and I don't care to go back and read again to find out, but I assume at some point people with decent liquor tasting palates evaluated what came from this apparatus. When it comes down to flavor quality, the only measure of success will be how fast it leaves the store shelves - at least as related to commercial production. If this apparatus produces anything near the quality of long term barrel aged liquor, I would guess that many commercial distilleries will embrace it and abandon the barrel. No doubt the traditionalists will scream about it at first, but the average Joe probably won't give a crap one way or the other.

Hype and aggressive advertising, whether if true or not true, sells booze, ......you need look no further than Fireball. It doesn't mean it's good though.

[Dr_Breaky]

If such were near true we would all be using essences but we ain't .

Essences are only additive. Much of the process is additive and subtractive so they would only get you so far. I'm not advocating one way or the other just noting that if you can measure all the properties of a substance than it could eventually be replicated. Well and if it tastes identical in the end then who's counting?

[Jimbo]

We've had this discussion before, many times. Folks say, 'find out what is in a wheat single malt', for example, and replicate the chemicals. Problem is there are thousands of complex molecules that make up flavor elements of a wheat single malt whiskey, for example. By the time you figured it out, you'd have reverse engineered wheat. Good luck with that.

And then you'd still have to add artifical enzymes, because you havent reverse engineered the miracle of birth that converts the wheat grain to malt. Even the enzymes that have been man created are not all inclusive, and only approximate the most important enzymes us whiskey and beer mashers care about.

[dstaines]

I picked up a bottle of Lost Spirits Navy Style Rum - Cask Strength. First off I want to say that although this rum was (we now know) first treated with Mr. Davis proprietary three step accelerated oak maturing process using blocks instead of barrels, it was also additionally matured in some used wine casks for a short time. So it's not entirely inappropriate to call this a "Cask Strength" spirit, if not entirely and bluntly honest about how it came to be what it is.

What it is though, is a flavor that I have come to at least appreciate and certainly tolerate, although not totally love. It honestly tastes very very similar to the several jars of whiskey and grain flavored sugar head that I have made over the last year or so, which all had a tendancy to take on too much oak too quickly without really maturing, and which I ended up drinking far too young (because I was disappointed with their progress, didn't want to have to re-run it, and well... was thirsty). It's oaky - Really Really Oaky. But it's the young, woody, tannic kind of oaky with very little caramel, vanilla, or spice notes that are the hallmark of a truely oak barrel aged spirit. I admit that I have not had any opportunities to sample the kind of "Extra Aged" rums that Davis' system supposedly can approximate. But I have a hard time thinking that what would happen in a 53 gallon barrel over 20 years actually comes full circle back to what my fumbling efforts can produce in a 1 quart jar in about 6 weeks.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it's bull.

[heartcut]

I believe duplicating the taste of a 20 year barrel aged anything in 6 days would be like trying to shove butter up a cat's backside with an icepick. There are some fast aging techniques that taste good to me, however, and that's the criteria driving my (extremely rare) purchases. Might have to try some other folks' rapid aged hootch some day.

[3d0g]

I picked up a bottle of Lost Spirits Navy Style Rum - Cask Strength. First off I want to say that although this rum was (we now know) first treated with Mr. Davis proprietary three step accelerated oak maturing process using blocks instead of barrels, it was also additionally matured in some used wine casks for a short time. So it's not entirely inappropriate to call this a "Cask Strength" spirit, if not entirely and bluntly honest about how it came to be what it is.

Actually, the Navy Style only had a portion of Davis' process applied. His Colonial American Inspired is the first to fully leverage the Model 1 Reactor.

[waster]

I think maybe this is the patent in question

https://www.google.com/patents/WO2015013704A2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

its just nuking with no evaporation......

[Badmotivator]

I think maybe this is the patent in question

https://www.google.com/patents/WO2015013704A2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

its just nuking with no evaporation......

Nice work! I enjoyed reading the patent.

This is totally do-able. PID-controlled boiler with a basket filled with wood inside, tall column with a dephlagmator, condenser using dephlag's output water just in case anything gets through, set to 155F, come back in 6 days and drain into bottles. Or am I missing anything in that patent?

[3d0g]

Nice work! I enjoyed reading the patent.

This is totally do-able. PID-controlled boiler with a basket filled with wood inside, tall column with a dephlagmator, condenser using dephlag's output water just in case anything gets through, set to 155F, come back in 6 days and drain into bottles. Or am I missing anything in that patent?

Yes indeed! Good sleuthing. I searched USPTO and came up empty a couple weeks back.

Piece you missed Badmotivator was pressure - up to 6psi.

[NZChris]

Something to try:

Nuke a jar as per normal, seal it, then put it in your black garlic fermenter at 140F, 60C. You should be able to 'age' six jars by the time your garlic is ready

[dstaines]

Actually, the Navy Style only had a portion of Davis' process applied. His Colonial American Inspired is the first to fully leverage the Model 1 Reactor.

I was aware it hadn't gone through the full Reactor 1 proper. My understanding was that he split the Navy batch into three portions and treated each one with one part of the process, and then blended them together to taste. I looked and looked for the Colonial rum but couldn't find it, either it sold out instantly, or he prioritized that bottling to his outside distributors and didn't have enough for the local retailers. I'm sure I find it somewhere someday

[Badmotivator]

Piece you missed Badmotivator was pressure - up to 6psi.

I re-read it, and I still don't think the claim requires pressure. I think pressure might be involved, but it also keeps saying "or under reflux". In other words, you can do this in a closed vessel (small amount of pressure created by heat) or in an open vessel (but you need to reflux all of the vapor back down).

Anyway, I'm looking forward to trying it. I am in build mode rather than still mode right now. As soon I I get some "new make" I'm going to put some in a glass jar with some oak and stick it in my Sous Vide Supreme (PID-controlled water bath) and stare at it for six days.

[3d0g]

I read it as pressure was one of the variable inputs to the machine.

[NZChris]

Six days at 65C/149F has made a helluva difference to my new rum

[Badmotivator]

Six days at 65C/149F has made a helluva difference to my new rum

Cool. I'm really interested in your experience. How did you do it? Closed vessel or open? How much wood and in what form? Did you A-B test your hooch with and without treatment? I'd love any info you care to share.

[NZChris]

Insulated 2L glass flagon for 500ml of headspace
Cork bung, with SS thermowell for PT100
STC-1000 controller, probe held to side of flagon with foil
Heated with 60W lamp underneath

1.5l of 24 hour old aired rum @ 62.5%
29g JD chips
24mm vanilla pod

Six days at 65C/149F

So far, five out of five people preferred the '1995' rum to its six day old twin. There is a marked difference. It doesn't taste, or smell, like new rum.
Two of the five reckoned another sample of the '1995' with dunder essence added was even better.

My MKII reactor will be an insulated 5l SS can, cork bung, STC-1000 controller, heating yet to be decided.

[S-Cackalacky]

Chris, how do you have the STC-1000 programmed? Does it allow for a temp swing?

[NZChris]

65.0, +/- 0.3C, 10 minutes lag

[S-Cackalacky]

Aside from it not tasting or smelling like new rum, what was the general opinion of it? Did they like it? Did they recognize any qualities normally associated with a long term aged rum?

Did you do anything to it other than heating it? I was wondering what effect a shot of air a couple times a day might have, and/or performing the experiment with it sitting on a sub-woffer with AC/DC blasting for 6 days.

[MDH]

That's how you make a proper aussie rum.

[Badmotivator]

Thanks Chris for the rundown. I'm working my way through a bucket of molasses right now and am super eager to replicate your work. By the way, who turned you on to the idea?

[Boda Getta]

I think I rather leave it in 12 days and have 40 year aged whiskey.

BG

[InglisHill]

Insulated 2L glass flagon for 500ml of headspace
Cork bung, with SS thermowell for PT100
STC-1000 controller, probe held to side of flagon with foil
Heated with 60W lamp underneath

1.5l of 24 hour old aired rum @ 62.5%
29g JD chips
24mm vanilla pod

Six days at 65C/149F

So far, five out of five people preferred the '1995' rum to its six day old twin. There is a marked difference. It doesn't taste, or smell, like new rum.
Two of the five reckoned another sample of the '1995' with dunder essence added was even better.

My MKII reactor will be an insulated 5l SS can, cork bung, STC-1000 controller, heating yet to be decided.

I was one of those five, yes, there is a real difference there. Was NZChris's 'reacted' rum better?

Yes it was, it certianly tasted 'older', did it taste 20YO older, well, I have never got a rum past a year, and I think that in three months what he pulled out of his reactor will be on par with that, although we will not know for some time yet.

It seems to have a profound effect. I would like to see a vibrating reactor although That we play music to!

[NZChris]

I had a taste of my one year old rum and the '1995' is better. That may well be a result of the process, recipe, molasses, different wood, who knows?

Maybe I should put some 2014 in 'the Reactor' and see what happens?

[InglisHill]

Throw a UJ in there to

[Tokoroa_Shiner]

Do you think gin or absinthe would benefit from a few days in there?