Spirits aging with hydrogen peroxide?

[der wo]

You are very likely destroying some of your sugars/caramels. That's not what I wanted.
Your fruit esters may have been hydrolyzed to carboxylic acids (bitter) and potentially lower alcohols. I will ask them...

[der wo]

Pt is also not an innocent metal.

You mean, the Pt "decides" not only to speed up the reaction, but also, what molecules get oxidized? Without the Pt but the same amount of H²O² the reaction would be not only slower but would have a different result after complete transformation of the H²O²?

[shaawnzee]

The broad answer is that it 'could'.
Catalysts lower the energy needed for a reaction to occur (activation energy). Given a constant temp, the end result is a faster reaction or access to a reaction with an activation barrier that was too high to overcome at any appreciable/practical rates timeframe.

I'm a bit out of practice on my catalyst knowledge, but Pt is widely used to catalyze a variety of reactions. The Pt might be doing something completely different irregardless of the oxidizer. There are lots of different chemicals present after hitting wood.

Oxidizers are the ones that are indiscriminate. Once it decomposed to the radical species, it will react with whatever it encounters first.

This is all rough guesses without digging into reaction mechanisms or redox potentials. Sorry if it adds more confusion. I still believe one day we will figure this accelerated aging thing.


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[akira7799]

When I read papers about aging of spirits, I often read "oxidation". Besides evaporation and oaking of course. And the easiest and safest oxidator is air, but unfortunately the magnetic stirrer doesn't work at least in this case. So I try the second easiest and safest one, H²O². I don't know if oxidation is about something from the wood or something of the spirit. There is some information online, both theory and practical. But the practical have all an unthrustworthy commercial backround like "making 20yo Bourbon in a week".

Der Wo,

I think there also might be a bit of difference with the "oxidation" vs. "micro-oxygenation oxidation". This is a good read (from a wine-making blog) that discusses micro-oxygenation and the effects on fermentation http://www.westchesterwinemakers.com/20 ... inemakers/. Even though it discusses fermentation mico-ox, the same (or very similar goings-on) happen in a barrel. The barrel allows micro-oxygenation (air in, air out) with daily and seasonal temperature and other weather fluctuations.

The micro-ox allows esterification, compound complexing, and very slight oxidation that lead the beneficial flavors of barrel aging. I'd look more towards micro-oxygenation oxidation instead of chemical oxidation.

Good experimentation! Keep it going!
Dave

[der wo]

Thanks.
But first, this is about wine, a liquid with probably living bacterias. Oxygen contact also has an effect on the bacterias.
And second, with "air in, air out" you also loose volatile compounds. And those effects are probably much stronger than oxidation. My experiment tried to isolate oxidation from the other effects (of for example barrel aging). Micro-oxygenation matches better to the microwave or ultrasonic aging threads or airing threads.

[akira7799]

Der Wo,

Little off-topic, but in your opinion what are the biggest contributions from barrel-aging? In my opinion, the biggest would be two-fold:

1. carbon-filtration from the level of char
2. taste contribution from the level of toasting

[der wo]

The biggest contribution from barrel-aging is, that you can sell it better.

Just kidding. Of course most important are the oak flavors.
The charring not only produces a filter of course. When you char the oak very intensely, you will also get different toast flavors, not only a stronger filter. When you have found "the perfect toast", you will have to change its parameters, when you decide to char more or less. What I want to say is, that your "1. and 2." is only one point IMO.

Second important is the angel's share. Third important the air contact.

[akira7799]

The biggest contribution from barrel-aging is, that you can sell it better.

Hahahahaha! Well said! It truly does fetch a higher price once aged in a barrel.

Just kidding. Of course most important are the oak flavors.
The charring not only produces a filter of course. When you char the oak very intensely, you will also get different toast flavors, not only a stronger filter. When you have found "the perfect toast", you will have to change its parameters, when you decide to char more or less. What I want to say is, that your "1. and 2." is only one point IMO.

Fair enough, calling the level of toast/char the same makes sense to me.

Second important is the angel's share. Third important the air contact.

I do have questions of your point #2 and #3. Doesn't evaporation/absorption due to angel's share cause more air interaction? Also, is this air reaction the one you're trying to replicate with H2O2 oxidation? Or are you trying to create a different reaction? If so, could O3 (ozone bubbling) create any favorable interactions?

[der wo]

I do have questions of your point #2 and #3. Doesn't evaporation/absorption due to angel's share cause more air interaction? Also, is this air reaction the one you're trying to replicate with H2O2 oxidation? Or are you trying to create a different reaction? If so, could O3 (ozone bubbling) create any favorable interactions?

With sticks we have 100% solved the oaking part of aging IMO.

And we have many methods to create evaporation of volatile compounds. I think we all agree, that some amount of airing makes the spirit better in most cases. And that an artificial airing is at least similar to the evaporation/permeation of barrel aging. And that it is possible to accelerate this evaporation with for example heat in general (but perhaps with a minor quality). Evaporation is physical aging.

But there is also chemical aging. Long barrel aging includes chemical development of the spirit too. And unfortunately it seems we are not able to accelerate this part of the aging up to now. This experiment was an attempt to accelerate chemical aging. The perhaps most important part of chemical aging is oxidation. Not only spirits aging is oxidation. Everything in world oxidates more or less, if you leave it simply long enough alone and oxygen is available. (Except some things like platinum of course don't oxidize.)

H²O² causes oxidation. O³ too. But O³-bubbling would cause also evaporation. And the effect of the accelerated evaporation would be greater than the effect of the O³. So again we have mainly physical aging unfortunately, not chemical. Because of that I don't think ozonating works for us. Favorable interactions or not? I don't know. At least my results were not favorable.

[akira7799]

H²O² causes oxidation. O³ too. But O³-bubbling would cause also evaporation. And the effect of the accelerated evaporation would be greater than the effect of the O³. So again we have mainly physical aging unfortunately, not chemical. Because of that I don't think ozonating works for us. Favorable interactions or not? I don't know. At least my results were not favorable.

Since we are looking for some angel's share evaporation, I wonder how O3 bubbling in glass before adding oak would work. Then, O3 bubbling with oak at the same time . And finally, O3 bubbling without any oak at all (a control of sorts). Since I don't have an O3 generator, this won't be me, but an interesting thought to see if Ozone would have a positive effect on brown spirits.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions Der Wo, keep the experiments coming.

[johnnyv]

H²O² causes oxidation. O³ too. But O³-bubbling would cause also evaporation. And the effect of the accelerated evaporation would be greater than the effect of the O³. So again we have mainly physical aging unfortunately, not chemical. Because of that I don't think ozonating works for us. Favorable interactions or not? I don't know. At least my results were not favorable.

Since we are looking for some angel's share evaporation, I wonder how O3 bubbling in glass before adding oak would work. Then, O3 bubbling with oak at the same time . And finally, O3 bubbling without any oak at all (a control of sorts). Since I don't have an O3 generator, this won't be me, but an interesting thought to see if Ozone would have a positive effect on brown spirits.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions Der Wo, keep the experiments coming.

I don't think anyone will be using a O3 generator because these are spark gap generators and with a flammable ethanol mixture not so healthy.
Technically possible with an elaborate refrigerated closed loop setup.
An option for accelerated oxygen reactions in a closed system is via high pressure but pressure vessels are extremely expensive.
Seems like it comes to microwave to take you part way then time for the rest.

[akira7799]

Whelp...leave it to the imagination (or someone with much more wealth than me).

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[still_stirrin]

Whelp...Sent from my XR6M10 using Tapatalk

Here you go: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 83&t=65167

[akira7799]

Better?

[still_stirrin]

Better?