20 years of aging in 6 days

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NZChris
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by NZChris »

I don't know that I would claim 20 years, but for someone who is short of drinking likker in the cellar, what I'm doing is worthwhile. Note that I'm not using light, only heat, so I haven't tried the entire protocol yet. That gets more complicated.

It makes a great test for working out how much oak to use when you have a new batch.

Another trial I did was putting some used oak into feints for 6 days at 144F, then distilling it. The feints were 40% straight out of the collection and were pretty nasty. After distilling I had a helluva time deciding on what not to put in the final blend. With help from another distiller, it was decided to put the whole collection in as that got us the best flavor, so there was no cut done apart from the shutdown. No foreshot, no heads, and including all that I thought would be tails. It is now in glass with JD chips and vanilla bean being held 86F.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by shadylane »

NZChris wrote:I don't know that I would claim 20 years, but for someone who is short of drinking likker in the cellar, what I'm doing is worthwhile.
That's also my opinion from my limited experiments. It appears I can get a year of aging in a couple weeks.
And that first year makes a big difference. :thumbup:
Haven't tried ultrasound or oxygenation yet
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by thumper123 »

As an old man I'm very interested in quick aging since I don't have all that much time to age either whiskey or myself. I think science needs to weigh in a little more heavily on the subject, and I've tried many of the suggestions on this website - some have been excellent. I think, in the end, that taste is what wins any of the current arguements.

We have a small craft distiller in my area who advertises that his product is aged in small barrels for three years. He admits that the reason for this was to put his product on the market sooner, but he also claims that the bourbon he sells is better for the process. It's pricey to say the least; going for $43.00 for an 375 ml bottle. My son bought me a bottle for my birthday, and I couldn't wait to try it. It was very good, but different from my bourbon firstly because of the grain bill - theirs was 100% corn whereas my is a much more complicated grain bill, and secondly the oak was crazy heavy in the store bought stuff. At this point I brought in my unprejudised tester - someone we all use around here who is known for her sensitve taste buds. She found the oak to be too much in the commercial product as well. She also thought the smoothness was the same between both samples. So I'm thinking that the guy that has the patented process is onto something, but he needs to take a little oak out of the process.

Don't forget, the established distillers have it made because of the laws - the barrel thing works heavily in their favor. If they can maintain that old practice they can hang on to all the bourbon business because the new guy on the block simply can't get into the barrel market. We have three craft distillers in my area who simply can't buy barrels, so they must be content selling gin and vodka. I'll bet the major distillers will pooh hoo any new scientific advances to the end for that very reason. At any rate, age still plays a major part in my whiskey - until something better comes along.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

I am currently running a batch of UJSSM through the process and it has another 34 hours of heat to go, but it is highly promising (so far).

I have incorporated light treatment right from the beginning. After researching the patent and various papers on preservation against UV damage for museums and the textiles industries etc, I settled on 420nm (as a starting point). That part of the spectrum particularly, is responsible for vanillin extraction. 420nm Actinic fluorescent tubes are commonly used in marine aquariums as they are effective at penetrating the far depths of the tank and allow coral to photosynthesize. This should help them get through coloured distillate, which is something that red and green spectrums struggle with. They are relatively affordable and don't consume huge amounts of power or generate too much heat (which is a problem with close proximity for a hobby sized setup). Using a double fitting light fixture, I can mix and match tubes of different spectrums. But for now, I have two identical 420nm tubes from Zoo Med.

The first thing I wanted to do, was establish if the lighting in isolation, made any tangible difference. After all, if you can't smell and taste something, then its probably not there.
LS were generous enough to qualify their experiment in the patent with the descriptor of "extremely bitter" (in relation to a sample that was only treated with light).

I set up two identical glass jars with the same white dog distillate, two halves of the same piece of white oak (med toast and med char) and placed them equal distance from the light.
One jar was blackened out completely. It was important that they both remained together as the light generates enough heat to hold the distillate at 30C/86F. So testing the two had to take account of every factor that could make a difference and void the experiment.
lighting temp test2.jpg
Based on lux hour measurements, I calculated that I would need 19 hours to reach LS' minimum mentioned in the patent.
I taste tested at 12/24/48 and 72hr intervals.

Immediately, the difference was apparent. Undoubtedly, everyone here has tasted those early first few hours/days of oak tea. The light blocked jar exhibited it, dry and astringent, but the sweetness of the UJ still shone through. The light treated jar however was a completely different animal and I have never experienced it before (or ever want to again). The nose was completely closed. The taste however was more akin to Aloe Vera. It had none of the sweetness of the other jar and the last time I recall tasting anything like it, was when I bit down on an ant when I was a kid. Awful.
After 24 hours, things got worse. The light blocked jar started to exhibit tails with water, but the light treated jar was still horribly bitter Aloe flavoured. Water made it worse.
At 48 hours, things started to converge a little. Both rounded out and tails appeared in the light treated sample and both jars were less extreme in their offensiveness. 72hrs, it was even more so and I could not pick that the light had done anything further beyond 48 hours.

This was not a subtle result. I wanted to qualify that the light did something I could smell and taste. It absolutely did.
It has now been used with distillate that has been held for 48 hours at 65C/149F. I taste tested it and none of that nastiness is there, so either the light was ineffective at penetrating the much darker distillate, or it is behaving in line with what LS mentioned in the patent, which suggests that the bitterness is only in isolation with light treatment.

Further testing will be needed to really qualify the light's effectiveness within the whole process, but it is already far superior to the batch I've had on the same oak for four months.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by NZChris »

That is a very interesting read Salty. Thanks.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Odin »

Headsy, fruity tastes and esters need oxidation. Early tails like tastes (nutty, root-like) need heat so their interaction is sped up. Agitation will enter oxygen in your product. Heating it up will create more of the tails oriented taste development. Both processes (heating up and agitating) reinforce each other. A warmer product will evaporate at a faster rate. Headsy molecules (low boiling point alcohols) are over represented in the evaporated gases and exposed to more oxygen in their gas phase, prior to falling down / being refluxed. And agitation does not only add more oxygen, to help esterize heads, but also makes the tails oriented molecules meet more often and more vigourously.

My tests taught me that in a week time I can get to something that's maybe comparable to 3 to 5 years. I feel 20 years is over stated. But that's just my opinion.

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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by HDNB »

Odin wrote:Headsy, fruity tastes and esters need oxidation. Early tails like tastes (nutty, root-like) need heat so their interaction is sped up. Agitation will enter oxygen in your product. Heating it up will create more of the tails oriented taste development. Both processes (heating up and agitating) reinforce each other. A warmer product will evaporate at a faster rate. Headsy molecules (low boiling point alcohols) are over represented in the evaporated gases and exposed to more oxygen in their gas phase, prior to falling down / being refluxed. And agitation does not only add more oxygen, to help esterize heads, but also makes the tails oriented molecules meet more often and more vigourously.

My tests taught me that in a week time I can get to something that's maybe comparable to 3 to 5 years. I feel 20 years is over stated. But that's just my opinion.

Odin.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Odin »

I have tried variaous things. I started years ago with heathing a bottle up and letting it breathe. Progressed by putting a fish tank bubbler in. Then moved to ultrasonic aging. Put a fish tank bubbler in that. This got me to 2/3rds of the way. I then understand I needed higher temps: closer to the 60/65 C department instead of the 30 to 35 degrees C I took it to with the US bath. Since I designed a new boiler and agitator and heating system for my professional units, I have progressed to agitation and heating (small article on its way tomorrow, I'll share it here). The boiler is perfect for it, because of its design and control. My results are very close to NZChris's. I go to 60 C for fruit brandy and to 65 C for rum and whiskey. Heat for tailsy tastes / early tails smearing development. I agitate faster on my fruit brandy, because I take a cut with more late heads, because that's where fruity notes are found. More oxigenation to speed up the aging / esterification / ethanolification of heads, especially ethyl acetate.

I have thought a great deal about ultraviolet light. I am sure there may be certain benefits. I have also thought about ozone. I didn't put these into practice, though.

HDNB, when you say O3, you refer to ozone, right? Anyhow, I haven't tested it, because the results I am getting are pretty good. And I don't want to overcomplicate my boilers, since they also still need to be able to mash, ferment and distill. But more insight in ozone and light treatment is definately worth our combined efforts!

Regards, Odin.

Edit for ozone. Ozone is basically unstable oxygen. I can see how that speeds up the heads oriented parts of aging. That one O molecule that's available to react with ethyl acetate, if I am not mistaken. That, and of course by introducing O3 in general you get much more O2 in the drink than when you just push air through it with only 20% oxygen. My current take on it is: it may fasten heads oriented aging. Not sure if it is worth the trouble of adding more equipment to ozonate instead of oxygenate product ...
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

Odin wrote:I have thought a great deal about ultraviolet light.
LS' patent mentions utilising actinic light from 400 through to 1000nm, which is in the visible spectrum.
The ultraviolet spectrum does not seem to be useful for this application because of the poor penetration. Even with a quartz crystal vessel, close proximity and the oak right up against the edge of the glass, UV rays would struggle to get beyond the first few layers of molecules of the oak. As the distillate darkens, its even harder to break through.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

It has been a month since my batch was run and the majority of the (first bottle) has been consumed.
The result is quite unlike anything I've tried before.The nose is dirty and reminds me of BBQ corn husks (not pleasant). However there are no hints of that on the taste (or any corn for that matter). The flavours are predominantly orange and dark chocolate. Its not fresh fruit though. Its very much baked fruit. These flavours did not reveal themselves until the whole process was complete. It also improved markedly with oxygen as the bottle went down. The dirty earthy nose cleared up almost completely.

I currently have a Jaggery Rum running that has 5 more hours of light treatment to go. It is made up of 2/3 of rum that has been on oak for four months and 1/3 unaged from the same batch. It is being heated at 149F like my UJ.
It was just starting to become drinkable, but adding a 3rd of the unaged distillate, completely rolled back all its progress and was back to being unpleasant. However, after the first 48 hours of heat, it was back to being drinkable again. I'll taste test it again after the light process (before it goes back on the heat again for another 48 hours).

I have also got a batch of UJ that I can split five ways to do five experiments with. Haven't decided exactly what they will be, but at least two will be dedicated to an A - B comparison of light vs no light.
I'd also like to test the upper and lower limits of heat mentioned in the patent (140 - 170F) so that I can have a greater understanding of how these temperatures can change the outcome.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Odin »

I am achieving very good results with the pre-heating program on my stills. I set the temp at 60 to 65 C (in the boiler) for higher temps to speed up early tails maturation (by recombination of molecules). I set the agitator at high revs (relative) to introduce oxygen and oxidyze/age the late heads part. Since there is a packed column on top with loads of heavy stuff, I don't loose any alcohol to evaporation. Even without cooling to the top of the column on.

Regards, Odin.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

Quick video showing the transition from lighting to heating.
https://youtu.be/4zftDkYy8dc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Its a bit fiddly but I'm getting quicker at the changeovers.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by dstaines »

I have an update of some 2nd-hand information, pertaining to the original direction of this thread (seems to have diverged more in the 'what-else-can-we-try' direction, which is definitely great, but not something I have ever played around with).

Anyway the point is that this guy I know who has regular contact with Bryan Davis, the inventor of the THEA 1 Reactor, told me Davis' company has put the THEA Reactor project on hold except for their own proprietary use. Recall that their intended business model was to lease these units to craft distillers, enabling them to rapidly create interesting products with an "Ultra-aged" flavor profile. I know that several companies took them up on that program, at least as a trial. The reason given to me for the why their program didn't succeed wildly shouldn't surprise anyone here, and it has nothing to do with the reactor or the organoleptic science that supports it:

Distilling delicious spirits takes a lot of practice to do well, and the first stuff you make is probably going to suck.

Basically, none of the "Big Boys", those with qualified master distillers and rigorous quality control processes supporting their brands, were ever going to consider the THEA reactor. They have the resources to age spirits in the traditional way, so if they want to make a premium ultra-aged product they bottle it from their oldest barrels and sell it on the top shelf with a properly impressive age statement. Those who were eager to try it were (for the most part, according to my source) small craft distillers just starting out. In short, they filled the reactor with crap white whiskey, poorly blended, not knowing it was crap, and six days later bottled brown whiskey that tasted like crap but older.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Jimbo »

haha, thats a pretty good observation. crap in crap out.

Any process that trys to short change mother nature never had any credibility in this industry to begin with. Even smaller barrels, let alone snake oil and alchemy. Ive seen plenty articles that snickered and laughed at this particular attempt and others to make diamonds from coal.

My opinion is its dangerous to the credibility of 'Craft Spirits'. Some yahoo trys to pawn off his 6 month old shite for 40-50 bucks a bottle and before long no one trusts $40 craft spirits anymore and reverts back to their 'safe' Cracker Barrel well known predictable brand. Not good.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

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Jimbo wrote:haha, thats a pretty good observation. crap in crap out.

Any process that trys to short change mother nature never had any credibility in this industry to begin with. Even smaller barrels, let alone snake oil and alchemy. Ive seen plenty articles that snickered and laughed at this particular attempt and others to make diamonds from coal.

My opinion is its dangerous to the credibility of 'Craft Spirits'. Some yahoo trys to pawn off his 6 month old shite for 40-50 bucks a bottle and before long no one trusts $40 craft spirits anymore and reverts back to their 'safe' Cracker Barrel well known predictable brand. Not good.
Truth :thumbup:
That said small barrels and temp/humidity control do work but small barrels are not economically viable for large volume. Climate control is used by most medium to large producers, Buffalo trace use it in such away as to considerably raise their ABV while aging. Personally although that makes great economic sense I don't think it makes for a better product IMHO. Small barrels cost almost the same as large ones (maybe more) so if you are going to spend 10 times as much for barreling then ya want to be aiming for the very top of the top self just to break even. As for most of us .
In Australia we don't get any $50 craft whiskey as the starting price is around $100 and climbs rapidly from there so consumer confidence is very important.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by HDNB »

thecroweater wrote: In Australia we don't get any $50 craft whiskey as the starting price is around $100 and climbs rapidly from there so consumer confidence is very important.
same here, i'd never have got into this if i could buy likker at USA prices. cheapest craft vodka in a store here is 47. most hit 53.
aged craft is 60 plus. Hudson whiskey outta USA is 65 a mickey here. fak.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by thecroweater »

:oops: sorry I got a call half way through that post . It should have read "As for most of us these economic considerations are not a concern" .
Most of us are not wanting a product in 8 years but are aiming for something special inside of 6 to 12 months and small volume casking is a tool for that job. Its about surface contact verses ullage etc. The commercial guys need to weigh up outlay cost verses the advantage of faster turnaround versus age marketing If it was viable large scale they'd be doing it and I have noticed some small batch craft distillers do use 50 and 100 ltr kegs.
I'm not sure I'm ready to swallow the reasoning behind the failure of the business plan, yes shit in shit out but most rapid aging is infact rapid flavouring. There is just not a big enough market for oak tea whiskey I suspect. Who knows they can get ppl to buy Flieschmanns whiskey sure they can find someone to buy any shit with the right marketing :roll:
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Fills Jars Slowly »

The most recent ADI newsletter had a blurb and posted a link to the story that Jim Murray has given a peated whisky aged for 6 days using this process a score of 94 in the 2018 Whisky Bible.

Now, we all know that what one guy with a big name says doesn't necessarily mean jack squat about whether a drink is really all that or not. However, this will make waves. It seems as big in the world of whisky as the California wines winning the blind taste tests in France all those years back. Is Jim Murray off his rocker? I dunno. Is he in the hip pocket of the craft distilling movement? I dunno. Is this 6 day old stuff really just as good (94 points worth on the Murray scale) as some of the better scotch whiskies of the world? I dunno.

I have not read all posts in this thread so this link may already be posted, but here is the link to the white papers that Lost Spirits have published concerning their methods: https://www.lostspiritstech.net/science" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

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goinbroke2 wrote:Guys, I don't want to appear arrogant or brag in any way, but I've done the whole "fast aging" process and have gotten the times down to about 9hr's for a drink that tastes like 15 year old scotch....
Believe it or not I was propelled through the roof of the garage in a flash and landed more than 40ft from the garage in less than a second. This was definately jump drive or warp drive caused by plasma and dilithium crystals.....wait...is this the liars bench?...ah crap, sorry guys...wrong thread, my bad.. I just assumed from the bullshit story it must of been the liars bench and tried to out do it. :mrgreen:
Oh you summamabitch! :twisted: :crazy:

You damned experts tell us NOOBS to "read, read, read" so I READ READ READ!!!!
Next thing I know me & Goinbroke2 & Emmit Brown are using the flux capacitor in the back of the Delorean to make superhootch out of KALE or some other rotten shit!!!!

In other words, you got me!
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

Has been a while since I've updated here. I have been steadily putting various distillates through my little time machine. Have also made some changes.

One problem I had was astringency. Very green and sharp tasting spirits. Especially with virgin oak. This was a direct result of the light treatment.
The first way I tried addressing this, was to introduce air into the distillate during the light treatment.
I experimented with breather straws and had some extreme Angels' share with some configurations, but found that having a straw (316 seamless SS tube) all the way into the distillate with a slightly porous stopper to be beneficial. The light doesn't generate much heat, so I'm not mainlining the ethanol into the Angels veins...
Breather test1.jpg
However, a more significant modification was to block the light, to stop it exposing most of the distillate.
Beaker jacket.jpg
Only the oak at the bottom of the beaker and a small volume of distillate are exposed (at any one time). This reduced astringency to practically zero.

However, it still wasn't giving me the results I wanted. I had to decide whether to double-down, or ditch the lighting altogether.
Testing very long exposures (9 days solid light treatment) gave me significant vanillin extraction. Also astringency. So I decided to invest in a cheap 19W LED lamp and supplement my actinic fluorescents. This dropped the needed exposure time down to 96 hours and everything I've put through since, has been (so far) outstanding! I'm fairly sold on this way of home 'aging'.

Its still a case of garbage in, garbage out. Heads don't clean up nearly as well as tails, so I need to test more to see what can be gotten away with. Another thing, you can take a corn whiskey, virgin oak (seasoned, charred of course) and render it utterly devoid of any sharpness and varnish within 8 days. I have not drunk any really old bourbons that have been tamed by their long time in the barrel, but this is how I imagine them to be. I think the inventor himself said that this was an "all or nothing" (sic) process and you couldn't have something that resembled say a 5 or 10 year old.
This seems to be the case here. Vatting can change that to a degree though.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by HDNB »

salty, any chance for more details? maybe yer own thread?

thx.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

HDNB wrote:salty, any chance for more details? maybe yer own thread?

thx.
I just followed LS' patent. The clear distillate is heated in a vessel along with wood and held at a set temperature for a set duration. There are many ways to accomplish this.
I use a small coffee pot hotplate wired up to a PID and a small milk-can with a natural cork stopper and a stainless steel thermowell inserted through it. The can is never more than 3/4 full and the head space is there to provide a small amount of reflux.

When the first heat cycle is complete (typically 48 hours), I allow the vessel to cool enough and then transfer the contents to a borosilicate flask. There it is exposed to the lights at close proximity for 96 hours at a minimum. The content is then transferred back into the heating vessel and given another 48 hours.

Digging into some of the peripheral research (museum/gallery/textiles and paper industries) and their concerns about the damage light does to lignin, you discover that this damage doesn't happen linearly. It reaches a tipping point after certain amounts of hours or energy exposure has occurred. Museums carefully manage the hours as well as the types of lighting they use to illuminate their exhibits. For this reason, I think that short cycle Hot - Cold methods aren't all that useful for mimicking an aged product. If the threshold (where lignin is damaged) isn't breached, then you get little from the treatment other than a smoothing of the distillate and destruction (release) of the water soluble compounds within the wood. Lignin is a hard nut to crack. It will take abuse and then recover. If you don't degrade it sufficiently, then you won't get the good stuff locked up in it.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Fills Jars Slowly »

I had the stuff laying around for the most part, so I decided to play at this fast aging game. I tried to follow the Lost Spirits method closely as best I understand it from reading the posts here, the patents themselves, and articles written about Davis and his process.

First, I made some rum. The fermentables were Morena sugar and blackstrap molasses and the yeast was Fleischman’s. I fermented it fast and hot and the 22 gallon wash was done in 3 days. I distilled it on day 4 using my 4” flute with 4 plates. I left the cuts just a bit wider than I would if I were going to leave it white or age traditionally for a shorter time, but it was not objectionable as new make, even so.

I used oak cut from Garrison Brothers bourbon barrel staves that I had previously aged some rum on for a few months. Some of the staves, before charring the other three sides and cutting to length, are shown here. These staves have about 5.25 square inches of surface area per inch of stave length, and I target 70 square inches per gallon. That is about 13 inches of stave length per gallon of spirit. For this experiment given the amount of spirit I am processing , I cut 4 pieces a bit short of 6 inches in length.
Oak Barrel Staves
Oak Barrel Staves
About 1.8 gallons of new make proofed to 60% abv went into a stainless bucket along with the wood. I soldered a thermowell through the lid, and sealed the lid by coating the rim of the bucket in PTFE tape and using binder clips to hold it tightly in place. My sous vide controller regulated the batch at 149F for 48 hours.
Heat treatment
Heat treatment
After 48 hours, I sat the bucket in a cool water bath in the sink to cool down. When it was comfortable to handle, I removed the oak staves and placed them in the bottom of a large square bottomed glass jar I am using for the light treatment stage of the process. I purposely cut the pieces so that they would jam together at the bottom of the jar holding one another in place and covering the bottom surface of the jar completely. I poured all but a quart of the spirit from the bucket into the jar, leaving about 2 or 3 inches of headspace in the jar.
Light on staves
Light on staves
I then closed the jar, sealing its glass to glass joint at the top with a flour dough paste gasket, and covered it in aluminum foil all except the bottom inch or so. In this picture you can see the non-charred cut ends of some of the staves, with a charred end at the far left. I don’t know if I should have charred the cut ends or not, but I didn’t.

I set the jar on a rack in my “fermentation chamber” (upright freezer) over a 500 watt halogen work light and set a fan blowing on the light and bottom of the jar to remove heat. I left the door open and bathed the bottom of the jar in light for the next 48 hours. The light was powerful, and I was afraid to put it closer to the jar bottom for fear of heat buildup and jar breakage and spilling 1.5 gallons of 120 proof liquor on a hot halogen bulb. As I had it, the jar never got more than slightly warm.
light treatment
light treatment
For the final stage, the spirit all went back in the bucket with the oak and back on the hot plate for another 48 hours at 149F. Once complete, the spirit was allowed to cool, the wood removed, proofed to 57% ABV (“Navy strength”) with distilled water and rested for 3 days at room temperature to allow to “marry”.

All told, after 4 days in the fermenter, 6 days in the “reactor”, and 3 days resting we have a finished product in less than two weeks from start to finish. The verdict on the sensory qualities of the product?

To my knowledge, I have never had 20 or 30 year old rum, so I have no direct comparison. I have had some 20+ year old bourbons and for the most part I find them too woody and/or varnishy in character.

I sampled the product, cut down to between 45%-57% abv with water, at each stage of the process. After seeing how dark some of my more traditionally aged spirits can get in a relatively short time, I was afraid that I would have coffee colored oak tea after the first stage. Instead, I had a light golden color after two days at 149F. I attribute this mainly to the fact that the wood used was not freshly charred, but had already aged a batch of rum for a few months prior to being used for this. That rum did take on more color after a month or two than this had after 48 hours of cooking.

The nose of the rum was fairly pleasant but not obviously showing any excessive age or oakiness. The tails were still there, not in a really offensive way, but in the new make way where if you make a cut any larger than the heart of hearts then the tails will be noticable. Even so, it made a very pleasant sip at this stage. There was a bit of the prickle to the side of the tongue and cheek/lip that indicates heads, though no overly solventy or sweet notes. No overt sense of cooked fruits, raisins, or vanilla that are often associated with age and oak. All in all, even though I failed to hold back spirit to do a head to head test with, I think this is sort of like a microwave treated batch or similar at this point. Nothing really old tasting about it, but definitely an improvement over white dog or regular temperature oaking for 48 hours.

After the light treatment, I sampled again. I definitely noticed the closed nose that SaltyStaves mentioned, though I had no big bitterness. The flavor definitely did seem changed and off, but I perceived it primarily as a function of the nose shutting down so much.

When the final 48 hours of heating was complete and the batch proofed to 57%, I sampled again at that proof and with varying amounts of water added. This is definitely better. I still don’t think I would confuse it with a 20 year old rum, but it no longer reminds me of new make spirit at all, and I can start to spot strengths and weaknesses of the spirit that have nothing to do directly with the aging process. Maybe use a little more molasses next time, or maybe add dunder for richness. The tongue prickles and noticeable tails flavors are no longer present, and the drink is much smoother, if not as rich and full flavored with oak and vanilla and fruitiness as I would like.

After 3 days at the final proof of 57%, I started to sample again (daily, imagine that). The final verdict is that this is some good drinkable dern nice rum that doesn’t taste a couple of weeks old. It is not convincing me that it is a top shelf 20 year old, but it is night and day from white dog or 2 weeks on oak stuff.

There are so many variables to explore that this experiment is by no means definitive. I could have done any of the steps for a longer or shorter duration, higher or lower temperatures, different spectrum of light, new vs. used vs. charred vs. toasted oak of differing amounts, and on and on. Even if this particular try didn’t produce a clone of a very old rum, who’s to say a different combination wouldn’t? Plus, I have a highly drinkable “aged” rum in 2 weeks to complement my bar stock.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Max_Vino »

Thank you Fulls ! Good description. I have only one observation.

There is a process called the "Tyndall Beam method" for seeing micron sized particles in a liquid. One afternoon in the lab I was analyzing a sample. The set up looked very much like your light treatment. I had a high intensity halogen bulb under a glass plate upon which I could set a beaker of the flammable fluid I was testing. Unnoticed by me was that little of the fluid overflowed the beaker, ran down the side and wicked under the plate onto the light source.

When I noticed that I immediately grabbed the beaker out of the holder. It was then I noticed the blue flame on top of the beaker….at that point I did what everyone of you would do, I dropped the beaker. That was when I set my feet on fire and learned to dance the Macarena.

So be careful, it’s what you don’t expect that always bites you in the butt.

Cheers,
Max
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

Great stuff FJS.

Couple of observations. I assume the jar is soda lime glass? There are gains to be had using borosilicate. Even better is Quartz crystal. I use a borosilicate beaker. The thicker bottom of your jar is also going to reduce effective transmission. Not sure how easily you can adjust your setup from underneath, to side-on.

The most horrible astringent flavour I get after light treatment, is very much amplified when I use virgin oak. Considerably more tannin extraction than when I have used oak. Generally after three treatments, my oak is considered spent. However, if I don't do the light treatment for long enough, I'm guaranteed a nasty result. Your 500w has probably got you covered for 48hrs, but I need 96 with my lower powered setup. It will be interesting to see what you get when running the light treatment in isolation.

Very good start.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Fills Jars Slowly »

Max_Vino wrote:So be careful, it’s what you don’t expect that always bites you in the butt.
Agreed, safety first. I was a bit paranoid about the light under the jar, but I set it up so that should the worst happen, the house might not burn down :D
SaltyStaves wrote:I assume the jar is soda lime glass? There are gains to be had using borosilicate. Even better is Quartz crystal. I use a borosilicate beaker.
Thanks for the tips Salty. Since I was using household items and didn’t make a special effort to optimize everything, I did use a standard glass jar, not borosilicate. I’ll line up some more experiments and see what differences I can spot.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

Fills Jars Slowly wrote: Thanks for the tips Salty. Since I was using household items and didn’t make a special effort to optimize everything, I did use a standard glass jar, not borosilicate. I’ll line up some more experiments and see what differences I can spot.
Where it matters is time. Given enough time, the soda lime glass will achieve the same thing.

What you want, is for a tipping point to be reached. The energy from the light is taken by the cellulose and passed on to the lignin. Lignin is highly resilient stuff and starts to loosen its bonds only after a sustained assault. It fortifies its bonds quickly too, so taking it up to the point of degradation and not going over it, is as good as having to start over.
So there is no benefit to doing the light treatment slowly.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by HDNB »

i scored a high output UV light for water purification. (for free! :ebiggrin: ) any thoughts on whether it would be worth screwing around with, or are we talking a more full spectrum high output for the desired effect?
I finally quit drinking for good.

now i drink for evil.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by SaltyStaves »

HDNB wrote:i scored a high output UV light for water purification. (for free! :ebiggrin: ) any thoughts on whether it would be worth screwing around with, or are we talking a more full spectrum high output for the desired effect?
UV light isn't useful for this application. Even in best conditions, its ability to penetrate beyond the surface is limited. When you put glass and brown likker and alligator char in its path, its even less effective.

That all being said, without seeing a graph of the spectrum of the particular light, it could have peaks in the visible (useful) spectrums as well that would make it usable.
The problem then becomes managing it, because you have to tend to the setup and you will be exposed it. You'd want to protect your eyes and skin exposure while you set it up. Its a non issue with visible spectrum lighting.
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Re: 20 years of aging in 6 days

Post by Max_Vino »

Hi Fulls and Salty,
I have a few questions for you based on the Davis Patent. Here are some patent quotes and my questions.

Pressure
"The heating is conducted in a sealed vessel or under reflux such that evaporation of volatile compounds is prevented. The pressure inside the vessel can and will vary in different embodiments of the invention. In general, the internal pressure of the vessel housing the reaction components climbs to a maximum of about 6 pounds per square inch (psi). The typical range of pressures in the vessel is between 2 psi and 6 psi, but can be altered to relieve pressure and maintain an operating pressure of less than 1 psi while still achieving the desired chemical reactions."

Have you tried varying the pressure? This probably infringes on Cleveland's patent for pressure aging. That said, this is a common procedure in the wood preservative industry.

Wood Washing
"In still another embodiment, the wood described in sections A-D above is washed prior to use in the method. Wood washing has the effect of increasing the concentrations of certain chemical markers that are important to the flavor of the matured spirit. In particular, wood washing prior to conducting the method can lead to a higher ethyl acetate concentration in the matured spirit".

Apparently they are using vinegar to wash the wood. This a common technique used to artificially age wood in the art and crafts world. Have you tried this ?

Thanks,
Max
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