Alcohol Textbook, The
Alcohol Textbook, The
The Alcohol Textbook: A reference for the beverage, fuel and industrial alcohol industries by Jacques, Lyons and Kelsall. Nottingham University Press (2nd Edition) 1995, Third edition 1999. Copyright Alltech Inc. 1999.
Chapters of this book include:
Forward by T.P. Lyons
1. Thinking outside the box. Ethanol production in the next millennium: processors of raw materials, not just ethanol producers. T.P. Lyons.
Cooking and fermentation: optimizing ethanol production by yeast
2. Grain dry milling and cooking for alcohol production: designing for 23% ethanol and maximum yield. D.R. Kelsall and T.P. Lyons.
3. Management of fermentations in the production of alcohol: moving toward 23% ethanol. D.R. Kelsall and T.P. Lyons.
4. The wet milling process: the basis for corn wet milling alcohol production. R.R. Keim.
5. Alcohol production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a yeast primer. W.M. Ingledew
Feedstock alternatives for ethanol production
6. Molasses as a feedstock for alcohol production. J.E. Murtagh.
7. Whey alcohol - a viable outlet for whey? J. O'Shea
8. Lignocellulosic feedstocks for ethanol production: the ultimate renewable energy source. R. Katzen, P.W. Madson and D.A. Monceaux.
9. Alcohol production from cellulosic biomass: the logen process, a model system in operation. J.S. Tolan.
10. Alternative feedstocks: a case stufy of waste conversion to ethanol. D.A. Monceaux and P.W. Madson.
Beverage alcohol production: tradition and technology
11. Production of Scotch and Irish whiskies: their history and evolution. T.P. Lyons.
12. Production of Canadian Rye : the whisky of the prairies. J.A. Morrison.
13. Production of neutral spirits and preparation of gin and vodka. J.E. Murtagh.
14. Production of American whiskies: bourbon, corn, Rye Whisky and Tennessee.
15. Tequila production from agave: historical influences and contemporary processes. M. Cedeno Cruz and J. Alvarez-Jacobs.
16. Feedstocks, fermentation and distillation for production of heavy and light rums. J.E. Murtagh.
Engineering efficient systems: process technology
17. Fuel ethanol production. P.W. Madson and D.A. Monceaux.
18. Alcohol distillation: the fundamentals. R. Katzen, P.W. Madson, and G.D. Moon, Jr.
19. Molecular sieve dehydrators: How they became the industry standard and how they work. R.L. Bibb Swain.
Quality control, quality issues
20. Distillery quality control. S.A. Wright.
21. Bacterial contaminants and their effects on alcohol production. C. Connolly.
Looking toward the future
22. Novel uses for distillery co-products. P. Torre.
The Alcohol Alphabet: A glossary of terms used in the ethanol-producing industries. Compiled by J.E. Murtagh.
Review of the 4th Edition of the Alcohol Textbook
Overall, the 4th edition of the alcohol textbook is a good source of a wide variety of information related to distilling. Most the information is useful to the home distiller, however, many parts of the book are about massive continuous distillation plants.
Each chapter of the book has a different author and the editing of the book was not all that great as the same information(even the same pictures & graphs) is presented over and over again in various chapters. Some of the more interesting things in the book are as follows:
Page 10: The yield of alcohol from grains based on the size of the grain after grinding
Page 76: A list of some of the various grades and types of molasses
Page 90: The chemical composition of yeast
Page 93: When growing yeast, sugar concentration should be kept to less than 1%
Page 97: Yeast viability losses per month based on a varity of conditions
Page 100: Typical pitching of yeast at commercial distilleries is around 1 gram/4 liter
Chapter 13-Some of the varieties of yeast out there
Page 194: The maximum volume of a cask for aging whiskey is 700 liters(~170 gallons)
Page 200: A list of grades of corn/barley used in the US, Scotland, and Ireland. The USA tends to use a higher grade of corn, while the Irish use barley that is only slightly better than cattle feed.
Page 202: Two main reason commercial distilleries don't really finely grind their grain is that it takes more energy to grind it and fine grains can clog the mashing tun.
Page 202: Mashing water is typically preheated before adding to the grain
Page 203: Irish whiskey is made with a finer grind of grain than Scotch since the Irish use less malted barely
Page 203: For glutenizing corn, the typical time is 1-1.5 hours at ~120C
Page 208: For all grains in fermentation, more higher alcohols are formed than compared to a sparged wash. N-propanol is the exception.
Page 211: Because of storage conditions. The ethanol concentration of scotch usually decreases, while the ethanol concentration of stored US whiskey usually increases.
Page 226: A list of the ideal conditions for growing Blue Agave
Page 248: Origin of names:
- "Rumbullion" = Clamor or noise
- "Tequila" = A place in which work is done
- "Whiskey" = Water of life
Page 248:The official ration of rum in the British navy was half a pint of cask strength rum per day from 1731 to 1851. From 1851 to 1970, the ration was 1/8th a pint per day.
Page 249: Strangely enough, bacterial infection is an important part when making a high quality rum. A yeast to bacteria ratio of around 5 to 1 was found to be ideal
Page 255: Retort is a fancy name for thumper
Page 259: The EU definition of gin.
Page 262: Hydrofining: a method for reducing fusel oil by adding water
Page 271: As little as 1% sugar can smooth out a rough high proof spirit.
Page 271-273: Recipes for margaritas, Irish cream and Strawberry malt beverages
Chapter 20: Some anti-biotics that can be used to prevent bacterial infection **The needless use of anti-biotics by people helps to create drug resistant bacteria which kill many people each year**
Chapter 21: Some of the different chemicals that can be used for cleaning stills and fermenters.
Page 325: The theory of distillation.
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