Forced Distressed aging?

[dougjones31]

Anybody here ever tried aging your likker in stainless kegs.... Add wood, and pressurize and depressurize and alternate the temp?

I am thinking that the pressure will force the alcohol in and out of the wood. Now I need to figure if cold and pressure should happen at the same time? I would think that the hotter liquid would work better with the pressure because the wood and alcohol would both act more dense with cold temps. And it seems natural that pressure inside a keg would increase with heat.

But,, Aging in a sealed container is not going to allow the Angels their Share. Also if I open the keg to atmosphere during the cold/ no pressure phase then I am scared that I will be lessening the evaporation and therefore not allowing enough "nasties" to evaporate off.

What to do? My simple math on this subject suggests that I can age at a rate of 1 month = 2 years. I would have to be very accurate in figuring my wood surface area , So to not over oak. It will take very little wood.

I also think that I could bubble the alcohol in the cold/ open atmosphere phase and speed up the angels share and get it back up to what we have come to expect with good aged stuff. I am sure that without evaporation we cannot have as smooth a spirit as possible. So I am more than willing to give up the %ABV.

I got plenty of kegs..... setup with CO2 plumbing. Easy enough to use compressed air instead. I was thinking about giving this a shot. What do you think?

[Dnderhead]

you will be flavoring not ageing.iv tried vacuum on/off but it did just that it made wood flavored spirits,only time can age.you can google "artificial aging" you will fiend 1000 post.from electric to ultrasonics . like patent medicine, none work really work, some seem to help a bit.

if you fiend a way patent it you will be a millionaire.

[junkyard dawg]

ya, I think the whole distress aging thing is bs. Its fun to play around with yer likker, but you aren't going to make it any better by torturing it.

[Bull Rider]

I age all of my spirits in stainless steel corney kegs. I've used CO2 to try and force the spirits further into the oak, but I couldn't really tell any difference,

My brothers were pretty stoked about having whiskey on tap however.


Bull.

[dougjones31]

i would think using co2 would cause alot of carbonic acid......... not very smooth stuff.

[Mud Mechanik]

Just playing the devils advocate here, if forced aging really worked all of the big commercial distilleries would do it

[LWTCS]

I think small improvements can be had....But age (as such) requires time. And only the good lord can manufacture pure, unadulterated time.....way I see it any ways.

[dougjones31]

Seems aging is akin to religion..........everybody believes different things but nobody really knows the big picture or the little intricacies. They just trust in what they have been taught and seldom look into it deeper.

[LWTCS]

Seldom????

Not really a fair statement Doug.
Big boys with deep pockets looking for answers too....some times the best solution is the simple solution. And often the simple solution is in fact so complicated,,,,,that even the big boys with deep pockets can't figger it out.

[rtalbigr]

Seldom????

Not really a fair statement Doug.
Big boys with deep pockets looking for answers too....some times the best solution is the simple solution. And often the simple solution is in fact so complicated,,,,,that even the big boys with deep pockets can't figger it out.

There was a post in the forum a while back about a distillery goin' out and hand pickin' American white oak in Missouri (I think). Bought something like 50 and then made barrels outa different parts of the tree to see what the difference in agin' was. I'm thinkin' is was Buffalo Trace but just can't remember. Any way, that a lot a money and a lot of time figuring out somethin' that been done for a few hundred years. There's a lot known about agin' likker and a lot that still ain't known.

Read somethin' else the other day about master distillers gettin' old and quitin'and dyin' and takin' all their secrets with them.

So much of fermentin'/distillin'/agin' is as much an art as science, seems to me. Some people on here with tons of experience I read where they say they just don't know. There's posts on here all the time 'bout people experimentin' with stuff tryin' to figure it out. Ain't nothin' like religion here; from all my readin' most forum members are genuinely curious and always lookin' for a better way to do it, to get the best product they can produce.

Big R

[dougjones31]

whew...did not mean to offend anybody. I just think that the majority of the experimenting on aging is changing little things in the same old process. IE....experimenting with different wood.

There may very well be no way to rush time. The simple fact that chemical reactions within the likker take time to complete....time for flavors to mingle, evaporation to occur. I just know that every chemical reaction can be speeded up. The problem with aging is the sheer complexity and number of reactions that occur.

I know that there has been a number of processes that have been discovered that help aging. Like electric charges and irradiation. I just have not seen or heard of experimentation in multiple step processes to try to accelerate aging. Maybe they have been tried.

[dougjones31]

Then again.... taste of the final product is subjective. Everybody tastes thing differently, SO aging processes have to be done differently to achieve a desired outcome. The reason one person likes one likker and another person does not. Therin lies the problem....same process of aging on two different likkers produces a different final product. Aging, filtering, etc has to be done in a way to get the exact taste that you want out of each product.

I made a batch of corn, barley,wheat that was good. It was too smooth. It was missing a tartness to round it out. I was going to add rye, but did not have any.....I was deer hunting that weekend and saw a persimmon tree. HMMMM! fire roasted and added almost ripe persimmons to the next batch. Well, I'll be Damned! It worked. Without adding a perceivable persimmon taste. Waiting for the tartness to age now. May have added too many persimmons to the batch.

I know there is a taste outcome for ingredients, but there is also a taste outcome for every step to aging. Figuring that out is the hard part. Airing or not, varying temps or not, oak or not, etc.

[Bagasso]

There may very well be no way to rush time. The simple fact that chemical reactions within the likker take time to complete....time for flavors to mingle, evaporation to occur. I just know that every chemical reaction can be speeded up.

I have to agree with this. Nobody (even those with access to cutting edge labs) knows exactly what goes on during the aging process. You can't really say that time is what does it because time is just a measurment and does not really affect what is happening.

The main part of the process is oxydation so aeration would seem like a good candidate for speeding things up.

[dougjones31]

hmmm. Maybe I will pressurize with pure oxygen....

[rad14701]

hmmm. Maybe I will pressurize with pure oxygen....

Hmmm... Pressurizing a volatile liquid like ethanol with pure oxygen doesn't sound like a wise idea... Let us know where you're located so we can watch for a mushroom cloud...

[blanikdog]

<shaking head>

[blind drunk]

What's the hurry, everybody? As LW keeps saying, get more fermenting buckets going and eventually years will have passed and your likker will be aged Cheers.

[rtalbigr]

We live in an impatient society where immediate gratification is now very much the norm.

Big R

[junkyard dawg]

what Blanik said...

[dougjones31]

hmmm. Maybe I will pressurize with pure oxygen....

Hmmm... Pressurizing a volatile liquid like ethanol with pure oxygen doesn't sound like a wise idea... Let us know where you're located so we can watch for a mushroom cloud...

The oxygen is way more explosive than the alcohol.

Ha! you guys worry too much. Hey Ya'll Watch THIS.................

[Prairiepiss]

hmmm. Maybe I will pressurize with pure oxygen....

Hmmm... Pressurizing a volatile liquid like ethanol with pure oxygen doesn't sound like a wise idea... Let us know where you're located so we can watch for a mushroom cloud...

The oxygen is way more explosive than the alcohol.

Ha! you guys worry too much. Hey Ya'll Watch THIS.................

I beg to differ. Oxygen is not flammable. But it is one of the 3 things needed for fire. Fuel, Oxygen and Heat.

Just in the presence of pure oxygen less likely fuels become more likely fuels.
And more likely fuels become dangerous.

Edit: I wanted to say in no way should you try and find out if pure oxygen is flammable. Read about it yes. Play with fire NO! And I'm with Rad. Pure oxygen shouldn't be introduced to a volatile fuel such as alcohol. It's just asking for trouble.

[Prairiepiss]

Well do it PP, but remember that if it all goes arse up, you can't say that we - who are trying to keep this hobby safe and maybe legal - were very sceptical. Just for the record.

Stay Safe

Sory Blanikdog I edited my post as you were responding. I realized my bad wording and added to my post.

And again with 9 years experience in working with liquid oxygen. I WOULD NOT USE PURE OXYGEN IN WITH OR AROUND ANY ALCOHOL!

[dougjones31]

No explosions here.

Got 5 gallons in a keg with oak and 10lbs of oxygen pressure. Just had to do it ......probably because so many said not to!

I was going to just bubble oxygen through it but I did not have a safe place to do that. I always oxygenate my worts before adding yeast, but it is usually a 30 second blast done outside.

And a note about oxygens' explosiveness........... I have pumped pure oxygen into a potato gun and set it off. It went KABOOM! Probably due to left over fuel from previous shots, but none-the-less they say oxygen is not flamable, but it takes very little to make things go kaboom. And for the record, I am not stupid and did take necessary precautions when I tried that. Just had a bet going for who could shoot a golf ball further..... And I was loosing. Can't have that now can I? I can say that I actually took that potato gun to it's limit! 280 yards on the last shot with oxygen got me the win though.

[rad14701]

And a note about oxygens' explosiveness........... I have pumped pure oxygen into a potato gun and set it off. It went KABOOM! Probably due to left over fuel from previous shots, but none-the-less they say oxygen is not flamable, but it takes very little to make things go kaboom. And for the record, I am not stupid and did take necessary precautions when I tried that. Just had a bet going for who could shoot a golf ball further..... And I was loosing. Can't have that now can I? I can say that I actually took that potato gun to it's limit! 280 yards on the last shot with oxygen got me the win though.

I'd like to know who "they" are because pure oxygen is definitely explosive... Ever look at the warnings on an oxygen bottle...??? Fire needs oxygen, a fuel source, and a means of ignition... That fuel source could be alcohol, clothing, or virtually anything flammable... Don't downplay the seriousness of playing with pure oxygen or you may end up finding out the hard way...

As stated elsewhere recently, we have about one person in my area per week who decides to blow themselves up by smoking while being on oxygen... Damned idiots are at deaths door due to years of smoking yet can't quit in an effort to prolong their lives while depending on oxygen to keep them going... They light up a cigarette and the pure oxygen escaping their nasal cannula while they attempt to inhale through the cigarette violently explodes in their face... Just had one the other day that destroyed a home shared by the victim, her husband, her daughter, and grandchild... She damn near killed them all... Two pure oxygen bottles exploded and left very little standing of the two story home... She is in a burn unit with burns covering over 40% of her body... Hopefully she won't die of infection which is the primary killer of burn victims...

Study up, avail your ignorance, and stop promoting dangerous practices in these forums... Remember, there is a cure for ignorance but you can't fix stupid... Look up the definitions of the two words and you'll see that I have chosen the proper wording...

Take this advice from someone who has suffered severe burns and has sifted through fire scenes for pieces of people burned beyond recognition...

EDIT: For clarification... While it is true that oxygen by itself may not be flammable, per se, it causes any fuel source to be vastly more flammable or even explosive... It should therefore be considered flammable and/or explosive...

[junkyard dawg]

@dougjones...

hope yer last words aren't,

"hey ya'll watch this!"

[Prairiepiss]

Safety is no joke. This is a training video the military used while I was in. It is one of the funnier training videos out there. But you will clearly see by some of the footage it is not to be played with. The name of the video is The man from LOX. It is geared towards LOX (liquid Oxygen). But pure oxygen is just as bad. Video is graphic!
http://youtu.be/ob98v2dEL_s

Edit: I viewed this video over 20 years ago and its still stuck in my head. I here oxygen or LOX I think of it to this day.

[LWTCS]

Hmph,,,,,feeling like that was a rather disconnected training film,,,,,,,,,,till the end

[Lynx_Gen]

Just wanted to add in on the danger of O2..

We were shown several vids in school of how oxygen can spontaneously combust when comming into contact with oil.

Being a mechanic, theres always oils and grease and such on myhands 90% of the time at work, and there are times when we need to use an oxy-acetalene torch for various things, even if its jsut heating up a stubourn nut to get it loose...

seen pics of guys hands torched up, cars that "Randomly burst into flame" etc etc..

It still makes me nervouse to see grandma breathing with oxygen!!!

so how did it turn out compressing it with the oxygen anyways?