How to age scotch?

[Texas Jim]

I understand that glass jars and oak spirals can mimic the aging process for bourbon, but scotch is usually aged in used bourbon casks. How can I duplicate this? I guess I could make some bourbon and reuse the spirals from that in the scotch, but would there be any oak character left?

What about using twice the usual number of spirals when making bourbon, but leaving them in half as long so that they will have some oak character left in addition to the bourbon they've absorbed? Not quite ready to invest in a barrel.

[Samohon]

I've got 15L of an AG barley whisky on oak ATM and it looks as though I will not be buying any more single malts.

I got the barley from a local feed store (rolled), the malted barley from my homebrew store (crushed) and my water from Speyside here in Scotland.
I wrapped my mashing tun in sleeping bags and left it overnight to convert the starches, got an SG of 1.045 approx... TG was just under 1.000...

I stripped the wort immediately and done a few batches to get quantity up. After I had enough low wines I done a slow and precise spirit run taking careful time over the cutting...
I then tempered the distillate down to 65%abv with the same filtered speyside water I collected, put it in one clear glass carboy (that I wrapped in heavy brown paper) and placed 3 x 12" x 1" oak sticks in it, 1 plain oak, 1 toasted and 1 heavily charred. It already has characteristics, nose, color, ect, of a malt whisky but is still very very young for my palate.

I'm documenting everything for a later blow by blow tutorial here on HD...

It is a lot of work, but this definitely looks as though I wont be buying anymore over-priced Scotch...

[blind drunk]

Texas Jim wrote -
I understand that glass jars and oak spirals can mimic the aging process for bourbon, but scotch is usually aged in used bourbon casks. How can I duplicate this? I guess I could make some bourbon and reuse the spirals from that in the scotch, but would there be any oak character left?

You could add a mixture of used bourbon sticks and some new toasted/charred oak sticks? You could also add a shot or two of your bourbon to the aging scotch. Some members have added sherry to their Irish style whiskey. Good luck.

Samohon, you're making me thirsty - it's too early here and I'm at work ...

[Samohon]

Sorry BD, but it is drinkin time here... You'll enjoy it even better, when you get home...

Agree with the bourbon shot if needed. I'm intentionally over oaking my whisky and will probably add a 100ml of bourbon if I think it needs it as the whisky staves are spent of bourbon when I get them...

I've over oaked UJSSM and had great results, dont see why it cannot be done with a scotch style whisky...

Remember, with over oaking, it gets worst before it starts to mellow and get better. But that all takes time.

Ageing and maturation go hand in hand...

[blind drunk]

I'm intentionally over oaking my whisky and will probably add a 100ml of bourbon if I think it needs it as the whisky staves are spent of bourbon when I get them...

I've over oaked UJSSM and had great results, dont see why it cannot be done with a scotch style whisky...

I remember you posted somewhere that you "over oak" for a couple of weeks and then pull out the oak. Is this what you do?

Edit to add - Nothing worse than under oaked hooch - it doesn't know what it is or what it wants to become

[kiwistiller]

Definitely go for the old bourbon oak - you'll be left with plenty of oak flavour for a scotch, it's not supposed to be as oaky. Don't sweat it if it's too light in colour, remember that the Scots are allowed to cheat and use colourings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_mal ... #Additives" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow) .

[Bushman]

You could add a mixture of used bourbon sticks and some new toasted/charred oak sticks? You could also add a shot or two of your bourbon to the aging scotch. Some members have added sherry to their Irish style whiskey.

I've added sherry and I have added brandy at times (just about 100 ml per 5th) to my whiskey, I also let it mellow for 4-7 days with two used and one new vanilla bean (uncut) before putting the whiskey in my oak barrels.

[Acrolein]

I toast the oak, soak it in tails/neutral spirit to leech the tannins/vanillin/other things easily extracted and then char the sticks to drive off any unwanted flavors from soaking. This seems to work pretty well. You aren't getting residual bourbon flavor but that doesn't stop it from yielding a good scotch taste profile. And it's free.

As an aside, I swear by putting booze in the blender for 30 seconds. Supposedly it's an old moonshiner trick. Perhaps it's the additional oxidation/cavitation or all in my head but it does seem to improve the whisky. Just remember to take the oak out first

[blind drunk]

I toast the oak, soak it in tails/neutral spirit to leech the tannins/vanillin/other things easily extracted and then char the sticks to drive off any unwanted flavors from soaking. This seems to work pretty well. You aren't getting residual bourbon flavor but that doesn't stop it from yielding a good scotch taste profile. And it's free.

How long for the pre-soak extraction? Although, I do like the vanillin.

[Samohon]

I remember you posted somewhere that you "over oak" for a couple of weeks and then pull out the oak. Is this what you do?

Edit to add - Nothing worse than under oaked hooch - it doesn't know what it is or what it wants to become

Yes BD. I over oak the distillate at 65%abv for about 4 weeks, this depends on the volume and amount of oak used.
After recent successes with UJSSM/Sweetfeed practises, I am convinced that after the oak is removed, without filtering the distillate, the ageing process continues at a depreciated rate within the glass carboy...

Definitely go for the old bourbon oak - you'll be left with plenty of oak flavour for a scotch, it's not supposed to be as oaky. Don't sweat it if it's too light in colour, remember that the Scots are allowed to cheat and use colourings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_mal ... #Additives" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow) .

Shielding the ageing distillate from any light source is a must IMO. The colour is deepened even more once the oak has been removed and shielded from the light by really thick brown paper. No colour additives have been added at this stage Kiwi. But I did notice that once the whiskey has been decanted for drinking, it really does lose a lot of its colour within a week. Another reason why dark whiskey's are placed in a dark coloured bottle. I'm on the lookout for a brown/green glassed carboy atm...

Heres a look. The comparison is very evident yet the whiskey in each bottle are the same strength and are both filtered through coffee filters...

Iam convinced that the soft cork bung on the top of the 1 gal demi-john helps this process of maturation along at a rate as yet unknown...
This UJSSM in the photo has been aged for 1 year. I have another 2 like it. 1 I will open in a years time and 1 the following year.

If I can keep my mouth off of it that is...

[Acrolein]

I toast the oak, soak it in tails/neutral spirit to leech the tannins/vanillin/other things easily extracted and then char the sticks to drive off any unwanted flavors from soaking. This seems to work pretty well. You aren't getting residual bourbon flavor but that doesn't stop it from yielding a good scotch taste profile. And it's free.

How long for the pre-soak extraction? Although, I do like the vanillin.

Still playing around with that. I keep a couple sticks swimming in a mason jar of ~60%. Color and tannins leach pretty quickly (1-2 weeks). I like some vanillin but unused oak's vanillin content was steamrolling some of the flavors I wanted. My faux "second-fill" wood is gentler in that respect but I like to mix and match in an attempt to get a good complicated flavor profile. You'll still get some vanillin and the esters/aldehydes/whatever that predominate in a fresh barrel but the balance is shifted.

All the books talk about the floral notes added by second fill barrels and some link it to the products of oxidation. I've tried pre-oxidizing my oak by soaking in hydrogen peroxide with an electropositive metal (aluminum) before washing and charring. Does this make any difference/sense? No idea but it keeps me off the streets and having fun.

[Barney Fife]

Heres a look. The comparison is very evident yet the whiskey in each bottle are the same strength and are both filtered through coffee filters...

We're also looking -through- roughly 1/3 as much liquid, thus, the color is also cut back by a factor of 3. I don't think the color "fades", does it? Never read anything about this being an issue...

And if you dilute your spirits from 65% to 40% when bottling, you lose yet more color(yes, I know you didn't in the above photo, but i just mention this because some don't realize they'll lose some color).

I think color is overrated, anyhow; taste is what matters, in the end!

[rtalbigr]

Heres a look. The comparison is very evident yet the whiskey in each bottle are the same strength and are both filtered through coffee filters...

We're also looking -through- roughly 1/3 as much liquid, thus, the color is also cut back by a factor of 3. I don't think the color "fades", does it? Never read anything about this being an issue...

And if you dilute your spirits from 65% to 40% when bottling, you lose yet more color(yes, I know you didn't in the above photo, but i just mention this because some don't realize they'll lose some color).

I think color is overrated, anyhow; taste is what matters, in the end!

I'm with Barney here, in fact I've never really given color much thought. Actually I've found I get better flavors once my barrels have been used, and that generally results in a lighter color. And ya, "taste is what matters, in the end!"

Big R

[blind drunk]

I drink and eat with my eyes first ... I like the right colour.

[blind drunk]

All the books talk about the floral notes added by second fill barrels and some link it to the products of oxidation. I've tried pre-oxidizing my oak by soaking in hydrogen peroxide with an electropositive metal (aluminum) before washing and charring. Does this make any difference/sense? No idea but it keeps me off the streets and having fun.

Please elaborate of our viewing and reading pleasure

[Samohon]

I agree, taste is what matters Barney, but colour certainly adds to the enjoyment. I am replicating, as near as possible, the whole life cycle of how scotch is made and matured. Some distilleries here use additives to help colour the whiskey such as E150A caramel colouring, among others. Since barrelling my whisky is not practical due to the quantity required, I do what most of us practice and mature the distillate in glass. My observations on colour, if one were to try and replicate scotch would certainly need to take this into consideration, are that any scotch/bourbon distillate put on glass to age, with the oak removed, would continue darken in colour. This is greatly accelerated by the addition of shielding the bottle/demi-john/carboy from light. According to a couple of distilleries here, light causes the whisk(e)y to fade, hence the need for a dark bottle. This is certainly not an issue, but worthy of consideration if one were to try and replicate a certain malt, along with its colour.

Here is the same photo above, a UJSSM @ 40%, samples were placed into 2 x 250ml bottles...

My scotch distillate is looking very promising, but I have no comparison in colour studies. All I can say is that it is a rich dark amber colour, that will hopefully retain some of the richness after tempering down...

IMO, taste and colour go hand in hand...

Thanks...

[blind drunk]

This is greatly accelerated by the addition of shielding the bottle/demi-john/carboy from light. According to a couple of distilleries here, light causes the whisk(e)y to fade, hence the need for a dark bottle.

I've moved some of my all grain into the attic. It's good and dark there Except when I take a sip ...

Thanks Samohon.

[Barney Fife]

I agree, taste is what matters Barney, but colour certainly adds to the enjoyment

I agree that a beautiful golden hue adds to the enjoyment, but my point was that we shouldn't be judging the rate, and results, of aging by the color, since we can achieve a dark gold color within a few weeks if we use enough deeply charred oak, yet that doesn't make it aged(or good tasting!). I suspect that some oak will color the spirit differently than another piece of oak, some more, some less, some deeper gold, some lighter gold. wood varies a lot, even within the same species, and even within the same tree. Like the commercial guys, we -can- add color if we so desired/needed. As an added note, I have also noticed that the early color(the first week or so) is much more "red" than gold, so that makes me wonder if the shade of the gold color keeps changing ever so slightly with time and aging, also.

My "aging room" is a cold cellar(IE: basement), and thus has no natural light at all, so I've never had an issue, nor sought an answer, with loss of color. I'll have to split-off an aged batch and place one in a well lit area and keep the other in the dark room, to see how much color we do lose, and at what rate. Interesting....


And finally, I've seen some really fine Whiskeys, including some 10 year old Scotch, that were very light in color, and I've had some rot-gut rye that was also light in color...

[Acrolein]

All the books talk about the floral notes added by second fill barrels and some link it to the products of oxidation. I've tried pre-oxidizing my oak by soaking in hydrogen peroxide with an electropositive metal (aluminum) before washing and charring. Does this make any difference/sense? No idea but it keeps me off the streets and having fun.

Please elaborate of our viewing and reading pleasure

Always pleased to ramble on subjects I've limited knowledge of!
The basis of the idea was simple: encourage flavor formation by increasing oxidation, perhaps getting some of the second-fill wood character in the process. It's not the only important reaction in aging but it does make some nice molecules: lignin->vanillin (one of the reasons old paper/libraries can have a faint sweet smell), oak norisoprenoids->ionones (the violet molecules), oak lipid into whisky lactone etc. My little procedure was like shooting your car's engine and hoping it improves the performance. I just wanted to see if I could taste any difference. I can't. It turns out that a process like this (oxidization with metal catalyst) is used in breaking down lignin for paper pulp.

I've moved on to experimenting with port/sherry soaking and doubt I'll try this again.

[Horse_Shoe]

Tex,

Here in N. Texas I'm workin on some of the same. I use oak dowels, toasted to a near-walnut color, placed in the bottles. I distress age by placing the product in the freezer over night (this causes a vacuum inside, which draws alcohol into the oak.) In the day I place the bottles in the hot garage, where the opposite happens. I believe that the constant changes in pressure and temperature inside does a decent job of smoothing out the whiskey. I end up with a deep honey color. I have found that the oak spirals work too fast for my taste and over-oak the product. I aged some rum with those and the flavor is more like bourbon, than rum. Though, the rum does resemble Appleton Estates products.

[rubber duck]

How to age scotch?

A little used oak and a lot of time.

[Barney Fife]

A little used oak and a lot of time.

THE tried and true method, for sure!

On the subject of oxidation, DO NOT attempt artificially accelerated oxidation, especially using metals and strong oxidizers. At best, you can end up with a metallic flavor in your spirits. At worse, you can end up creating a poisonous set of compounds, some which may not make themselves known for years.

Besides, wood begins to naturally oxidize with 15 minutes(yes, 15 minutes!) after being cut/worked. The natural, 100% safe way to speed to process is exposure to full sunlight, so if you want to play around with oxidation, just place some some of your charred/toasted oak in the sun. Mark 'em with dates, and try various exposures(1 day, 5 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, etc...). Just DON"T sand, plane or scrape the oak after it's been in the sun, as the oxidized surface is just that, right on the surface. The longer it's exposed, the deeper the oxidation will penetrate the wood, but it takes decades to reach 1/4" oxidation, so for our purposes, consider it to be right on the surface. Don't even rub it...

[Acrolein]

A little used oak and a lot of time.

THE tried and true method, for sure!

On the subject of oxidation, DO NOT attempt artificially accelerated oxidation, especially using metals and strong oxidizers. At best, you can end up with a metallic flavor in your spirits. At worse, you can end up creating a poisonous set of compounds, some which may not make themselves known for years.

To be fair, I was using household dilution peroxide for a short period and a minimal amount of aluminum foil. Hydrogen peroxide is a normal part of aging spirits, as are small amounts of aluminum/copper from the still (which do serve as catalysts for some important reactions). This probably isn't going to kill you although it's not something I'd try on anyone but myself and I could be totally wrong. And I'm sure time and a little oak is the right formula, making common mistakes myself is one of the only ways I know not to repeat them. Some of us are a little hard headed.

A more extreme experiment which I don't think I'll try, adding oxidizers directly to the distillate. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Distillers/message/47299

[rad14701]

A little used oak and a lot of time.

THE tried and true method, for sure!

On the subject of oxidation, DO NOT attempt artificially accelerated oxidation, especially using metals and strong oxidizers. At best, you can end up with a metallic flavor in your spirits. At worse, you can end up creating a poisonous set of compounds, some which may not make themselves known for years.

To be fair, I was using household dilution peroxide for a short period and a minimal amount of aluminum foil. Hydrogen peroxide is a normal part of aging spirits, as are small amounts of aluminum/copper from the still (which do serve as catalysts for some important reactions). This probably isn't going to kill you although it's not something I'd try on anyone but myself and I could be totally wrong. And I'm sure time and a little oak is the right formula, making common mistakes myself is one of the only ways I know not to repeat them. Some of us are a little hard headed.

A more extreme experiment which I don't think I'll try, adding oxidizers directly to the distillate. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Distillers/message/47299

Yum...!!! Nothing like some Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease enticing spirits...

From a safety standpoint, I would not recommend any of our membership attempting to duplicate this experiment...

[rtalbigr]

+1 on what Rad said!!

This is a hobby that takes time, lots and lots of time, that's if you are serious about producing a truely superior product. As far as I'm concerned forced aging and other short cuts will never give the best that we can do.

Right now I'm working on getting to a three year aging cycle, then a five year. When I finally kick the ol' bucket my grandkids will have some truely great likker to toast their "Pops" with.

Big R

[Acrolein]

Yum...!!! Nothing like some Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease enticing spirits...

From a safety standpoint, I would not recommend any of our membership attempting to duplicate this experiment...

Yeah, peroxides and metal are a natural part of aging spirits but I still wouldn't recommend my experiment. Manganese isn't a part of most aging (as far as I know) and is linked to Parkinson's. Maybe it turns into an inert form in the reaction described but it's not something I'd risk. But it did shed some light on aging rum and (possible) commercial practices.

[grunthor777]

Out of curiosity has anyone tried lightly smoking the oak chips or chunks before submersing them in your alcohol? as far as I know scotch grains are dried over peat fires, which is suppose to be where the "smokey" flavor comes from. I have a food smoker so I plan on trying this shortly, as soon as my summer visitors are gone. If anyone else has tried this I would appreciate knowing how it worked and what formula/process was used.

[Dnderhead]

i believe its died over a fire not smoke,so its the gases.that give the flavors.
sort of like cooking over charcoal instead of smoking.

[grunthor777]

i believe its died over a fire not smoke,so its the gases.that give the flavors.
sort of like cooking over charcoal instead of smoking.

That seems illogical.....but alright. The last time I smoked fish and jerky I was pretty sure it wasn't the gases imparting the smoky flavor. Plus, the reason I prefer cooking over charcoal vs. cooking with gas is the slight smoky flavor imparted to my food. I also seem to remember reading that Laphroaig uses a special sealed kiln to conserve the amount of peat needed to get the extreme smokey flavor in their scotch.

[Dnderhead]

i did not say it was gas as propane etc its the gas from the peat. much as it was the gases from the charcoal.
when you "smoke" you have a smoldering fire ,using damp wood/bark/corn cobs etc.keeping them damp so they
dont bust into flame.just as you "cooked "over charcoal,smoking is just that, requires a smoky fire.using green or wet wood/peat
or the lack of O2.