20 years of aging in 6 days

[SandyCrack]

Necessity is the mother of invention - in my case, old age.

I think this is more correctly stated as,

"Necessity is a mutha..."

[S-Cackalacky]

Yep, but if it weren't a mutha', it would be boring and not much worth the invention.

[NZChris]

My next trial is corn likker on untoasted, charred white oak to compare with the same oak toasted.

It finished damned near black. Cut to 40% and held up to the light beside Coke, you can't tell the difference. A lack of vanillin. Smokey. I have tasted better, but that can change after a few days rest.

[Monkeyman88]

My next trial is corn likker on untoasted, charred white oak to compare with the same oak toasted.

It finished damned near black. Cut to 40% and held up to the light beside Coke, you can't tell the difference. A lack of vanillin. Smokey. I have tasted better, but that can change after a few days rest.

Wow. That is dark.

[NZChris]

It would make a great color for rum. A few mm of vanilla bean to make up for the lack of vanillin would be easy.

[dstaines]

Follow up to my original post:

It appears one of Lost Spirits' clients are nearly ready to release what they are calling "Flash Aged" American Rye Whiskey. A couple of booze-enthusiasts (...enbooziasts?) contracted with Bend Spirits in Oregon to provide them with the raw spirit and house the THEA-One reactor they are renting from Lost Spirits.

Interesting to me is their claim that the whiskey they have made is targeted toward initiated whiskey connoisseurs as well as those who are just starting to appreciate it. That part sounds like bullshit to me, because the point of Bryan Davis' reactor process was to create "ultra-aged" spirits very quickly. That flavor profile doesn't typically appeal to younger drinkers and cocktail bunnies... i dunno. It's their money, they can say whatever they want with it I guess.

No official word when the bottles are supposed to hit the shelf, but I would probably pick one up if I could find it. So far all I've seen for sale are the Lost Spirits rum iterations that he made to test parts of his developing process. Rum not being my favorite, they didn't do much for me. Maybe this rye whiskey will be a lot better! If not, I can apparently just give it to my 21yo cousin to play beer pong with...

See article from LA Weekly below:
http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/sil ... ey-6462612" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[engunear]

Hope you guys are still watching this and wish I'd known it was going on when it was hot.

My chemistry is lousy, a terminating pass in first year, no less (i.e. get on with your degree but get the f out of here) so some questions for the chemists:

What are the reasons this is not a simple process governed by the Arrhenius equation? i.e. we have a reaction that heads towards equilibrium and time and temperature push it there? Maybe I'm just asking the obvious question, again, but I've not seen an answer to this in the thread.

Reasons might be that there are molecules such as enzymes that have very specific temperatures at which they are active and/or break down (we are familiar with them). Its seems in this case the molecules are simple so one would not expect that. (Amylase doesn't don't actually break down at 70C does it? It just folds differently so its active site no longer works.) So does anyone know if any esters are actually unstable at 65C?

Tied up in this is the question: if we took a barrel of whiskey and covered it with impervious material (e.g. silicone, a tight fitting stainless steel box), would it age differently? i.e. are outside influences (e.g. oxygen diffusion, selective evaporation) really important? Implied in Bryan's method is the hypothesis "no". Would it be better if it was aged like this? No-one has done the experiment, it might be.

There are comments about how increased temp makes it age faster but it also makes it go back faster ... which seems unlikely if we are heading to equilibrium. Does anyone know of any reactions that do this?

There are comments about "picking up the scent of the sea air" from the Laphraoig label, written by a marketing person but quoted here. (In my world, "marketing person" is derogatory.) Yes, I know what Laphraoig tastes like and have pondered this line before. Its seems more likely that either they have used local water infused with peat and maybe even kelp, or they have added kelp to their roasting fire. Why not?. (Reminds me of the comment about a ding on some still that gets faithfully reproduced blah blah. These guys make squillions from their trade, are they going to teach us how they do it or throw sand in our eyes?)

The reason for believing "not just the Arrhenius equation" is that Davis's method is a variant of Arroyo with wood and better temperature control, and its hard to believe Arroyo, and lots of others, have not tried it.

Can't wait to try it myself.

[MDH]

Peat within 20-30m of the ocean is heavily influenced by whatever decay occurs nearby. In-flowing winds will take traces of organic matter from every crashing wave towards land. This adds up, and keep in mind that peat is formed by anaerobic fermentation of this organic matter over thousands of years.

When peat burns, it actually doesn't burn completely - it smolders and smokes heavily. These unburnt flavors and aromas make it to the grain as they are carried by the heat of the burning. And, from the grain, they will make it to your distillate. Thus is the basis for much of the medicinal flavors and aromas which Islay scotch in particular seem to have.

I'm not doubting that sea air can be absorbed through the barrels. After all, it takes only a day for a fridge full of onions and one bowl of water to make the water smell and taste like the onions do. Even ice cubes will taste like the vaguely plasticky inside of a freezer after so long. But "Sea air" is not the strongest source of these aromas, and it certainly isn't responsible for the iodine and salty aspects of Islay scotch, which can be explained instead by traces of organic compounds much too heavy to appear magically within a barrel.

[kiwi Bruce]

The quick answer....before aging there are two hundred (plus or minus ten or twenty) organic compounds besides ethanol, in a white dog single malt....half of these are undesirable and the other half are indispensable. The purpose of aging in oak is not to make an oak tea, but rather to allow the undesirables to change character or dissipate completely, while retaining the compounds the whisky needs. Up until now this was only achievable with long barrel maturation. It is thought that there are about forty different reactions and actions, going on all at the same time, but at different rates. What happened within the hobby was, that this may not be as blindingly difficult as we were lead to believe. There are several posts here on HD that discuss the different approaches some of us have made.

[shadylane]

This post has got me experimenting with heat, reflux, and time.
One thing I've noticed is redistilling aged alcohol, will put the bite back in.
I've been using a Bain Marie pot to heat my home distilled alcohol to below boiling.
And having reflux to control the evaporation.
A couple days of this treatment will make white dog taste like it was several months older.
Haven't tried adding wood to it yet.

[kiwi Bruce]

Shady, I agree...I do a low temp reflux using an air blubber. (60c or 140f) I have also found that a very small amount of wine, red, white or sherry, helps in the rapid maturation. I found that reflux on the wood works better than off...but if the spirit is taken off the wood too soon it starts to step backward in flavor.

engunear try this...take a black cardamom pod, crush it, and put it in a shot of white single malt over night. Next morning pour yourself a couple of fingers of your well aged single and add, drop by drop, the shot with the cardamom. Within about fifteen drops you'll come to the WTF moment as it will taste very close to Laphraoig.

[engunear]

Thinking about this some more, the proven whiskey recipes are children of circumstance, and have evolved like the body's organs, shortcomings and all. (Why else do we have hole in the middle of our vision and a sewerage outlet beside a playground?) In the 19th century, they did not have stainless steel barrels, accurate temperature controllers, and the chemistry was pretty basic. The process was not designed. And now there is a major financial incentive to maintain the status quo, and support the case that the traditional method is the the only way. Stating the obvious I know, but every piece of accepted wisdom has to be picked up, turned over, looked at, and questioned until proven. What an opportunity, what fun.

[kiwi Bruce]

It's even better than that...the American white oak is in trouble, it is being attacked by a blight. There may not be a barrel industry in ten years. So finding an aging alternative will become imperative, and very profitable....KB

[engunear]

A reason that its not a simple Arrhenius reaction is that this predicts a doubling in reaction rate for every 10C.

So if we go from a Scottish warehouse (10C) to say 70C that is 60C difference, which is 6x10C.

So 6 days becomes 6 x 2^6 = 384 days. A lot less than 20 years.

Scratch that thought.

[engunear]

MDH, did you msg me rather than post? Cant see post. Anyway:

"All of the information is in the patent" I see what but not why, which leads to your second point.

"I for one do not believe that you can accurately replicate all of the conditions in which spirits are aged" ... if we know the "why" we could make a statement about this.

BTW, I only see an application. Oddly its on Google Patents but I can't find it on USPTO. Must be looking for the wrong number.

But I have not done enough reading so I'll go quiet for a while.

[choppinlow]

..the American white oak is in trouble, it is being attacked by a blight. There may not be a barrel industry in ten years...KB

No, that's not totally correct. There are several major oak "blights" here in the States, but none are decimating the oak population(s). There is no danger of not having white or red oak in the States right now or foreseeable future.

[kiwi Bruce]

There is a post here on HD that had a link to one of the distilling trade rags. In it they had made that statement ...about the oak..in 2014 or early 2015. It went on about the Cali wine industry looking at Euro Oak, Romania I think, as an alternative to US white oak, due to an alleged US white oak shortage.....if I can find it again I'll drop in the link...KB

[choppinlow]

It is still not true. There are some newer oak pathogens (last couple decades) but we are not losing US oaks like we did Elms years ago to Dutch elm disease. CA wine makers may be worried, but US oak is not being decimated.

Here is the disease that caused the most recent concern and what you still hear about. Severe pathogen, but still, not taking out US oak. Most of what you may read is likely about Phytopthora ramorum. To date, over 20 years later, it still has not caused the devastation they were so concerned about.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytophthora_ramorum" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[dstaines]

Sudden Oak Death is a serious problem here in California, and there are 13 counties including mine that are under "Oak Quarantine" - no oak wood of any kind including firewood can be transported across the county line. However, because many of the counties where it has been confirmed are coastal, it has predominantly affected tanoaks, which are being truly decimated. Although some marketers of stainless steel containers to wineries are pushing the "shortage" as a selling point (http://skolnikwine.com/blog/sudden-oak- ... -shortage/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow), researchers at UC Davis contend that the parasite which causes this disease does not affect white oaks (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTE ... =blog19073" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow). Since US law dictates that only white oak may be used for bourbon barrels, and the parts of the wine industry which use domestic oak barrels have followed that standard, the cooperages in the US remain unaffected as far as I can find out. I can't speak to French or Hungarian coopers but it may be worth noticing that even the article above touting stainless steel as a disease-impervious alternative to oak does not indicate either of those Countries-of-Origin as being affected by SOD

[raketemensch]

This post has got me experimenting with heat, reflux, and time.
One thing I've noticed is redistilling aged alcohol, will put the bite back in.
I've been using a Bain Marie pot to heat my home distilled alcohol to below boiling.
And having reflux to control the evaporation.

Are you using your full RC for that?

I really like this idea. I'm building out an electric, temp-controller stockpot that would be great for this, but it seems like doing it for long periods would probably be better than an hour or two here or there. Having a device that you could leave running for 8-12 hours would be nice.

Since you're staying below boil, you wouldn't need a ton of reflux, this might be a good use for air cooling. I'm picturing maybe a 5-gallon stockpot with an element in it and a temp controller keeping it at maybe 165-170, with a 3-foot length of baseboard radiator high-tech air cooled condenser leading out the top of it, with a fan aimed at it. Since you're not trying to maintain a boil for distilling, power-cycling wouldn't be as big of a deal (and possibly even beneficial), so a hot plate could be used as well. Or maybe even just a crock pot.

[kiwi Bruce]

You can drive the reflux with a small aquarium air pump and a glass bubbler...this also helps with aeration. I've had reasonable results doing this. I have yet to try this on the wood...with some JD chips in the reflux...It wood provide heat, air and oak...I just don't know how long to do this with wood chips in the spirit...KB

[NZChris]

As long as the top of the vessel is slightly cooler than the charge, you will get reflux. Having slightly loose lagging on the top 1/3 of the vessel will do it.

Attempting to force aerate resulted in a failure for a poster early on in this thread. Mine works on the notion that the 1/3 volume of head space contains sufficient O2 and that forcing more is likely to push it in the direction of someone else's poor results.

My guess is that you can leave the wood in for a very long time as long as you got the ratio correct, but that said, I have never reacted anything for longer than the 6 days. I do not remove the wood after Reacting. The only times I have over oaked, it was well overdone by the 6 days.

[raketemensch]

Since you're staying below boil, you wouldn't need a ton of reflux, this might be a good use for air cooling. I'm picturing maybe a 5-gallon stockpot with an element in it and a temp controller keeping it at maybe 165-170, with a 3-foot length of baseboard radiator high-tech air cooled condenser leading out the top of it, with a fan aimed at it. Since you're not trying to maintain a boil for distilling, power-cycling wouldn't be as big of a deal (and possibly even beneficial), so a hot plate could be used as well. Or maybe even just a crock pot.

Alright, so I broke out a raspberry pi today, with a temp sensor and a way to wireless control an electrical outlet, and basically created a temp controller that I can use to control a 110 outlet -- I used a hot plate today, but soon it will be a heating element. If I get a 5500 ULWD, I think that 1750 watts will be enough for this.

The end result is that I can now keep a stockpot within a 2-degree temp range for however long I set it in minutes. I'm thinking I'll keep a small fan aimed at the stockpot lid for some reflux -- it's got an inverted dome in the center, so condensation should drip right back in.

How long, and at what temp, have people tried this? Or wanted to try?

This would also be an interesting way to infuse herbs/flavors....

[raketemensch]

You can drive the reflux with a small aquarium air pump and a glass bubbler...this also helps with aeration. I've had reasonable results doing this. I have yet to try this on the wood...with some JD chips in the reflux...It wood provide heat, air and oak...I just don't know how long to do this with wood chips in the spirit...KB

I'm having trouble picturing this -- any chance you have a picture, or could draw something?

[NZChris]

Mine is 35W, 67.0C +/-0.3. Well insulated.

Some reflux is caused by the thermowell, the rest from loose insulation at the top. Just because someone noted that some reflux occurs, doesn't automatically mean that it is something hugely desirable and needs to be done bigger and better and faster and more often and longer etc..

Once up to temperature, it only needs enough Watts to keep up with any heat loss, and that's not a lot.

[raketemensch]

Mine is 35W, 67.0C +/-0.3. Well insulated.

Some reflux is caused by the thermowell, the rest from loose insulation at the top. Just because someone noted that some reflux occurs, doesn't automatically mean that it is something hugely desirable and needs to be done bigger and better and faster and more often and longer etc..

Once up to temperature, it only needs enough Watts to keep up with any heat loss, and that's not a lot.

I wasn't aiming for reflux, I just don't want leaking alcohol vapor. I don't want to be huffing UJ....

[NZChris]

Put a cork in it.
There is no detectable smell from mine. It probably would lose some vapor with a 2 degree C range, but my controller is set for 0.3C.

My MK2 Reactor can be sealed and as a consequence will be under a small amount of pressure, as is Bryan Davis' reactor. Note that the pressure isn't something to be sort after and done bigger, better, higher, longer, faster, turbo charged etc., it is merely a consequence of the charge being in a closed vessel.

[shadylane]

This post has got me experimenting with heat, reflux, and time.
One thing I've noticed is redistilling aged alcohol, will put the bite back in.
I've been using a Bain Marie pot to heat my home distilled alcohol to below boiling.
And having reflux to control the evaporation.
A couple days of this treatment will make white dog taste like it was several months older.
Haven't tried adding wood to it yet.

I'm still experimenting with using my baine marie stripper still as an aging reactor
The shine is heated to 140f-ish with a 150w electric heater and a aircooled reflux condenser is being used.
The process was vented at atmospheric pressure and I used the small heater and the aircooled condenser to limit the odds of something going wrong

[NZChris]

I've recently finished a series of trials on some new make at 144F. All made an improvement, the least difference was white dog, but even that was a nice improvement on the control sample.

[shadylane]

NZ what have you learned from your trials