Novice Aging questions

[CuriosityKilt]

Hello greybeards of the craft, I humbly come to you with some questions on aging that I think represent a bit of a learning journey. I'm going to try and thread the needle of explaining said journey while also being direct in my questions.

Question 1) Does Whiskey (or liquor of your choice) age inside a sealed bottle.
If you Google this, you'll get a lot of information about the industry standard of aging for ~12 years and once it is in the bottle is chemically stable, etc. I don't believe this is true for quick aging that the individual distiller does. If you put staves into a bottle you can oak in a few months and hit the tannin levels you want. But that Whiskey is still really "green". In my own experiments, I can notice a change in as little as 12 months in a fully sealed jar. Am I crazy? Thoughts?

Question 2) Does aging impart complicated flavors?
Early in my journey, I thought you made a mash, fermented it, distilled it, got a product and the aging was where most of your flavors came from. I've since become very skeptical of this flow. I think aging on Oak adds *Some* flavor based upon the oak, the toast, the char, etc. But this isn't the majority of the flavor. They key concept here is I thought the majority of the flavor came from the aging. I no longer believe that. I don't think you get a Maker's Mark by aging alone. In fact, I'm leaning towards aging being a minority component in the flavor of your whiskey. By minority I mean number of notes, not strength if that makes sense. Thoughts?

[HDNB]

A)1. Yes, it does. With or without wood. I got a sealed, bottled in 1963 Canadian Club a couple years ago. It tasted like a dusty old library book. (granted CC doesn't taste much better new(er))

A)2. Yes it does. but it's still a GIGO situation. Sometimes however, even the garbage in will turn into something good eventually, if you are lucky or real good at the craft.

[NZChris]

1) leave some head space for some O2. I 2/3rds fill mine. Don't remove the wood until you have drawn off the last bottle for your drinks cabinet. Don't jam the cork in so tight that it can't breath a bit. When you draw off a sample, or have a smell, blow across the top of the jar to exchange some air.

2) If you look up tasting notes for various ages of a single product, you can get an idea of what to expect to happen.

[Newtothis]

I’m a novice but my short experience has showed me that the barrel aging is very very different from glass with wood aging. I think, and this is my limited experience talking, that aging in a barrel allows for a evaporative effect that removes and mellows many of the volatiles that you may not necessarily want to have stand out in your finished product. So that in combination with the expansion and contraction of the wood in the barrel, (which moves the whiskey or whatever in and out of the grain ) adds a a bunch of flavor and removes a bunch of volatiles you don’t want in your finished product combine to be a very important procedure in the finished product. Do a taste test and determine for yourself, buy a bottle of white dog mash number one from Buffalo trace and a bottle of Buffalo trace. I’m fairly certain the only variable there is the aging in a new oak charred barrel. Then determine for yourself what that percentage of difference is for you, it’s likely to be a non exact number based on personal taste. Jmtc

[Deplorable]

1) I think any difference you notice in a sealed bottle of your homemade hooch over time is going to be from the effect time has on the wood components that the alcohol has extracted changing and mellowing, a sealed bottle with no air exchange isn't going to get much oxidation.

2) You might be surprised how much of the flavor in spirits comes from the aging process in contact with wood. I can certainly say that my barrel aged whiskey stands out head and shoulders above my glass and sticks aged whiskey. Both are great spirits, but I'll grab my barrel aged spirits over my glass aged spirits 3 out of 5 times.

[CuriosityKilt]

Excellent feedback everyone! Definitely lining up with some of my suspicions.
I have a small oak barrel I look forward to trying out this fall. I'll do a side by side with glass and sticks. Hopefully the fall weather has enough temperature fluctuation to really aid with the whiskey working its way in and out of the wood.

[shadylane]

Excellent feedback everyone! Definitely lining up with some of my suspicions.
I have a small oak barrel I look forward to trying out this fall. I'll do a side by side with glass and sticks.

Just a thought.
Small barrels have more surface area to volume than a bigger barrel.
In other words, a small barrel imparts more oak and/or charr flavor quicker than a bigger barrel.
So be careful not to overdo it.
Because not enough "oak and smoke" is easily remedied by placing the whiskey back in the barrel.
But even redistilling can't remove too much..

[CuriosityKilt]

Yup yup, that is good advice!
This barrel suggests ~3 months which is pretty similar to what oak in the bottle takes (For the amount of oak I've been using) so the match-up between the two should be pretty interesting.

[Demy]

Agree with others. I only add that aging without barrel produces important effects, our distillates contain many substances which in combination with each other and with oxygen create more complexity and softness .. an example are fruit distillates.

[NZChris]

Aging isn't only oaking. You can chuck barrel chips in it and make oak tea in a few weeks, or days, but it isn't 'aged' yet.

The reason I've never gone to small barrels is because I want to age my liquor for much longer than what new distillers report has over-oaked their products. In glass, I can leave my product on the wood for years, letting the lignin break down, as it has time to in a full sized barrel.

[BlueSasquatch]

I always keep a half-pint white, of anything I age and am always surprised at the contrast. I recommend doing the same, so you can note the effects.

[rubberduck71]

I always keep a half-pint white, of anything I age and am always surprised at the contrast. I recommend doing the same, so you can note the effects.

+1 to this, if you have the time, patience, & space. I've found jars I've forgotten about & was amazed with. And I've only been doing this for a couple years.

[Saltbush Bill]

+1
Its always a good idea to keep small samples of what you have made long-term.....both white and oaked.
As time goes by you will learn a huge amount from doing that.

[CuriosityKilt]

Ya, the scientist in me loves the idea of keeping controls.
The pragmatist in me finds it difficult. The logistics is challenging, I'd love to hear y'all handle it.

For example, if I do a 5 gallon mash at say 10% ABV (to make the math easy). That is 0.5 gallons potential output but after cuts and the obvious fact you aren't getting a pure distillate let's just round the numbers and say you get 0.5 gallons useful spirit. Now if I split that between white, oaked and oaked ages on a shelf for how long? That is probably 3 quart jars, not fully topped. You see where I'm going here.

I guess my point is I love the idea in spirit (see what I did there) but its hard in practice. Either way, I think I'll try keeping a small sample of white vs. oaked over time as that is manageable but also potentially very informative!

You know, assuming I don't drink it before the science happens!

[NormandieStill]

Ya, the scientist in me loves the idea of keeping controls.
The pragmatist in me finds it difficult. The logistics is challenging, I'd love to hear y'all handle it.

For example, if I do a 5 gallon mash at say 10% ABV (to make the math easy). That is 0.5 gallons potential output but after cuts and the obvious fact you aren't getting a pure distillate let's just round the numbers and say you get 0.5 gallons useful spirit. Now if I split that between white, oaked and oaked ages on a shelf for how long? That is probably 3 quart jars, not fully topped. You see where I'm going here.

I guess my point is I love the idea in spirit (see what I did there) but its hard in practice. Either way, I think I'll try keeping a small sample of white vs. oaked over time as that is manageable but also potentially very informative!

You know, assuming I don't drink it before the science happens!

Make more!

I've been taking off a small amount of white and proofing down to 40%. This gets kept for drinking and for side-by-sides later. My first two whiskys having made it to 6 months on oak have likewise had a bottle taken from them (after sampling showed them to be quite drinkable) and the rest left on the staves. In general I get between 2 and 3 litres of spirit at 60-65% from a batch (3 strips per spirit run). I split it into 1 or 1.5 litre swing-top jars and age on some wood (last batch had one jar on med toast uncharred and one on med toast + light char).

I'd like to try and get a regular mash + run thing going (like UJSSM but AG) to produce a regular quantity of "house" whisky which I can then experiment ageing techniques (and maybe a solera) on.

[NZChris]

It's very difficult to age some likker if you are letting yourself drink it years before it's ready. Get a bigger fermenter, I do enough for three or four stripping runs and pot still it. Once you have enough aging stock in your cellar, you only have to make as much as you drink every year.

When I put down my first serious batch of wine, I made the mistake of putting down a red that wouldn't really be ready for a couple of years, which meant that I either had to wait until the next season's white was ready, or drink the red long before it was ready. The red was very good three years later, so I was very pleased that I had resisted the temptation to get into it too early.
The next year's white was so good that we drank a quarter of it while it was still fermenting That was when I realised my mistake, we'd had no home brewed wine to drink for a year because I should have made the white first.

I made the same mistake when I started making whiskey. I put most of my early make onto wood, then realised that young oaked likker isn't that flash. Now, to keep my hands off my aging products, I make very nice UJSSM and leave most of it white, plus I've also taken up making gin. Any drink you like that doesn't need aging will do to help you keep your mitts off your aging vessels.

[WithOrWithoutU2]

Regarding flavor "from" aging on wood: This is two part answer.

Yes, the type of wood, toast and char contribute a big part. But not the majority if grain bill, mash, ferment, distillation and blending are all done well. I'm at a point in this craft I'm personally working on the mash / ferment details to affect flavor. I'm finding the type of yeast and fermenting protocols has a way bigger influence on flavor than I originally expected.

Additionally, while the wood has it's on set flavor it brings to the party every time, how that same wood interacts with the various distillates will be different as well. Aging is a long chemical journey that goes through a significant evolution. And each journey will be different based on what the liquor is made of from the start.

[Saltbush Bill]

Make more!

Thats the only way I know of that you can do it, there is one other way , but I don"t like that option, Drink less.

[CuriosityKilt]

I've been a Patron supporter of Jesse for awhile and reached out to him about this same topic as I posted here. Turns out he was ahead of me.


My take away is that in bottle staves is definitely not the same as barrel aging. I've got a long way to go to control all my own variables but I feel a bit vindicated in that there is noticeable difference.

Cheers for all that contributed!

[NZChris]

How did his method of aging in glass compare to what I posted?

viewtopic.php?p=7719267#p7719267

[CuriosityKilt]

I'm not sure who you are referring to NZChris but I think I'll try your approach this fall.

[8Ball]

I took a sample of my malt whiskey aging in its 4th fill Gibbs cask yesterday. Compared it to the same stuff I have aging in glass jugs with corks that I use to top off periodically. After only about three months in the cask, the difference between the two identical spirits is simply amazing. The cask aged spirit is significantly more rounded and just plain smooth. The cask is doing its job and the angels are happy. Win-win.

[Saltbush Bill]

The cask aged spirit is significantly more rounded and just plain smooth. The cask is doing its job and the angels are happy. Win-win.

Thats been my experience to 8Ball..........nothing beats barrel aging.