Peat

[BlackbearDistilling]

Hi all,

I have a quick question here. I have made a few peated whiskys now using Baird's heavily peated. Each one turned out great, except for one thing. I don't have much, if any peat flavor. Still a great whisky, just no peat.

Since I'm new to making a peated whisky, does the peat show up after aging or is it there from the start - post spirit run?

[Poitín Sue]

I'm no help....but I like peated whiskies a lot.
I have some peated malt but I ordered uncrushed by mistake, and I don't have a mill......I was wondering if I could simply throw it into a wash....like the corn in a ujssm?? Would it impart a peated flavour.

I recently heard someone say that if you want a 10 yo to retain any peat (after 10 years in a barrel) it needs to start out so heavily peated that it's undrinkable

[shadylane]

I have a quick question here. I have made a few peated whiskys now using Baird's heavily peated. Each one turned out great, except for one thing. I don't have much, if any peat flavor. Still a great whisky, just no peat.

Are you using a pot-still or plates?

[BlackbearDistilling]

Hi Shady,

I'm using a pot still.

[SaltyStaves]

I have double pot stilled single malts made with one hundred percent Baird's heavily peated malt.
I follow the Scots and recycle my feints, as well as stripping my low wines deeper than for most other spirits.

[BlackbearDistilling]

Maybe I'm not stripping my low wines enough. I stopped at 3% off the still.

I am also wondering if my grain is part of the problem. The last grain I got from my vendor was a couple years expired. Although this one doesn't have an expiry tag on it. It doesn't punch you in the face in which I figured it would. It's kind of just a mild smoke smell. You need to stick your face near the sack to get a smell.

[SaltyStaves]

Could be stale. I've certainly had some sacks that are fresher than others.

I don't measure off the still. My low wines for heavily peated are typically 22-27% ABV (which gets bumped up to high 20's - low 30's once I add the recycled feints).

[BlackbearDistilling]

I'll try another batch this week between hunting. I'm going to go deeper in my low wines. Also, I hadn't been adding my feints back in. But I do have them all saved, so I will throw them in this batch.

We'll see if that makes the difference.

Much appreciated Salty. I'll let you know how I make out.

[Dancing4dan]

If you are doing strip / spirit run protocol try a saving some cleared ferment to add into your spirit run.

[Swedish Pride]

Smoke is hiding late in the run.

Run the spirit run down to 0 -5 %, don't change to "strip mode" once the tails hits, just keep the spirit run speed going.

Do this and you'll find a jar or two smokey sweet Water well past where the normal tails cut is.

And as salty staves said, stripp really low, reuse all the faints

[Saltbush Bill]

The last Single Malt that I made i used this , Gladefields Heavy Peated, its supposedly 40+ PPM https://www.kegland.com.au/products/hea ... ld-nz-25kg Its a product of New Zealand made using NZ Peat.
It was mashed mixed 50/50 with Golden Promise.
I have 24L of it now sitting in a 25L barrel......its been there since 24th April 2023, small samplings at this stage seem extremely promising, its needs to stay there for at least another 2 years. I have 5 L of white dog left to top up the barrel from time to time if the angels get to thirsty.
Its much more smokey/ peaty than I imagined it would be.
As others have suggested , smoke is in the tails, if you don't strip way down low you will leave a lot of it in the boiler.
I stripped this lot down till what was leaving the spout was less than 4% abv
On the spirit run , go further than normal and look for the smokey / peaty jars......get much looser than normal with cuts.
When I did this lot I had my doubts , some of the jars I added where fairly wild, things that I'd normally put in the feints jar..............three , four months on and I'm very happy that I did add them.
Everything Ive ever read , written by those that make good single malt says " the hardest part to keep in the barrel is the smoke"
If you cant get the smoke into the barrel to begin with , then you don't have much hope of it staying there imo.

[bilgriss]

If you are using 100% heavily peated malt, and don't get any flavor, I think you are taking too narrow of cuts. Scotch distilleries tend to include a lot of heads and tails, and then rely on time in a barrel to clean it up and develop flavor. In particular, smoke will show up in tails. Go deeper, and include the jars where the peat lives.

[Swedish Pride]

Personally I would not go further in to the heads, lto me tails ages out nicely, heads never seem to dissipate to the same degree

[Poitín Sue]

Could I amuse or bore the forum with some ramblings: I really love that weird medicinal taste you get from peated whiskey....I lit plenty of turf fires I'm my time, I even cut a little turf, turned and footed it etc.
Anyhow, something tells me that it's the decaying oily resinous, spruce/pine/Heather that imparts the flavour to the grain....it's not just any old smoke. Turf fires have a smell and flavour all of their own- white bread from a cast iron griddle over a dark smoked hearth is as classy as any aged scotch.....in my humble opinion
But smoke itself? What about wood smoke ? I noticed beaver diy (on youtube) lighting a piece of oak, extinguishing it and dropping it into a carboy while it's still smoking.
Does this method have much potential, character etc?

[Poitín Sue]

A very late reply....bur no. Not in my experience. I've 10 litres of ujsm ro rediatill feom running this experiment. It's not exactly awful, but not exactly pleasant either

[Swedish Pride]

Ah sure, half the fun of this hobby is experimenting, now you know for sure it's not to your liking