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I'm venturing outside the novice area with a new post.

I understand oak aging (no, I accept oak aging, I'm not sure anyone understands it )

I have seen posts that talk of aging, even for as little as 4 days in a jar that really improves flavour.

I can understand an open jar to let nasties evaporate, but can anyone explain what goes on in a sealed jar to improve flavour and aroma?

Curiosity mostly....if it works, it works, but how?

Bob

Thirsty Bob wrote:I can understand an open jar to let nasties evaporate, but can anyone explain what goes on in a sealed jar to improve flavour and aroma?

Magic.

You see ahhhh....

It's the little folk in little green hats and wee boots dancin around the jar....

When you aren't lookin, of course. That's why you never see 'em, but a little of the magic gets left behind when they leave...

And then when you drink it, and you've taken in enough of the magic, and if you're real quiet, and really really careful you can sneak up on 'em and catch 'em doin their work...

but you don't want to do that because if you startle 'em they get skittish and might take awhile to come back.



Just try to prove me wrong!

Anyway, there's actually some good info on the parent site under the aging section. Talks about what proof brings out what flavors from the oak and other things. Even though the jar is sealed some of the nasties are still evaporating and breaking down.

Sure 'n begorrah hack.

My granny knew such things.

'sides the magic, it means read, read, and then read some more unless some kind soul intervenes.

There was an interesting note in Malt Advocate Whiskey Notes email newsletter a while back about how Buffalo Trace Distillery had dumped all their 18 year old sazarach rye into a stainless steel tank so that they'd have a few years worth to bottle at 18 year, on the theory that once it was in stainless it would stop aging.
The author had sampled the bottlings from 2005, 2006 and 2007 and pronounced them significantly different he wrote:

"Surprisingly, each one was different. Subtle, but different. The 2005 seems very clean, polished, crisp, somewhat creamy and elegant (and my choice of the three). The 2006, and particularly the 2007 are beefier, a bit more rustic, with sort of leathery/resin character to it. Still lovely whiskeys, just different."

This is the opposite of my own experience with fresh un-oaked spirit which in my opinion gets smoother and creamier with some sitting around... but it might make sense in a whiskey with 18 years of oak on it, especially in a large tank with a lot of surface area. It seems plausable that aeration and evaporation in an inert container might break down some of the lighter flavor components from the wood.

There is also a very good chance that stainless does interact with the spirit in ways that glass might not.

I have to question the role of oxidation in that scenario. Wine makers would go to great lengths to avoid exposing the wine to oxygen for fear of changing its flavor. I wonder if that could be at play here?

junkyard dawg wrote:I have to question the role of oxidation in that scenario. Wine makers would go to great lengths to avoid exposing the wine to oxygen for fear of changing its flavor. I wonder if that could be at play here?

Same here, because the batches are sealed with presumably little head space. Glass is obviously not reactive, like oak or SS so either compounds are reforming, or breaking down due to temperature or such. I'm hoping a chemist can chime in here.

There is one other possibility. The difference is in the mind of the drinker, although a lot of folks here swear by it.

Things that make you go hmmmm......

B.

Water, that magical stuff, exists in three forms while liquid. Commonly known is H20 But there are two others lurking about also. There is H+ and OH- That is why the PH of water is 7. Those very weak H+ and OH- ionic compounds and atom can do some serious changes to hydrocarbon compounds over a period of time such as the hydrogenation of esters. Without a catalyst this reaction takes a really long time. Just a thought from my organic chemistry.

pintoshine wrote: Just a thought from my organic chemistry.

Thanks for that pint. Some logic emerges from the mystique!

Organic chemistry? I zoned out calculating partial pressures and faded after that.

Physics and math are my game.

Oh, and booze. Did I mention booze?

B.

PS I did not know that about water. Cool

pintoshine wrote:Water, that magical stuff, exists in three forms while liquid. Commonly known is H20 But there are two others lurking about also. There is H+ and OH- That is why the PH of water is 7. Those very weak H+ and OH- ionic compounds and atom can do some serious changes to hydrocarbon compounds over a period of time such as the hydrogenation of esters. Without a catalyst this reaction takes a really long time. Just a thought from my organic chemistry.

Ah, but you've left out the hydronium ion, H3O+!!!!

The changes in aged booze are multitudinous. Distillate components react with each other. Stuff is extracted from the wood, and it reacts amongst itself, and with the distillate components. There's oxygen, so some stuff gets oxidized. Some things just break down, through various mechanisms, and this happens very slowly. And there are indications that the water and ethanol form 'aggregates', which are not well understood. All of this (after wood extraction) goes on in stainless or glass. It's equilibrium, baby!!!

The Chemist wrote:It's equilibrium, baby!!!

Here I was looking for a chemist and I get The Chemist

Thanks for filling the blanks.

Funny, I have been fighting entropy as a way of making a living, but it's entropy that knows how shine should taste.

I think I just figured out how soup, stew and chili always taste better the next day.

I do know that whiskeys or other spirits will not age in the bottle, which is usually glass. So I would apply the same concept. But then again whiskeys are aged in oak prior to bottleing, so go figure.

Wohzah wrote:I do know that whiskeys or other spirits will not age in the bottle, which is usually glass. So I would apply the same concept. But then again whiskeys are aged in oak prior to bottleing, so go figure.

Uh-oh..

Here comes the sharp stick in the eye

punkin wrote:

Wohzah wrote:I do know that whiskeys or other spirits will not age in the bottle, which is usually glass. So I would apply the same concept. But then again whiskeys are aged in oak prior to bottleing, so go figure.

Uh-oh..

Here comes the sharp stick in the eye

<<< Crouches behind an oak barrel until the smoke clears... >>>

LOL!!

No sharp sticks, but Wohzah's got it all wrong...

Now, if we're talking will you get what you 'want' by aging only in glass...he's right...

it will age in glass mason jugs outside. it will help mellow a hot charge dont care what no book says.

so im tole

so will my scotch age in a glass jar with oak chips in it or will it have little or no effect on it unless its in stainless or actually in a oak barrel

Store it in what you have. For us beginners anything over 4 litres might get a month or two of ageing. Working to a 10 litre surplus and still finding out what is good and what aint. Lots of ageing happens in the stillin and is as much the stiller's competence as years in the container.

Does ageing make a poor spirit ok, or does it make a good spirit great? The two go hand in hand; only age your very best and then be confident in the waiting.

Takes a lot of drinkin to find out.

wombat_831 wrote:so will my scotch age in a glass jar with oak chips in it or will it have little or no effect on it unless its in stainless or actually in a oak barrel

Yes it will age that way Id use a cork or corn cobb stopper so it could breath as well.Wont be as good as a barrel. But lots of research is being done on decreasing aging time.

There's been some evidence to indicate that both spirits and wines that are of GOOD quality can be rapid aged by passage through a high differential electrical field. There has been some discussions on other boards and there has been research on it at both large commercial wineries and large distillers though not a lot of that research has trickled through to the mainstream as of yet (some has if you google around). I know of one non producing technical research outfit in British Columbia working on something like this, but I can't share that data unfortunately and would have no reasonable way to replicate the tests if I could anyhow.

There's nothing like aging in an oak barrel for brandy, but I'd be glad to have an alternative as I get longer in the tooth. I imagine with all this technology, it's not going to be a long ways off till we hit some rapid aging tech with the amount of revenue represented by the sale of spirits and wines. It's too lucrative to not gamble on some research dollars.

I know of some people who made some really crappy sake one year. According to them it was undrinkable so they buried it in a hole at the edge of their land. About 10 years later they ran out of booze on night while having a party and someone remembered the sake. I'm sure you know the rest of the story; they said it was delicious. Sake's different but maybe the principle is the same; time. BD.