Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Do you know how whiskey is made?

Whether you are going for this:
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or this:
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Whiskey i s pretty much all made th same way.

All you need to do is Obtain a sugar source (CORN, RYE, WHEAT, BARLEY, ETC.), ferment, distill the resulting ‘beer’ to increase strength and mature for several years.

1. Malting - Sugar source

Encourage germination: Steep barley in water, so enzymes (fructase, maltase) turn the starch present in to sugar.

2. Milling – Flour creation

By grinding the harden barley grains a ‘Grist’ is obtained (65% husk, 25% middle and 10% flour) making it possible to extract the suga


3. Mashing – Sugar extraction

Using large vessel (Mash Tun), hot water is percolated through ‘grist’ to extract dissolved sugars, creating hot, sweet water (‘wort’).

4. Fermenting – alcohol creation

Cooled ‘wort’ is put in fermentation vats (‘Wash-Backs’), Yeast is added to eat the sugar and create weak alcohol called ‘wash’.

5. Distilling – concentration of alcohol Wash’ is cooked in stills vaporising at 80°. The vapour is cooled until it recondenses to become 30% spirit (‘low wines’). This is repeated to obtain 70% spirit. The best bit (‘middle cut’) is retained.

7. Maturing –
whisky creation

Raw British spirit is transformed in to mellow whisky by maturation in top quality oak casks over several years – the longer the better.

Here is how to do it at home if you so desire:

http://www.whiskeywise.com/homemade-whiskey.html

Looks hard, don't it? Of course you could come here and drink any of the following:

Jim Beam, Maker's Mark, Basil Hayden, Knob Creek, Jack Daniels, Crown Royal, Canadian Club, Seagram's VO, Seagram's 7, Glenfiddich 12, Glenlivet 12, Macallan 12, Bowmore 12, Lagavulin 16, Dewar's, Chivas Regal 18, JW Black, Jameson's and Bushmill's.

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