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Eight steps of whisky making

March 20,2023

Malting -> Milling -> Saccharification -> Fermentation -> Distillation -> Barrel Maturation -> Blending -> Bottling

I. Malting

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The main ingredients of  whisky  are barley, wheat, corn and grains. After removing impurities from these selected ingredients, they are steeped in hot water and then heated and dried, waiting to enter the next stage. And only the barley will go to the next step in the form of malted barley.

It is worth mentioning that in scotch whisky, the drying process uses "peat" (Note 1)

This gives Scotch whisky its distinctive smoky peat flavor, which is unique to Scotch whisky.

In addition, in the Irish region near Scotland, the use of "oats" as raw material.

2.Milling

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After standing for about a month, the malt is ground in a special milling machine.

3. Mashing

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After grinding, the malt is put into a wort tank and hot water of about 60℃~70℃ is added to dissolve the malt powder, and after the sugar in the malt powder is dissolved in the water, the wort is filtered and the temperature and time will affect the quality of the wort.

Since the sugar content of malt powder is limited, it needs to rely on the amylase enzyme to convert starch into glucose and maltose, and the hot water temperature of more than 90℃ will destroy the activity of amylase, so the water temperature should not be too high.

4. Fermentation

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After waiting for the wort to cool, yeast can be added for fermentation. Yeast can convert sugar into alcohol, and the alcohol concentration is only 7% at this time.

5.Distillation

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Put the fermentation liquid into the distiller for distillation, the distiller has the effect of concentration, distillation out of the spirit is called new spirit, is clear and colorless high concentration of  liquor, general whisky must be distilled twice, the first distillation out of the liquid concentration of only 20%, but then the second distillation, out of the liquid concentration will be between 60% ~ 70%, and only take the heart (Note 4) of the part as Whiskey.

Some distilleries will increase the distillation to three times to ensure the quality of the spirit, but the distillation process will cause the aroma of the grain itself to escape, so the number of distillations depends on the experience and wisdom of the distillery.

6.Maturation

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New spirits must be loaded into oak barrels for several years to mature, the maturing process to absorb the esters, tree esters, "residual aromas" (Note 2) generated by the charred walls of the barrels, which in turn brings different floral and fruit, wood, grain, honey and other different flavors.

Nowadays it is not only  brandy, whisky and rum that undergo the aging step, but in recent years gin, vodka and tequila also use oak barrels to enhance the flavor of the spirit itself.

7.Blending

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After the maturation of the whiskey, just take out for the concentration of the original spirit is quite high, at this time depends on the professional distillery bartender (Note 3), to mix the concentration and taste acceptable to the public.

8.Bottling

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The Blended Whisky will be filtered again to remove impurities before bottling, this step is now mostly mechanized.

Note 1:The coal used to dry the malt is peat, which will be discussed specifically in the advanced chapter.

Note 2: Since oak barrels are not necessarily new, they may be tainted with the aroma of the previous batch.

Note 3: The bartender here is not the Bartender you usually hear, but the Blender.

Note 4: Heart: After the distillation process, the liquor is divided into the first stage, spirits, and the cloudy stage, in which the first stage has more residue (commonly known as dregs) and contains methanol; the cloudy stage contains miscellaneous alcohol oils and has a taste of burnt leather. The core is only 20% of the overall distillate.

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