jlf1961
Posts: 14840
Joined: 6/10/2008
From: Somewhere Texas
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quote:
ORIGINAL: WhoreMods
quote:
ORIGINAL: jlf1961
For christ's sake, a single malt scotch is better, the only reason to blend any whiskey is because they cant come up with a single malt that has a consistent quality. Hell blended scotches may even have corn or wheat alcohol in the mix (has to be an English influence for that blasphemy.)
Can't swear to it, but I think that was a Scottish innovation to make generic scotch for the less discriminating end of the mass market cheaper and more consistent in flavour. The more expensive blends are all mixed up from proper single malts.
Actually, blended whiskeys, be it scotch, or any other, is a cheap way of keeping the flavor of the finished product consistent.
While Greta is partially right, each distillery does produce a unique tasting product, she evidently does not know enough to understand that each run within that distillery will have a distinct taste, even from the same still.
The reason for this is the grain used, due to the fact that there is no quality control department in nature. Grain like grapes, will taste different due to amount of rain, variations in temperature during the growing season etc.
While nothing can be done when it comes to wines, tastes of a batch of whiskey can be controlled by how long it stays at one level of an aging barn. Prior to moving the barrel up or down, a taste test of the product is made (I would love this job at any good whiskey distillery, I mean getting paid to taste whiskey from a few hundred barrels a day?)
Now, some of the older distilleries in Scotland who do sell whiskey that has aged more than fifteen years, Macallan for example, have customers that not only want a particular age, but will state a preference to a particular batch (but when you are paying over $1000 for a bottle of Scotch, you are allowed to be picky.)
Prior to my great uncle's death, and the subsequent loss of his distillation license, he had customers that would pay $300 plus for whiskey the family had put up decades ago.
While there is still quite a bit of that wonderful elixir of the gods still in the cellar of the aging barn (god if that building ever catches fire they will see a pretty blue flame in London) the family cannot legally (fucking federal government interference) sell a drop.
And my knowledge of whiskey making comes from a number of summers spent at grandmother's house working with Uncle Roosevelt at the still.
Now, for those members of these boards with better than average knowledge of working with copper, the proper way to make a tower pot still for yourselves is actually quite simple. Please remember that you can legally, with a permit, distill alcohol for use in biofuels at your home.
It seems that the ATF will trust you not to drink it.
However, the pot portion of the still determines the amount of finished product. Basically for every five gallons of mash mix, you get about 1 gallon of alcohol (which is why a stove top still is pretty much a waste of time, if you want a decent sipping whiskey.)
The seems of the still has to be soldered and riveted, and you cannot use a lead based solder, it has to be a silver base. The best rivets to use are copper.
The pot is tear drop shaped and a 1.5 or 2 inch valve is placed at the lowest point to drain the cooked mash out of the pot after the first distillation.
The condensation worm is most efficient if the diameter of the turns is at least one foot, and the longer the better (unless you want to rig a window ac unit to blow into a duct to aid in condensation) and 20 to 30 feet long.
And fair warning, the quickest way to find a still is by the smell, cooking mash has a very distinct odor.
One last point, for every pound of grain you use, unless you want a sour mash, you use between 2 or 3 pounds of sugar (another way moonshiners are caught is by the amount of sugar they buy.)
And to be honest, with the present cost of sugar, there is no way you are going to make any money selling the excess unless you are running 4 or more stills.
Now that I have given enough information for the intrepid few on these boards to google further information on the making of whiskey, I now add the disclaimer, if you get caught, you cannot claim I told anyone to do this.
FYI, whiskey can be made from any grain, rum is made from a mix of molasses and sugar, vodka is primarily patatoes, tequila is from the blue agave plant, and some of the southwestern American indians used various edible cactus to make a unique tasting product with an extremely high alcohol content.
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You cannot control who comes into your life, but you can control which airlock you throw them out of.
Paranoid Paramilitary Gun Loving Conspiracy Theorist AND EQUAL OPPORTUNI
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