the pirate diaries: malted scotch production

Welcome to round 3 of the pirate diaries.

This week I’m going to focus on how Malted Scotch is prepared for distillation.

Okay then here we go.

Malted Scotch Production goes as follows:

1. First you need Barley

2. To help change Barley’s starch into fermentable sugars a confidence trick is played on the grain where by you fool it into thinking it’s time to start germinating.

3. This is done by immersing the grain in water (an average of 3 times) over a period of 48 hrs.

4. Cool air is then blown over the grain where in after 5 days the starches have now changed to a term called “green malt“. Shoots and roots are now being made available at this time as well.

5. This growth however, now needs to be stopped by drying the grain in a kiln, this is usually in some cases where “peat” is used.

6. Peat is semi-carbonized vegetation, which in turn when burned gives off a perfumed smoke rich in flavour compounds known as phenolics. Not all malted Scotch is dried with Peat as some use charcoal during this stage.

7. After being dried, the Barley is then ground into a rough flour called “Grist”

8. This Grist is then blown into a large vessel called a “mash tun” where it is mixed with hot water. The temperature of the water is vital at this stage to help trigger the enzymes present into converting the starches into fermentable sugars.

9. A mash tun operates like a large tea bag. The hot water filters through the grist dissolving the sugars. This sweet sugary liquid, known as “wort” (really they couldn’t have picked a better name here…gross!) is then drawn off the bottom of the mash tun, cooled and then pumped into a fermenter or “washback“.

10. Now in the “washback” another amount of water (even hotter) is added to rid out any remaining sugar.

11. After this last stage of filtering, the wort is now cooled completely where in yeast is now added for fermentation. The sugars are eaten by the yeast and converted into alcohol, while CO2 and heat are given off. All the alcohol is converted in a span of about 48 hrs giving a liquid wash of about 7-10% abv (alcohol by volume).

12. A quick fermentation is needed and is vital in the creation of flavours. If left too long the yeasts will begin to eat anything, even themselves. This quick fermentation helps build a complex combination of flavour compounds known as “congeners“. If these congeners have not been created in the washback they cannot be concentrated and captured in the next part of the process: Distillation.

I’d go on further but distillation is one messy process and well I don’t want to clutter all them pretty minds of yours at once.

But before I leave here’s a short video to help you understand what the heck I just wrote.