Homemade whiskey or whiskey! It can work?!

Is it possible to make whiskey at home? It can work!?

In our alcoholic hobby, we do not have to limit ourselves only to the production of simple alcohols. Thanks to the openness to global markets, more and more semi-finished products and more and more information about production techniques are available, which until recently were used only by specialized production plants. We can make purchases in many specialized wine stores, such as Wino HOBBY.

Currently, we can even try to produce Scotch Malt Whiskey at home. For this, you need a special malt whiskey, which is now available to everyone.

Malt it is nothing more than a grain of cereal which was first provoked to sprout in a special process and then dried very quickly.

Alcohol distillation malt, whisky

This process is called malting and takes place in special plants. Certain types of malt undergo additional treatments, such as e.g.: whiskey malts are smoked in peat smoke, which gives Scotch whiskey a unique taste and aroma.

When we get the right type of malt, further the production process will be as follows:

Mashing - purchased malt must first be grinded (can be purchased immediately shot blasted / ground malt). The whole process is there, to make a large amount of water into properly heated water, pour the kernel and mix it all very vigorously. It is accepted, so that the proportions for the mash were: 3-3,5liter of water for 1 kg of meal. The water into which we pour the meal should be heated to this temperature (72-75⁰C), so that after pouring the meal, the temperature of our mixture settled to a level 65-67⁰C. The temperature of the mash should be kept at a level 66⁰C, for tens of minutes (from 40 minutes up to 1 hours). Keeping the mash at temperature 66⁰C makes, that amylase enzymes are activated, which results in the formation of a large amount of maltose disaccharide, which is easily fermentable by yeast into alcohol.
After it has cooled down, Pour the mash to the fermentor and add the appropriate distiller's yeast. It is best to use special yeast intended for the fermentation of grain mash. The fermentation time depends on the type of yeast used and the ambient temperature, should last 5-10 days, after this time, our settings should include from 12 do 16% alcohol and, after filtering, it should be distilled.
Most Irish whiskey is distilled three times, Scotch whiskey - twice, bourbony - once.
The distillate obtained should be approx 80% alcohol and should be diluted with distilled water to 63%. In this form, whiskey is not much different from vodka. It acquires its character during maturation in oak barrels. During this process, the alcohol is saturated with the tannins contained in the oak and takes on its aroma. For the production of whiskey at home, we can use oak flakes (French oak flakes or American oak flakes). For this purpose, the alcohol should preferably be poured into a glass balloon, add the right amount of petals, cork tightly and set aside in a cool and shaded place 1-3 patch. When using new petals, we use about 1-2.5g of petals per 1 liter of alcohol, it is best to use American oak petals, which will make our whiskey softer, sweeter, coconut-vanilla bouquet.

Before being poured into barrels, Jack Daniels whiskey is additionally filtered with actin-charcoal. At home, a good substitute can be alcohol filtration through activated coconut charcoal, followed by the addition of American oak petals.