| BREWING MILLING Any impurities, remaining rootlets or similar is first removed in a dresser, which is a number of sieves. The malt is then milled to grist, a coarse meal. MASHING The grist is transferred to the mash tun together with hot water. The enzymatic activity is now resumed and amylase is converting the dextrin into maltose. The mash tun has a perforated floor allowing the sweet water, called wort, out of the vessel while retaining the extracted grist. The process is repeated with hotter water and finally a third time, with almost boiling water, in order to get hold of as much sugar as possible. The final rinse, called sparge, has a quite low maltose content and is saved for the first extraction of the next batch of grist. WATER The distilleries different water sources may have an impact on the final whisky, but it can be debated how great. There is no doubt that you can’t make whisky without a clean, healthy water, but it hasn't the almost mythical importance Scottish whisky manufacturers ascribes it with. Nevertheless, if water rises from rock there will be differences in mineral content and pH depending on the type of rock. When travelling over ground the water will impart flavour from peat, moss, grass, heather or what else it comes in contact with. However, these contributions to the final taste are considerably less significant than the impact of the kilning with peat, the distillation process and the maturation on oak casks. FERMENTATION The fermentation is considered to be a quite straightforward process. Nevertheless, it is intricate and of great importance since this is where the major part of the flavour components originates from. Fruity and flowery esters and aldehydes are results of reactions involving ethanol and other alcohols produced during the fermentation. The wort is cooled to ambient temperature and transferred to washbacks where also yeast is added. The washbacks are large vessels ranging from 10 000 to 60 000 L, a distillery will have anything between 4 and 25. Traditionally they were made of larch or pine but today stainless steel is also common. The yeast is feeding on the sugar given to it and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide in return, a fair exchange. The fermentation takes about two days and results in a beer-like fluid called wash, with a alcohol content of 5 – 8 % ABV (alcohol by volume). The content of bacterias increases in the end and a pro-longed fermentation results in a higher acidity (lower pH) and the development of new flavour compounds. This results in a more complex whisky. Many distilleries use a prolonged fermentation over weekends (72 instead of 48 hours). This results in a batch to batch variation which has to be taken care of later, either by mixing several distillates before filling the casks or by blending casks from different batches before bottling. |
 The malt is milled into grist.
|
