Oak barrels

[MacStill]

You'll lose ABV DJ, and a little volume with it...... alcohol/ethanol evaporates quicker than water ;)

[DeeJae]

Thought that would be the case ,
thanks for clearing it up for me
:text-thankyoublue:

[Frank]

Hey Deejae
Wiki says: "In low humidity conditions, the loss to evaporation may be primarily water. However, in higher humidities, more alcohol than water will evaporate, therefore reducing the alcoholic strength of the product."

So....I'm gonna lose ABV% anyway. C'est la vie :|

[Tracker]

I really don't want to argue with Wicki - but averything I have heard/read/and my understanding of things distilled in general, indicate that the alcohol is the most volitile therefore is most likely to evaporate first.
Otherwise, please explain to me how distillers put 60% abv into a keg and after maturation, they pull 40% out.
If water was being depleted, would not the % alcohol increase :?:

Of course, I have possibly been wrong before, just can't remember when :?


Cheers.

[Sam.]

I don't think humidity would matter at all with whats going to evaporate, surely it is a temperature reliant process.

In South Oz where it is not humid at all I had a 9L Barrel that was filled with 40% sit for around 6 - 8 months and after reading about the ABV checked with the alcometer and it was reading around 36% :o Was not real happy, but now from more reading if you fill up a barrel like the big boys with a higher strength it is not really a problem.

As a side note this is why the 40 year old scotch you can buy is so fucking expensive, when it was put in the barrel at 60 - 70%? there would have been 200L minimum, after 40 years there might be only be 1/4 of that so they need to sell it for that much more to make anything from it. (and put a 1000% markup because it has 40yr stamped on it)