watering down to drinking abv

[scythe]

There is a graph somewhere here that shows the approximate flavours you can ecpect to get from oak at certain %ABV when ageing.
Maybe this is what old mate was on about when saying that the spirit becomes flat.
Rather than neutralizing what is already there it prevents the extraction of other "notes" from the wood.

[JamieC]

Hmmm. Interesting, I just watered down 10L of 88% neutral. Been hot days and the spring water container was over 30Deg. Spirit was around 23deg. When blending I noticed some strange louch/clumping. Disappeared when mixed, but was there all the same. Food for thought.

[RC Al]

So a year later, how are people going with this?
Did anyone remember to give it a try?

[bluc]

So I checked the chapter again, and he does give an explanation. He says it causes hydrolysis of the esters, resulting in saponification of the spirit. It will become flat and can become soapy, losing its complexity and balance.

Have not had a soapy whiskey but did have a soapy rum.. :twisted:

So I now have had a soapy whiskey will have to grab this book for a read..

[db1979]

I reckon this is a matter of the equilibrium system in the spirit. It's a series of dynamic (constantly changing) reactions that occur where the reactants are reacting to make products and at the same time the products are reacting to go back to the reactants again.

Over time, if left undisturbed, an equilibrium system will establish at a specific point where the amount of reactant and product appears to be fixed and unchanging (this is referred to as "at equilibrium"). In reality, the concentrations of both are staying the same because the reaction that uses up the reactants is happening at the same speed as the reaction that uses up the product.

The concentration of the reactants and products will influence the position of the equilibrium (favouring more reactants or more products) and so adding water to the spirit will cause the dynamic system to respond until it reaches equilibrium again (this is because water is a reactant in the hydrolysis of esters). This means the speed of the two reactions will change until they both become equal again. This takes time, especially for slow organic reactions, like the hydrolysis of large esters by water into fatty acids (soap taste) and an alcohol.

Adding water slowly may help to keep the equilibrium from going too far from where it was in the barrel (and possibly needing more time to readjust) and then needing less time to return closer to where it was before the addition of water.

On the other hand, quick dilution with water should just need time for the spirit to sit and return to equilibrium. Perhaps it's faster overall to add the water slowly.

[crow]

Somewhat true and staged tempering will likely get there faster. Imagine you are making a concrete mix where you have sand and gravel to mix first, water molecules are your gravel and ethanol is your sand. You tip the gravel over damp sand it don't mix well, you tip the damp sand over gravel it mixes a lot better but still has a long way to go to being mixed. Mixing bit by bit will get an even mix faster but in the end given time the result will be the same. Aging as such might stop at bottling but the molecular structure won't stay static and chemical reactions and the formation of compounds will continue, you could call that bottle aging I guess. This will happen at a fastish rate after tempering slowly reducing as time goes by but probably never actually stopping. That is to say there is a massive difference between new make and aged. Then a fair difference in fresh tempered/ bottled and 12 months latter , a smaller difference in 1 year to 2 , 2 to 5 even less 5 to 10 even less and 10 to 30 less so but there is a noticeable difference from 1year to 20 or 30.
Bottom line is this method will make a difference short term, long term it will even out.

[A&O]

To throw a cat amongst the pigeons, how does oxygen affect the transfer from cask to bottle even adding water to spirit to dilute down to 40% for long term storage in bottles/consumption? Does stirring the sprit where more oxygen can be added to solution affect the spirits flavour profile?

[db1979]

Oxygen will oxidise any tannins which changes their flavour and also make them less soluble. This is how aeration can counter over-oaking. Microbes present can use the oxygen to convert the alcohol into vinegar.

[A&O]

Mm interesting, thanks db, gonna have to look into how vinegar is made, as I didn’t realise it is made from alcohol.
Cheers

[crow]

Yes sure but not any microbe it has to be mother of vinegar or one of a few acetic acid bacteria capable off withstanding oxogenized higher proof spirit, I'm not sure off hand what that proof is but there is as far as I'm aware a limit. I understand they always temper spirit right down to make distilled vinegar, I think the risk is very low. It might make for some fun experiments to see how high abv you could get an acetic to take hold, I'd guess not much higher than 20-25%

[db1979]

Yep, you've got good points there. Microbiology isn't my strength.

[TDick]

Just thought I would share some of my findings while reading about ageing. When watering down from your 65% or preferred higher abv, don't just add all the water in one go. This is particularly for scotch but I assume goes for other aged products too. If you do, you can flatten out the profile of your aged whisky and it won't recover.
...
At the very least it may be easily applied insurance for your patience in ageing.

Thought I'd give this old thread a bump.
Watching a youtube video that mentioned Nancy Fraley and a slow water dilution method.
Wasn't familiar with it so I started digging.
This is an introduction to her. Still not sure I've got the hang of adding youtube videos, so here's a double attempt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k6l942MSyc

[TDick]

I'll try to add this short as well...

https://youtube.com/shorts/TvHbGaxngEI?si=lEN6i2upQfHI9l8Z

[chaos]

oh this is very interesting . I
ve also wondered if dumping a litre or two of water straight into my 4yr old whiskey is a good idea just to get it down to 40 abv.. but I've always reasoned that the whiskey at 65-70abv is like whiskey cordial so.. just add water.
My experience has been that the bottled product definitely needs a couple of months to 'settle into itself' after the brutal assault of all that water, and the filtering and the aeration.. I
m going to try staggering the additions from now on.

But what's this idea about fatty spirit she mentions ..?- I didn't know this 'trick' , has anyone here done this .? I immediately thought about adding melted butter ? to a single malt as the fat.

[TDick]

Just thought I would share some of my findings while reading about ageing.
At the very least it may be easily applied insurance for your patience in ageing.

Interesting idea.
Prove it.

Okay Girls, Calm Down!! :romance-kisscheek: :))

I heard about this several months ago and went digging.
Seems that quite a few bourbon distilleries are doing this.
Nancy Fraley is one of the major instigators. She was a blending Consultant.
May still be doing that but now she is the Master Blender at Still-Austin Distillery. They are a mid to upper tier "craft" distiller in Texas.

Here's a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k6l942MSyc&t=152s

[RobMichelle]

I put step proofing into google and the AI recommends doing this step proofing as well, not sure how much ai has drank but reading the above I’m open to try it, so step proofing down some bwko suppose it’s a good way not to drink it to soon lol.