Distress aging with heat
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 7:35 pm
After a discussion in another thread I thought I would start a new thread in the aging forum with a technique put up by croweater. Firsty it must be said that there can be no replacing or duplicating years of aging with anything other than years of aging.
Firstly his technique.
Now all this has inspired me to give it a go and I must say I can certainly say I am impressed with what I have done so far.
I have been experimenting with a wheatgerm/malted barley hybrid scotch style wash run through a detuned boka. These pictures are of the wash i distilled 2 days ago and were taken 12 hours after heat distressing it. 4 litres at 65%. 4 sticks of 5 inch x 1.5cmx1.5cm oak staves. 2 toasted and 2 charred. The colour is looking amazing after 12 hours with a golden maple colour and again a slight vanilla smell already beginning to appear. It tastes like something I would expect from a 4 or 6 week old oaked spirit. I am quite fascinated with this technique and think it is an awesome way to get a "jumpstart" on your aging before blending and letting it settle in for longer aging. Could also be a useful way to play with different levels of char and oak amounts to get a taste you are after before longer aging. I must thank crow for opening my eyes up to it.
Firstly his technique.
croweater wrote:one day of distress aging and this stuff really is incredable guys, one seriously nice dram. I think what really helps speed this up is using termite eaten timber as there is probably more than 10 times the surface area :handgestures-thumbupleft:
This stuff picture is Quircus robar (limousine oak/English oak) and what I do is burn it blow it out and drop it into 65% alcohol with a cap of maple syrup. I then put the jar into hot water, once warmed up I seal the jar and put it in even hotter water then after say 1/2 hr i put it in water that is 1/3 hot and 2 3rds boiling and leave it until it slowly cool . one yrs barrel age overnight ;-)
croweater wrote:Lowndsey wrote:Interesting topic. All the info I have read on heat distress aging suggests you need to be careful as the heat pulls out a lot of tannins out of the wood. I've always been tempted to try it as I quite often do the freezer distress thing.
Yeah naturally ya want to be a bit careful. Weathered timber think this stuff is better staves from and old barrel like wise if using new oak i would taste it regularly as the reason for using hot ethanol is to strip dissoluble compounds out or the timber in a very short time which will include tannins, some tannins are needed it part of the oak flavour but to much and its going to taste...well like tannin (bitter). The other wise thing to do is don't distress age the whole lot, just do a percentage at a time and there is way less risk of over doing it :handgestures-thumbupleft: .I put the wood in still smouldering well aware of cause that a spark of flame could ignite the ethanol but i figure 1.5 ltrs in a jar could be smothered in one second should that happen (it never has) , i probably wouldn't really advise ppl to do it like that but it does infuse the char flavour almost instantly . the distress aged whiskey was about the colour of strong black tea when I decided it was infused enough to be added so I drew of two ltrs then added the 1.5 infused ltrs and began to age what I drew off, hope that all makes sense
Edit yep MR-E just 1.5 ltrs at a time out of 9 ltrs all at around 65% barrel strength. I would be a little more patient with it except xmas is in a few days so I need to get something like 2yrs aging in under a week
Now all this has inspired me to give it a go and I must say I can certainly say I am impressed with what I have done so far.
I found that it really dragged out a vanilla aroma from the oak.Lowndsey wrote:I gave this heat distress aging a go on some UJSM I had. I had 5 litres of it at 65%. It had been on oak staves for approx 2 weeks. I took off about 1500ml and did this treatment to it in a jar with 2 oak staves about 5 inches long and maybe 1.5cm squared..Only difference being that I didn't add any maple syrup. Just had a taste between the 2 and the diff is night and day. I reckon the distress "aged" stuff has probably "aged" an extra 2 months or so compared to the other stuff. Still not ready to drink for a bourbon but has certainly accelerated the process taste wise and colour wise.
I have been experimenting with a wheatgerm/malted barley hybrid scotch style wash run through a detuned boka. These pictures are of the wash i distilled 2 days ago and were taken 12 hours after heat distressing it. 4 litres at 65%. 4 sticks of 5 inch x 1.5cmx1.5cm oak staves. 2 toasted and 2 charred. The colour is looking amazing after 12 hours with a golden maple colour and again a slight vanilla smell already beginning to appear. It tastes like something I would expect from a 4 or 6 week old oaked spirit. I am quite fascinated with this technique and think it is an awesome way to get a "jumpstart" on your aging before blending and letting it settle in for longer aging. Could also be a useful way to play with different levels of char and oak amounts to get a taste you are after before longer aging. I must thank crow for opening my eyes up to it.