Bourbon Whiskey 101!

Posted by Keith Saunders

Posted: October 6, 2008 - 5:14 pm

Comments (0) |

Here is my material from the Bourbon Whiskey side of the Tasting.

Making Bourbon Whiskey

The secret of the taste of Bourbon is its grain, yeast, fresh white oak barrels & storage. These have the largest influence on the Bourbon taste.

Most Bourbon distilleries have equipment that is alike and as most Bourbon comes from Kentucky there is very minimal if any difference in climate. The different taste of one Bourbon to the next is the unique blends & quality of ingredients each different Bourbon brand uses.
There are many different processes in the making of Bourbon in the following article we will have a brief look at each of the main process in making Bourbon Whiskey.

The Mash Bill

Every unique Bourbon distillery has a unique grain mixture. Bourbon whiskey must contain at least 51% corn this is a minimum requirement of using the name Bourbon by law, most Bourbons however contain around 60 to 80% corn.

Rye, malted barley & wheat make up the remainder of the mash bill
The different grains are separated & grinded; to open the grain skin the grinding process leads to very fine flour.

The Mash Bill is simply a term used for the mixture of grains.

Water

Fresh spring water is a key ingredient in the production of Bourbon whiskey; it is required for the extraction of the sugar whilst cooking the starch in the grain. Bourbon distilleries require a high quality water source.

Kentucky is blesses with a thick layer of limestone, which acts as a natural filtration system for water. The valleys of Kentucky are famous for there pure water springs.

Grain Cooker

Grain seeds consist mainly of starch, but also contain proteins, fats and trace elements. The Grains are cooked to convert starch into sugar.

Each grain requires a different cooking temperature & time.

The mash is cooled down, before the yeast is later added.

Yeast Management

Each distillery in Kentucky has its own yeast stock kept in guarded cooling rooms.

The yeast selection takes place in a straightforward manner.

Containers with a nutrient mixture are put under a fruit tree & left till natural fruit yeast received the nutrient mixture. Small amounts of the nutrient mixture put on carriers and the individually yeasts bred in an oven, kept at moderate temperatures. One solitary yeast cell can breed the complete yeast for the whole alcoholic fermentation.
A tiny amount of yeast is then taken out & mixed a new nutrient mixture which is often just an extract of Malt. It is essential with the yeast reproduction that the optimum pH value of 5.4 and 5.8 is achieved.

Once around half liter yeast has been made, the yeast placed in a large storage container, called the Dona Tub.

The Dona Tub serves as a storage tank for the fermentation.
Each distillery usually produces different Bourbons with different yeasts. Therefore each unique Bourbon whiskey has its own Dona Tub.

Fermentation

After the mash has been cooled, it is added with yeast into a fermented in which a beer with approximately 9-10% Alcohol is produced

Bourbon distilleries possess a Beer Well, into which the fermented beer is emptied. The stainless steel Beer Well is placed in the middle of several fomenters.

The alcoholic fermentation allows the yeast to convert the sugar to alcohol & CO2. The fermentation lasts about 3 days. The name for the product that is urbanized is Distiller's Beer.

The brewer pays much attention to an aromatic smell of the beer as it later whiskey beer, which smells like strong apple. After the fermentation the beer is distilled into raw whiskey

Distillation

The distillation works the same way for all Bourbon whiskey distilleries using a Column Still

The pillar like formation allows a continuous distillation process which was invented in 1826 by Robert Stein

The upright pipe has a height of 5 to 20 meters and diameter from 70 to 150cm. The pipe has floors with holes that are connected from the bottom to the top. The holes have edges that bent upward, stopping liquid from flowing downwards, with separate tubes to allow downward liquid rotation. If the column is heated from the lower end, the condensed liquids spring through the tubes downward, while the fume components flow to the top

The temperature of the column is designed so that the alcohol is completely gas at the top & the beer is cooking at the bottom. The alcohol is removed at the top; the water with the fibers and remnants of the grain comes out on the bottom. This product is called Spillage or the Distillation residue. It is used to make animal food and the Sour Mash.

After the distillation the fumes are run through a copper pot, which improves the taste of the raw whisky. The again liquefied alcohol fumes are directed into vats, for the barrels to be filled

Sour Mash

Every Bourbon distillery works with the Sour Mash process today. Sour Mash means that a part of the distillation residue is supplemented back into the mash. When the mash is prepared with fresh spring water it is chemical pH value neutral the chemical environment is neither acidic nor alkaline. In this environment yeast is unable to grow or work. The addition of a part of the very sour residue with a pH value 5.0 - 5.4 leads to an acidification of the entire mash. The pH value after the addition of the residue is about 5.4 to 5, 8. Enough Acidic for the yeasts to work its magic
Many Bourbon & American Whiskey brands use the term Sour Mash in there marketing very famously Jack Daniels which is not actually a bourbon but a Tennessee Whiskey however Sour Mash’s only service is to craft the right pH value for the yeasts to work to it optimum. The rest is simple marketing

Filling into Barrels

In Kentucky and Missouri companies specialized in the production of barrels from American white oak. For Straight Bourbon Whiskey the barrels may only be used once. They have hold volume of approximately 200.34 liters of bourbon.

The barrels are held with one side open over a small fire & toasted for about 12 minutes, leading to the wood sugar in the oak staves becoming caramelized.

After toasting the barrels get a stronger fire treatment, being burned out from the inside with strong flames for 6 to 12 s, giving the barrel a thick charcoal layer on the inside. This is what gives Kentucky Bourbons special taste

The barrel is then filled & closed & taken to a warehouse for storage
Storage and Maturation

For the storage of the barrels each distillery has its own system
Warehouses hold about 20,000 barrels of bourbon have a frame of bars and joints to roll the barrels horizontally & elevator for vertical movement.

It is important to be able to move the barrels because in the summer you get very high temperatures at the tops of the warehouses, whilst remaining cool at the bottom. Bourbon warehouses also have many windows in order to adjust the ambient air temperature as the whiskey matures very differently on the different floors of the warehouse.
As a solution to this problem some distilleries rotate there barrels & some mix the barrels from different positions of the warehouse before the bottling. The central region of the warehouse is normally where the special Small Batch Bourbons and Single Barrel Bourbons come from.

Bottle Filling

The Bourbon distilleries each have the own bottling line.
The barrels are brought by truck to the bottling line and emptied over filters to remove charcoal & then pumped into a storage vat to feed from there to the bottling line. To be bottled so we can all enjoy a fine Bourbon Whiskey

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