Whisky, in all its iterations, is not just an end product, not just a drink...though it is a good one at that. It is a science, an art, alchemy and magic, geography and history, and it is people (um, not like soylent green...).
There are many exemplary sites out there on the making and tasting of whisky, and I don't intend on reinventing that wheel. I just want to bring some story to what I think is a fascinating process.
You can see more whisky photographs as well as not-just-whisky photographs and ramblings if you follow the links in the sidebar. Please take
a look...or not.

Showing posts with label Springbank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Springbank. Show all posts

October 29, 2010

on malting

While savouring a dram of Redbreast Irish pot still whiskey, I finish reading Iain Banks's "Transitions". It gets me thinking about transitions - change, the movement between states. So of course that leads to thinking about malted barley (malting as one of many transitions involved in making whisky, and the fact that most Irish whiskey is made with unmalted barley...just nod and pretend you follow me). Who first figured that barley should go through the extra time, effort, and energy to germinate the grain before using it to distill our favourite tipple? It's a process that is systemically more costly than just using barley reaped and dried straight off the field. Maybe it was one of those serendipitous mistakes - barley stashed under a leaky roof, discovered too late but too valuable to discard...I'm just musing here, I'm sure somewhere out there is an historical explanation.

The first two are a couple photos of barley quietly germinating on the malting floor at Laphroaig. It's time, labour, and space intensive to malt this way - that's why few distilleries do it for themselves any more. I'm thinking the process was only undertaken after the establishment of distilleries as legal entities able to occupy a relatively large footprint, the first arguably founded sometime during the last quarter of the 18th century. Prior to the luxury of a malting floor, I suggest that most Scotch whisky must have been made with unmalted barley.

I also suggest you pick up one of Iain Banks's works, with or without the M. His "Raw Spirit" got me reading him, and though it is not quite representative of his more widely distributed subject matter the book is a tasty dram, a roadtrip through the landscape of Scotch whisky.


empty malting floor at the Laphroaig Distillery

a grain wheelbarrow at Laphroaig used to spread the steeped barley by hand across the malting floor


turning the germinating barley on the malting floor at Bowmore Distillery

you've seen a similar image here before - raking the growing barley at Bowmore so it doesn't mat together into a tangled mess


a motorized rake and germinating barley on the malting floor of Bowmore Distillery

a motorized barley rake at Laphroaig - undoubtedly a lot easier on the maltman's back!


a handful of germinating barley after two days on the malting floor at Laphroaig Distillerya handful of germinating barley after three days on the malting floor at Laphroaig Distillery

           after two days on the malting floor            after three days on the malting floor


germinating barley on the malting floor of the Springbank Distillery

the malting floor at Springbank, Campbeltown


germinating barley on the original malting floor of Kilchoman Distillery

the malting floor at Kilchoman, Islay


germinating barley on the malting floor at the Balvenie Distillery

the malting floor at the Balvenie, Speyside


Slàinte

May 24, 2010

more heat

I got thinking more about heat after my last post and realized just how prevalent it is in the whisky making process, and that I'd overlooked some of my photographs reflecting the subject which may be of interest to you. So I guess this is part two.

A couple of the photos have an annoying lens shadow at the bottom of the image, for which I apologize. I would normally not hesitate to excise such offences to my aesthetic sensibilities, however I felt that the subject matter would have suffered somewhat if I had cropped them out. So be it...I'll just have to do the suffering with a cringe or two every time I see them.


beating hot copper at Forsyth's, turning it into a whisky still

Forsyth's, in the town of Rothes in Speyside, have been crafting the lions share of Scotch whisky distillery equipment since the end of the nineteenth century. Dad and I were lucky enough to be graciously hosted by Mr. Richard Forsyth on a very interesting tour of the factory. I suspect this is the upper section of a still in the making. After having been heated by another coppersmith with a torch, this chap is beating the red hot metal into shape. The outer shell of a condenser is lying on the floor behind him.


raking the germinating barley on the malting floor at Bowmore Distillery

Bowmore is one of the few remaining distilleries to floor malt some of their own barley. While germinating, the barley produces heat which must be regulated by turning over with wide flat shovels and raking, which is being done here. This also prevents the emerging rootlets from tangling into an unmanageable clump. As you can see, this process is quite labour intensive and back breaking so it is also done by machine.



This is a rare sight - too bad I messed it up with a shadow (cringe #1!). The inside of Springbank's wash still with one of the few rummagers in existence. When a still was (is, in this case) directly fired with an open flame from below, as all stills used to be, there needed to be a method of preventing the contents from scorching. This was achieved by the rummager, a strip of copper chain mail which revolved inside the still in order to stir and scrape the bottom, not unlike what needs to be done when you make your porridge on the stove. This still is also heated by steam which travels through the pipes seen around the circumference.


inside a still at Glen Scotia Distillery showing the steam heating pots

The interior of a Glen Scotia still. The silver pots radiate heat from steam inside the pipes which can be seen just below the liquid surface. They, of course, would be covered when the still is in full tilt boogie mode (one of the lesser known whisky distilling terms!...and an obtuse shoutout to Canadian backup bands everywhere!!).


rotating barrel being recharred in the cooperage at the Balvenie


The charring of the inside surface of whisky barrels is done in a couple of ways. At the Speyside Cooperage where they refabricate zillions of barrels for the Scotch whisky industry, the barrels are stood upright with no ends above a furnace which blasts a huge flame through the barrel like a chimney. Very cool sight. This photograph, however, is from the cooperage at the Balvenie where they do all their own barrel work on site. You're looking at the end of a barrel on its side, through a window I might add, which is being spun round by the two rollers at the bottom of the image. A flame is then blasted into the open end facing away from us, which can be seen shooting out the bung hole. It, too, is a pretty cool sight to see.


barrels at the Bruichladdich Distillery showing interior char


This is one of my favourite barrel images, so I'm glad to be able to share it with you to end off this post. It is a triptych of Bruichladdich barrels, with one showing the result of the interior charring (or maybe it's from all of my hot air floating about!).


Slàinte