Alcohol Distillation and Flavor Extraction
Making homemade natural extracts to add deliciously intense flavors to your favorite recipes has never been simpler or cheaper! Ingredients are mixed in ethanol as a solvent to preserve their flavors without them diminishing with age. Extracts are commonly made using fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices diluted in alcohol as this allows the flavors to remain intact over time. These can be purchased from home brewing stores at reduced rates while their alcohol content also makes them more concentrated and long-lived than store bought versions.
Alcohol distillation involves the separation of ethyl alcohol from water using the process of vaporization and condensation. Fermented liquid is heated to a temperature that first vaporizes alcohol before drawing off a portion through an arm connected to a coil submerged in cool water that condenses its vapor back into liquid state, before being collected, separated, purified according to desired spirit being created and finally collected for final collection and separation into various fractions and purification steps.
Distillation is what separates spirits from beer, wine and other non-distilled alcoholic beverages, such as after work brews. Whisky distillery wash (the fermented liquid made from barley, water and yeast) loaded into its still typically contains around 8 percent alcohol – less than what’s found in an after work beer or drink at work – however by the time it has been turned into Scotch whisky it has undergone multiple distillation steps to reach 75% proof!
