distilling

Alcohol distillation is a delicate and intricate process, demanding the skills and expertise of an accomplished distiller to successfully complete it. At its heart lies producing a faultless distillate; any flaw could jeopardise both quality and acceptability of your final product.

Distillers employ fractional distillation to separate alcohol from its water components in fermentation mixtures, heating until all of it evaporates and collecting the vapor collected – known as fractional distillation – before cooling it and condensing alcohol from water molecules, thus isolating it from other components of spirit production. If there are unwanted components or ‘congeners’ which don’t evaporate with ethanol evaporating they must be separated out using various techniques (for more details please see Harold McGee’s wonderful book On Food and Cooking).

Ethanol has a lower boiling point than water, yet has higher vapor pressure due to its greater mass and surface tension, causing it to evaporate more quickly than water – leading to its composition being made up primarily of lower order alcohols such as propanol, butanol, and amyl alcohols (collectively known as fusel oils).

These volatile aroma compounds produce an unpleasant and bitter flavor. Their fumes numb the nose of distillers, and unless filtered out they alter the flavor of spirit. Therefore, it is vitally important that tasting vessels be selected with care; an engineered tasting vessel can reduce severe ethanol olfactory numbing while improving aroma definition for those evaluating, judging, rating or distilling spirits.

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!