CJ article Brown Forman

[bobbyc]

This

Article

was in Sundays Louisville Courier Journal. 2 noteworthy items to discuss here.

Hint ; it has nothing to do with Jack and Coke.

[Barrel_Proof]

First there were Erlenmeyer flasks. Could Griffin beakers be next?

Better drinking through chemistry.

[bobbyc]

Who are those guys ( and Gals) drinking from those flasks?

<font color="red"> Why are they all smiling ? </font>

<font color="blue"> They are so smug!</font>

[brendaj]

Bpbby,

Thanks for the link.

I found this interesting...

"Because of commercialization of the forests, we're seeing a lot of younger trees going into our barrels — that's something we really are concerned about," Lioutas said. "Younger trees don't give you the same flavor.

never thought about that before.

Bj

[bobbyc]

Well Brenda you have cut to the chase here. That's one of the things I think noteworthy to discuss here. Some time ago someone asked if there is plenty of oak left to supply this industry. It was answered in the affirmative , there's plenty. Now I know that the Eastern Hardwood forest of the United States is a pretty big place. After seeing this, one wonders.

[brendaj]

Bobby,

Reminds me of the conversation last night in the chat room about pressure cooking with strips of oak (jump on in here Chris... ). Using less wood and speeding up the aging process.

This is starting to creep me out...

Bj

[bobbyc]

I want to say I am not in favor of changing the barrel. I find it interesting that they can break down a sample of bourbon and know which part of the country the wood in the barrel came from. I also find it incredible that if Bourbon hadn't developed as it did , and did not exist today, we would never find it. It was all chance meetings of things. No stainless steel barrels or plastic in those days. Good thing pine is knotty for the most part and White Oak is straight grained and easily split. Could you imagine a future for a drink that picked up turpentine and Creosote flavors from the barrel?Maybe there's room in the future for an alcohol based drink with essense of oak added. At my age, thankfully I won't be around when it catches on! One more thing, there's nothing to be saved by not making barrels from white oak, except a piece of furniture or something. If they don't harvest and utilize them, all you get for a couple hundred years of growth is a pickup truck load of compost.

[tdelling]

>Good thing pine is knotty for the most part and White Oak is straight

>grained and easily split. Could you imagine a future for a drink that

>picked up turpentine and Creosote flavors from the barrel?

Well, pine would be terrible. There are distilleries around the world

experimenting with other woods for maturation. I've seen mention of

cedar, spruce, alder, and birch. There are probably others, too.

>Maybe there's room in the future for an alcohol based drink with essense

>of oak added.

I certainly think so, as long as it's done well. I think that

Southern Comfort could come out with a "top shelf" version, completely

reformulated. If we're using essences, it's better to keep the word

"whiskey" off the label. (Shame on the Canadians, with their additives...)

I'm a little surprised that whiskey makers don't follow the lead of the

winemakers, and add oak chips (or even sawdust) to the barrels during

maturation. I suppose with heavily charred barrels, it would just be

an unneccessary expense.

Tim Dellinger

[bobbyc]

Doesn't Budwieser age in Beechwood barrels?

[jeff]

That's not a good argument in favor of Beechwood Bobby

[Gillman]

Bobby, Budweiser does not age its beer in beechwood barrels. Rather, beechwood chips are added to tanks of newly fermented beer to precipitate out residual yeast and protein particles. The concept, in other words, is clarification, not maturation or imparting woody flavour. Sam Cecil has written that experiments were done in the 1940's to add wood chips to whiskey to hurry up the aging process, but it didn't work, so they went back to the old way of aging.

Gary

[bobbyc]

Gary, I remember now , they only claim "Beechwood Aged".Without going too far afield here, In another post where discussing the vatting of light and overaged Bourbons sound intriguing. It's on the " to do" list

[Blackkeno]

Shame on the Candians? Althought they can add a variety of things, can you guess what they add most often? ...BOURBON! So give them SOME credit. (I think...)

[Gillman]

Well, most Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S. border, and we have the same general cultural background as Americans, and now we have NAFTA, so the differences are not as great as they once seemed..

Bobby is right of course that Budweiser claims beechwood aging. Adding the wood chips (which I believe are sterilised to take out the wood taste) is part of the production process, so it is a type of aging, to produce a clear product. The beechwood method is an old European method of filtration of beer, still followed here and there around the world.

Adding an older woody bourbon to a younger sharp/grainy one will impart some wood taste to the whole, so it is kind of a short cut, but it works to a degree, I have tried it before.

Maybe adding charred oak wood chips to barrels of young whiskey did not fully copy the normal-aged product because while the char taste would get in faster to the young whiskey, the oxidation process (air converting congeners to fruity esters and other pleasing flavours) isn't speeded up in the same way.

Gary

[doubleblank]

Could you imagine a future for a drink that picked up turpentine and Creosote flavors from the barrel?Maybe there's room in the future for an alcohol based drink with essense of oak added.

The Greek wine trade makes a white wine called Retsina in which they add pine essence (tar). It tastes and smells like good 'ol PineSol. They say it helps digest the greasy lamb they like to eat. It is definitely a taste not to be acquired. It is a common practice around the world for the wine industry to add oak chips to large stainless steel tanks of wine in order to add oak flavors to less expensive wines. Enough about wine....back to bourbon.