Back in February when I was in Scotland I toured Glengoyne Distilling just outside the Glasgow suburb of Milngavie. I was seriously impressed with how open and welcoming the team was at Glengoyne – in particular my tour guide Jo-Anne.
I learned that many Scotch distillers use something called Distiller’s Malt – which is a malt barley more highly modified than the usual 2-row pale malt commonly available in North America. A higher degree of modification means that the sprouted grains have been dried “low and slow”. The naturally occurring enzymes in the grain thus are more apt to survive the drying process. In the typical Pale Malt, the drying process is quicker and many of the natural enzymes are killed off, save for Alpha amylase and Beta amylase.
Back in Canada, I recently approached my grain distributor ( Western Malt Distributors in Saskatoon) to inquire about Distiller’s Malt. I soon learned that it is available through Cargill (USA) – so I ordered 6 bags. More costly than the regular Pale Malt – but such is the tuition cost of learning. Upon opening the first bag – I was hit with beautiful malty, biscuit-like aromas. For sure – different than the standard Pale Malt.
As I sit here on this Saturday morning, I am doing that final 2 mashes from these 6 bags. My arms are sore and so they ought to be. Hand-cranking 300 pounds of grain through my little roller mill is a lot of work. No need to visit the gym this month!
Each mash was remarkably consistent giving me 21 Brix after a 63C rest and a 72C rest. What’s more the sweet goodness of this malt was beyond beautiful. To add to the flavor, I included in each mash some Simpson’s Smoked Malt (27 ppm phenol) and some Chocolate Malt.
I fermented all my mashes with Lallemand MW yeast for 5 days. I then did stripping runs on my 60 L A’lembic still and ran each run until my hydrometer read 10%. In other words, I stripped everything out.
The stripped distillate was then re-distilled in my 20L A’lembic. The majority of these spirits runs came off at 85% and towards the end of the run, tailed off. I stopped collecting when my hydrometer read 55-60%. each spirits run yielded on average a distillate that was about 72-75% alc. It was interesting to taste these late runnings when teh hydrometer was at or near 60%. The notes of chocolate (from the Chocolate Malt) were very evident.
I have now about filled a 56L barrel at 58% alc and that barrel shall rest for at least 3 years. I think this is going to be a fabulous product.
If you can get your hands on some Distiller’s Malt, give it a go. I think you will be impressed.
Oh…and by the way…if you are curious about the next 5 Day Distillery Workshop – it is set for the week of Sept 11th at Urban Distilleries in Kelowna, BC. See their website for registration details. There might be one more in late October – but my Heriot Watt M.Sc. school work is going to again take priority for me….. I have one more course to do this Fall and will be starting my thesis project as well.
