THE GREAT SCOTCH WHISKY EXPERIENCE
The Ingredients
Scotch Whisky is made using 3 natural products; malted barley, water and yeast.
Water is naturally available in abundance all across Scotland, which adds a certain characteristic to the flavour of whiskies from each region.
As per the regulations, Barley is the only grain permitted to be used to make Scotch whisky. Selection of Barley is extremely critical and follows stringent requirements of quality standards to ensure the right germination and in turn, the yield.
The Yeast is the secret ingredient, unique to each Distillery, jokingly compared to KFC’s secret spice ingredient.
Malting
Malting is the controlled germination of the Barley to a malt, which contains a high content of starches and enzymes capable of converting the starch to fermentable sugar. For this, the Barley is first steeped in cool water for 2 days, roused with cool air to manifest germination. After steeping, the grain is kept at a controlled temperature and humidity in a cool environment, to allow it to germinate for over 6 to 10 days.
To prevent the roots from matting against each other, the grain is turned frequently in a revolving
drum.
Once germinated, the malt is ready for kilning. Kilning is done for a couple of important reasons -
- Drying the malt down to a moisture of less that 5%, to ensure grinding of the malt in the mill
will be proper.
- To produce flavours which are caused partly by the drying of the malt and partly by the absorption of heat through the openings in the grains. In the islands where there are few trees, peat is used as the source of heat for kilning. This is where peated whiskies get their
traditional strong-smoky flavour. The smokiness of the flavour will be characterised by the amount of peat used for kilning.
The dried malt is then transferred to the milling section; where it is dressed, weighed and ground
down to product a ‘grist’ suitable for mashing. Dressing is where the unwanted rootlets of the dried
malt are separated. The consistency of the grist is most crucial to the extraction of sugars during
mashing.