Page 43 - Craft of Whiskey Distilling

AmErICAn DIstIllInG InstItutE | 31
Whiskey in North America is distilled in two different ways. One is by continuous distillation in a column still, and the other is by an intermittent process in batch stills.
The aim of this chapter is to provide detailed instructions on how to distill the 945 gallons of malt wash produced in C hapter 3 to produce 53 gallons (1 barrel) of 120 proof (barrel strength) malt whiskey. The instructions are based using the 240-gallon copper pot still to do the primary distillation, and the 90-gallon German pot still to do the second (final) distillation.
bACkgROuND
Whiskey in North America is distilled in two different ways. One is by continuous distil- lation in a column still, and the other is by an intermittent process in batch stills. Batch stills are stills that have a pot that is filled with a fixed quantity of the substrate to be dis- tilled (i.e. a batch). There are basically two methods of pot distillation.
Method One Two distillation runs are done using the same still for both runs. The spirit still is run with the plates open, and a primary distillation is done on all the wash. This run produces a low wine of 25 to 55% abv depending on the alcohol of the wash and speed of the run.
Then a spirit run is done on the low wine produced by the primary distillation using the same still with one plate down to produce a yield 70 to 75% abv. This is watered back to 60% abv and barreled.