Page 66 - Craft of Whiskey Distilling

AmErICAn DIstIllInG InstItutE | 55
Method
First, the barrel is emptied into the vat and the exact quantity and percent alcohol of the whiskey is measured. Since there’s only the one barrel, there won’t be any vatting done.
Malt whiskey aged in a once-used barrel is not normally treated with activated carbon, so we won’t be doing an activated-carbon treatment on the whiskey.
The target bottling strength is 43% abv, and since the whiskey is not going to be acti- vated-carbon treated, but it is going to be filtered through a coarse plate filter, the initial dilution should be 2% above the final bottling strength (i.e. 45% abv). Knowing the exact volume and percent alcohol of the whiskey, dilute it to 45% abv using the following formula
Quantity of pure water = volume of whiskey X %abv of whiskey / 0.45 - vol- ume of whiskey
example: Say, there were 30 gallons of whiskey at 60% ab
Quantity of pure water = 30 gallons X 0.6 / 0.45 - 30 gallon = 10.0 gallons of pure water
After diluting the 30 gallons of 60% whiskey with 10.0 gallons of pure water, there would be 40 gallons of 45% whiskey. Next, the whiskey is filtered through a coarse plate filter to remove the tiny particles of wood and char. The plate filter should be set up with coarse filter pads that have been thoroughly wet with water. Before filtering the whiskey, run about 10 gallons of tap water through the filter to eliminate any cardboard-like flavor from the pads. Try and empty as much water as possible out of the filter unit after rinsing with the 10 gallons of water before running the whiskey through. It’s important to make sure the receiving container is clean and lint free.After the whiskey is filtered, it can be diluted to its final bottling strength (i.e. 43% abv). To do this, it’s best to run the diluting water through the filter after the whiskey to make sure it’s completely particle free. This will also serve to rinse the last traces of whiskey left in the filter into the diluting water.
At this point, there should be more than 41 gallons of 43% whiskey ready to be bottled, Prepare the bottling machine and bottle the whiskey. This should produce well over 200 750ml bottles of malt whiskey. That’s about 17 cases.