Whisky distillery

Akunna, J. C., Clark, M. (2000). Performance of a granular-bed anaerobic baffled reactor (GRABBR) treating whisky distillery wastewater. Bioresource Technology, 73(3), 257-261. 

In distilling, the soluble materials may be extracted, as in brewing, or the whole mass fermented, the alcohol then being distilled off. The residue after filtration is sold as wet or dried distiller s grains. In Scotland, whisky distilleries are either malt or grain types (Fig. 22.4). The former use barley malt alone, whereas the latter use a mixture of cereals, which may include barley, maize, wheat and oats. 

In 2011, a Scottish whisky distillery sent unmatured spirit and charred oak in two separate samples into space in a Russian cargo ship. Once in orbit, the contents were mixed and left to mature over two years under zero gravity conditions. In collaboration with space scientists, the experiment hopes to learn much about how flavors develop, with applications to food and perfume chemistry. For scotch fans, it may lead to the discovery of new chemical building blocks adding to the tasting spectrum. 

Much of the drinks industry relies on distillation as a key stage in the preparation of alcoholic beverages. Distillation is crucial to the preparation of whisky — hence the reason that these plants are often known as distilleries (Figure 2.7a). The key ingredients of whisky are water, peat and barley, and the sources of these and the types of soil that they come from are said to be the key in producing the variations in flavour between the differing brands of malt whisky. 

All distilleries have differing shapes of distillation flasks (Figure 2.7b), and all will claim that theirs is the best The whisky is normally distilled twice once in the wash-still to produce the low, taking the concentration of alcohol up to 22%, and then a second time as the low contains impurities. This takes the alcohol level to 68%. It is the middle cut or middle section of this second distillation which becomes the whisky beloved by many. 

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