Are there limits on what you can do at home?

[ChrisTaylor]

The other day, I got into a bit of a dispute about home made spirits. I'm of the opinion that a single malt whisky, Cognac, etc is a beautiful product. A carefully crafted beer or cider has just as much merit. Or wine, of course. It's an expression of, in some cases, hundreds of years of tradition (tradition doesn't make something inherently good, but it helps) and terroir. The environment in which these products are made (or the parts of the environment, such as the water, that are actually ingredients of the product) matters and is tied to specific place. Your favourite single malt (or wine or Cognac or etc) is still a mass produced product, yes, and I've no doubt the distillers/brewers/winemakers cut some corners or compromise to a certain extent on quality, just like a restaurant kitchen, in order to ensure they can produce a product that is economically viable and of consistent quality, but I still think these are incredible.

A guy I know, he reckons a home distiller, armed with a $1000 still purchased from the internet, can produce something superior to even the best commercial products, that a fine single malt or Cognac is essentially a poor quality product that has been refined again and again and again until it meets some sort of standard that basically says its fit for sale. A home distiller can, from the outset, produce a higher quality product. And let me be clear: I'm not trying to compare his moonshine to Talisker. He did that. He feels that commercial products are inherently inferior to something made on a small scale by someone who cares an awful lot about quality (yet at the same time is restricted, by economic and space constraints, to using 'cheap' equipment). He'll argue just as hard that home brew, if made with care, is inherently superior to even the finest of Belgian ales. Why? Because even Chimay Grand Reserve is a mass produced, mass market product. I think that a home brewer or distiller could make a nice product but he's going to be limited, even if he's rich enough to afford good quality equipment, in all manner of ways. You can't replicate the Islay environment in your Melbourne backyard. Somehow, tap water or even expensive Italian bottled water doesn't cut it. The apples you buy to make cider probably haven't come from the 300 year old orchards that make for beautiful French cider. And, too, the fact you're only aging your whisky for six months, as opposed to ten years or fifteen or twenty years, limits it to some extent.

Is there merit to his attitude as a general idea? I mean when I saw home brewing and distilling, let's be fair: let's ignore the people who use the cheapest avaliable kit and those cans of what is basically instant beer, just add water. Let's ignore the guys who add flavours to Smirnoff red. I'm happy to acknowledge some products are very doable in the home environment ... but for something as strongly tied to a specific place and manufacturing technique as a top quality beer or spirit? Forget about it. Your home brew ale might be nice for what it is but if you really think you can best a Westvleteren you're delusional.

Do you think it's possible for a home brewer or distiller--using only equipment and ingredients readily avaliable to the home distiller--to make a superior product to good examples of commercial products? Have you tasted home made beer or whisky or wine that you'd rate over even the most well-regarded commercially produced stuff?

[lesliec]

Interesting topic, Chris.

I think my short answer is 'probably not'. I can confidently state I've never had a home-made wine that came close in quality to a 'real' one. However, the longer answer involves all the things you've mentioned in your original post; years of tradition (and practice), the particular minerals and/or flavours in the local water, the varieties of fruit you use.

I wonder also whether scale doesn't contribute (positively) to quality. Once you have a recipe you're happy with, I suspect it's easier to replicate it reliably with several hundred litres of product than it is with ten or twenty (I confess ignorance of the quantities commonly produced by home brewers, but you understand what I'm saying). I imagine somebody at home can often produce something very good, and occasionally exceptional. 'Consistently exceptional' is probably a full-time job.

[IndyRob]

I was just watching some TV show that had a proud display of oak charred barrels, and thought "How long before Nathan Myrvold jumps on that train?"

I'll be honest up front and say that I don't at all get spirits such as whisky, bourbon, et. al. As an outsider they appear to be referred to in whispered tones, always with a reference to the age of the spirit, the barrels, the tradition, etc., etc.,

Yeah, right. Take the alcohol out of it and see if that sense of romance stays. Absynthe seems to be the world record holder for alcoholic hype - to the extent that it got itself banned.

I don't think that any home distiller could match the established brands. But a good one with a first class marketing department could.

[ChrisTaylor]

Well, alcohol-free beer and wine don't work, so I think it's a bit rough to say there would be something special or significant in the commercial failure of booze-free whisky. Booze is an undeniably large part of the charm of whisky. It gives it that warming, comforting quality. But if I just wanted straight booze, and didn't think much of the other stuff, I'd buy the cheapest nastiest blend or vodka I could. Or take my friend's bath tub swill in old 2L Coke bottles.

Age does make a difference. The timber does make a difference. If you taste three versions of the one product--a VS, a VSOP and a XO in the case of a Cognac--there is a significant difference in flavour. Curiously, I've always enjoyed the VS and VSOP more than the much more expensive XO.

[Dakki]

My ales taste a lot better to me than anything I've gotten in a store or a bar, probably because I've tailored them to my taste. Plus I don't have to worry as much about consistency or how well the product ships or the long-term availability of ingredients like a commercial brewer does.

That's all I've got.

[IndyRob]

Well, alcohol-free beer and wine don't work, so I think it's a bit rough to say there would be something special or significant in the commercial failure of booze-free whisky. Booze is an undeniably large part of the charm of whisky. It gives it that warming, comforting quality. But if I just wanted straight booze, and didn't think much of the other stuff, I'd buy the cheapest nastiest blend or vodka I could. Or take my friend's bath tub swill in old 2L Coke bottles.

Right. We're talking alcohol delivery systems. I just wanted to get that straight.

Age does make a difference. The timber does make a difference. If you taste three versions of the one product--a VS, a VSOP and a XO in the case of a Cognac--there is a significant difference in flavour. Curiously, I've always enjoyed the VS and VSOP more than the much more expensive XO.

Age and timber may make a difference, but does the age and timber need to come from the storing process? Many good wines are blended. Can we not simply add some of the char of wood to the manufacture? I think there are better ways to skin this cat.

[Boilerfood]

My ales taste a lot better to me than anything I've gotten in a store or a bar, probably because I've tailored them to my taste.

I think this is a larger part than we might first suspect. My roommate dabbled in homebrewing last year, and always loved his products. I personally felt that they were swill, but to him, there was something about crafting his brews from the beginning. The TLC made it taste better in his head.

[technophile50]

"Have you tasted home made beer or whisky or wine that you'd rate over even the most well-regarded commercially produced stuff?"

I had a friend who was a homebrewer and involved in a local club that had annual competitions. He was a judge, and got to keep extra bottles that contestants entered. I had the opportunity to sample a wide range of brews - he'd bring in a couple of bottles on Fridays and we'd compare them after work - it would take a few months to work through his reserve. About 30 percent I wouldn't finish, and another 30% I wouldn't drink a second sample. Maybe 30-35% were comparable in quality to commercial products. 5-10% were better than most commercial brews, although many were fortuitous accidents. There were a few home brewers that consistently entered quality products (out of a couple hundred participants). So my answer for beer is yes.

I drink Guiness & Murphys stouts, Corona, Red Stripe, Negra Modelo, Heineken, Newcastle Brown Ale, Pilsner Urquell, Grolsch, various Sam Adams offerings, the occasional Lambic, and others as the mood/availability/price point strikes.

Answering "is this homebrew IPA better than Guiness Stout" depends on what I'm in the mood for.

BTW, pro brewmasters at any commercial brewery can replicate most any style of beer, and probably tweak a recipe until their e.g. Guinness, Corona, or Fat Tire Amber Ale is indistinguishable from the real thing. The styles they make are primarily market driven, the more so the larger they get. Bud drinkers will buy a ton of Budweiser, but Bud Stout is likely to be a market failure to a corporation which expects to sell 11 billion bottles in a good year, even if it would sell a million bottles(0.01% of total production; they probably lose this many in a year).

[KD1191]

the fact you're only aging your whisky for six months, as opposed to ten years or fifteen or twenty years, limits it to some extent.

"Some extent" is far too generous, in my opinion. I've heard many experts (tongue perhaps a bit in cheek) say that all whisk(e)y is simply a solvent used to extract flavor from charred/toasted oak. To that extent, the method and means to age the product are far more important than the care with which the original distillate is produced. I don't believe that even the most passionate of home distillers could begin to approach the quality of "mass produced" single malt Scotch, finer bourbons or ryes with hobbyist-level equipment. Even with a massive investment in equipment, it would take decades to develop the skills with regard to aging that would put one on par with even middle of the road commercial distillers.

Edited March 27, 2011 by KD1191 (log)

[ChrisTaylor]

Well I'll agree with that. I was trying to be tactful as when I raised this topic yesterday I stood on more than a couple of toes--seems a lot of people with home brew kits fancy themselves master brewers or distillers. I was told that with Cognac and whisky and other aged spirits, aging is merely marketing. And of course that's a load of crap. Try a line up of a couple of different vintages of anything that matures and you'll pick that right away. Age does not necessarily improve something--that's a matter of personal taste--but it does change it a lot. The difference between a VS and XO Cognac is astounding. That aside, even if you were aging your bathtub swill, how the hell would you get old sherry casks or whatever? And even if you could get those, I seriously doubt your product would even approach the quality of an old oxidised bottle of cheap blended scotch.

On the beer note, some beers--Guiness, Stella Artois come to mind--are made elsewhere in the world. As in, Stella is a Belgian beer but it's also brewed under licence in Australia and, probably, other places. The recipe is the same but the terroir cannot be replicated. There is therefore a flavour difference. I can only think of one beer--and that's the Nigerian Guinness--that actually trades off that difference, points it out like it's a good thing. Water is a major contributing factor in beer. Try Duvel. It has such a unique flavour profile in large part due to the water (which supposedly runs through crappy old pipes past a graveyard or something).

Edited March 27, 2011 by ChrisTaylor (log)

[slkinsey]

Do you think it's possible for a home brewer or distiller--using only equipment and ingredients readily avaliable to the home distiller--to make a superior product to good examples of commercial products? Have you tasted home made beer or whisky or wine that you'd rate over even the most well-regarded commercially produced stuff?

Yea, sure it is. If you have the right equipment, expertise and, perhaps most importantly, time.

Let's say you're making bourbon or rye whiskey, for example. And let's say that you have the expertise and experience to put together a great mashbill and get your hands on some top quality grains that you malted and fermented yourself. And let's say that you have the kind of equipment that is available to a pretty good moonshiner, and you know how to run a still. At this point, you can run your still and (hopefully) get out something fairly low proof and fairly "dirty." You may think this is a bad thing, but really is wouldn't be. Why? Because you have also got your hands on a nice new charred oak barrel. You're going to dump this raw, dirty distillate into that new charred oak barrel and you're going to stash it in the corner of your tool shed where it gets pretty hot in the summer and pretty cool in the winter. You're going to keep that barrel in there for around 15 years, during which time the dirty stuff will be transformed or filtered out by aging, and the wood is going to add plenty of sweetness, smoothness and flavor. If you have all these things, plus the 15 years to age the product... yea, I think you could wind up with something at least as good as Jim Beam (which is a pretty good product). But this is all a pretty big if, and it seems highly unlikely to me. Theoretically possible, though. I think there are some traditional home distillers out there making pretty awesome products. Just not very many of them, and they're not schmos who picked up a bag of oak chips and a $1,000 column and went to town.

Keep in mind, by the way, that plenty of great products start out with crap basic ingredients (you wouldn't want to drink the wine they use to make Cognac). Aging makes a big difference.

I think my short answer is 'probably not'. I can confidently state I've never had a home-made wine that came close in quality to a 'real' one. However, the longer answer involves all the things you've mentioned in your original post; years of tradition (and practice), the particular minerals and/or flavours in the local water, the varieties of fruit you use.

Really? I have. My landlord in Italy made and barrel-aged his own vin santo that flat out blows the doors off of any other examples I've tried.

Edited March 27, 2011 by slkinsey (log)

[bostonapothecary]

the discussion here needs to properly separate the aesthetic aspects of a product from the symbolic. i think the original question is only concerned about aesthetic limits.

there are things to be gained from larger production sizes. of course you can make a wine, beer, or distillate manipulating only ten variables, but often times there are countless more variables that can be put to use, but you cannot get at them until the size of your production grows.

in wine, an example might be "punch downs" and "pump overs" which influence the extract of things like color and tannins. you do not have much control of these variables with a five gallon batch.

home distillers have a big disadvantage creating aromatized distillates (gin, absinthe) because it takes so many generations of making the product to abstract something from the aromatic ordinary to the extraordinary. if they or a large group of their friends have to drink all the product before they can start the next generation there is no chance they will get anywhere aesthetically extraordinary (and then reproduce it).

i used to make "vermouth" for the bar i worked, but eventually as i learned to take on more variables (closer to "monumentality") my batch sizes would grow and equipment costs. basically i cannot make the vermouth of my dreams for less than $10,000 and a lot of physical space we didn't have so i stopped.

you can on the other hand, make small batches (one liter of distillate at a time) of phenomenal fruit brandies with a comparative advantage. the to-be-distilled wine making process is often a simple paint by numbers process because you don't have to worry as much about non volatile aspects like tannins. you can also use tricks to simplify the cuts like constantly separating the distillate into tiny jars to taste and mix later. so the whole process becomes largely about the fruit. you can make a pretty faithful expression of that old apple tree in your back yard that season.

terroir is a widely misunderstood term because marketers love to exploit the symbolism of the word. also different abstractions of the winemaking, brewing, and distilling process either accentuate or overshadow terroir. most popular techniques in practice today overshadow terroir for the sake of consistency. terroir and consistency are definitely antonyms. terroir and "acquired taste" are often synonyms.

[IndyRob]

I was told that with Cognac and whisky and other aged spirits, aging is merely marketing. And of course that's a load of crap. Try a line up of a couple of different vintages of anything that matures and you'll pick that right away.

Sorry, I think I inartfully tried to make my point while trying to be concise. Here's what I was thinking....

First, we have a relatively simple goal. Make something that tastes like (or similar to, but better than) something else. Here, we're talking about something out of a bottle. Texture isn't really an issue. We're not talking about replicating things related to service (temperature, ice, the shape of the glass), just flavor - and maybe color and smell.

Even if we had a pure scientific method for measuring flavors, they'd be meaningless. Like colors, everyone perceives flavors differently. It's a biological fact. And, they also perceive them in the context of their own experiences. Plus, like smells, flavors can evoke memories.

That's why, if I seemed a bit dismissive, it was because the goals, in the end, are more than man man - they're mind-made.

Take the New Coke debacle. Pepsi is slaughtering Coke in blind taste tests and is picking up marketshare on the back of it. So Coke decides they need to do something about it and creates a formula that wins those taste tests. Great, now they have a better product, right? No, it's an astounding disaster.

Coke and Pepsi are both products that most people will like at first taste. But when we move in the realm of things like Scotch and Beer, we're talking more about acquired tastes (along with the reinforcing effects of alcohol). Acquired tastes necessarily involve some sort of social pressure (normally peer pressure) to get you to sample the product in the first place. That's where the marketing folks can start to play a role.

So, if I am able to create the blind taste test winning 'New Coke' of, say, Bourbon, can I ever be taken seriously? Especially if I said I did it with a bottle of vodka and a few drops of, um...(made-up word) methylcyoiodine?

Things that mature necessarily change over time. But was that ever really the goal? I suspect that spirits aged in charred oak barrels came about not because someone had an epiphany, but rather that they ran out of barrels and, rather than pouring the rest of the product on the ground, they decided to store the remaining product in those barrels behind the barn that were damaged in the last fire (after a good cleaning). And those got opened absolutely last. Then the epiphany came.

But does something need to be twelve years old in order for it to be good? I don't think so.

[Blether]

... I suspect that spirits aged in charred oak barrels came about not because someone had an epiphany, but rather that they ran out of barrels and, rather than pouring the rest of the product on the ground, they decided to store the remaining product in those barrels behind the barn that were damaged in the last fire (after a good cleaning). And those got opened absolutely last. Then the epiphany came...

Nice idea, but maybe more to do with the relative cost of barrels left over from importing foreign booze, compared with barrels made new from the vast swathes of oak forest in the UK's massive area of land, that hadn't been whittled down at all for purposes like shipbuilding ? It ends up tasting too much like sherry ? "Right, let's f***ing burn 'em". That's the Scottish way...

Just as an aside, by legal definition, even the lowliest industrial-scale grain spirit cannot be called or blended into scotch whisky unless it's aged three years, IIRC.

I'm enjoying following the discussion.

[IndyRob]

... I suspect that spirits aged in charred oak barrels came about not because someone had an epiphany, but rather that they ran out of barrels and, rather than pouring the rest of the product on the ground, they decided to store the remaining product in those barrels behind the barn that were damaged in the last fire (after a good cleaning). And those got opened absolutely last. Then the epiphany came...

Nice idea, but maybe more to do with the relative cost of barrels left over from importing foreign booze, compared with barrels made new from the vast swathes of oak forest in the UK's massive area of land, that hadn't been whittled down at all for purposes like shipbuilding ?,

I would imagine that barrel re-use would have been the norm. But not necessarily using burned barrels or keeping them in the containers for any longer than it would take to distribute.

I was in Louisville, Ky. during the Maker's Mark fire some years back. It was quite the inferno. I doubt that it was the first distillery fire.

[eje]

Well, like other point out, there are pluses and minuses.

For example, at home you don't have to worry about making a profit on whatever it is you are crafting, be it infused liqueur or distilled spirit.

On the other hand, some things don't really work out that well on a small scale. I'd agree with bostonapothecary, in the amounts a home or even bar can have access to wine and have the space to age and tweak things, Dry Vermouth doesn't really work out, especially since it has a relatively short shelf life once opened. Sure you can make some interesting wine based infusions, but really is it going to be that much more exciting that Dolin or Noilly Prat? You're really just reinventing the wheel with dry vermouth.

Barolo Chinato type experiments, where you are working with larger flavors, are perfect for home.

Same with liqueurs, some work on a small scale, some just are never as good as what you can buy. For example, I've never tasted a homemade Apricot liqueur that comes anywhere near close to commercial products.

In the case of syrups, on the other hand, with some care and good ingredients, in many cases the person at home can easily out do much of what is commercially available.

I assume it is the same with distilling, there are some things that may only really work once you get to a certain batch size and/or certain size or type of still.

You just have to pick your battles, I guess, and realize you will probably never make a very good whiskey at home. However, you can pretty easily make an Orgeat or Lemon Syrup that outstrips anything that Monin or Torani have on the market.

Edited March 29, 2011 by eje (log)

[KD1191]

I suspect that spirits aged in charred oak barrels came about not because someone had an epiphany, but rather that they ran out of barrels and, rather than pouring the rest of the product on the ground, they decided to store the remaining product in those barrels behind the barn that were damaged in the last fire (after a good cleaning). And those got opened absolutely last. Then the epiphany came.

I have no idea how apocryphal it may be, but during various distillery tours in Kentucky we were told the story of thrifty Baptist preacher Elijah Craig, who more-or-less invented Bourbon when instead of tossing out some barrels that had been charred in a fire, he filled them up with whiskey and sent them on their way to New Orleans anyhow. Supposedly even on the short ride, the flavors of the oak were expressed in a positive manner and the preacher's whiskey was a hit...

But does something need to be twelve years old in order for it to be good? I don't think so.

Every time some of the spirit goes in an out of the wood you're going to change the overall flavor of the final product.

Of course it doesn't need to be twelve years old in order for it to be good, but in the vast majority of cases, it sure as heck helps. There are exceptions, of course. I believe it's Woodford that uses temperature controlled warehouses, which they cycle through hot and cold temperatures to essentially hyper-age their product with far less time.

[Blether]

Over at homedistiller.org, there's a chap who says:

The history that wound up with american whiskeys being mandated by law to be aged in new charred barrels is long and convoluted and not just a little bit stupid but it has as its very earliest beginnings the distillers of Pennsylvania and Kentucky using the used barrels which had been sent "out west" to them filled with salt fish and axle grease and whale oil and all manner of other yummy things... they fired out the insides of the barrels and sometimes gave them a scrape to get some of the residual flavor out of them.

They were not trying to use barrels for aging. They were using whatever containers were handy... and their Scots-Irish heritage wasn't about to allow a little salt cod flavor to cheat them out of the use of a free barrel.

"Dad was a drunk with a fishing problem".

Gotta love that signature.

[Blether]

Whisky: Technology, Production and Marketing by Inge Russell says that the three-year minimum aging was only introduced during the First World War to reduce the volume coming on to the market and prevent drunkenness in munitions factory workers.

[Dakki]

I should read up to find the context but I'll ask, is that for USA or UK whiskies?

Spelling seems to indicate Scotch but the last post was about American whiskey.

[Blether]

... is that for USA or UK whiskies? ...

Scotch, per post #14, old boy.