THE MAKING OF WHISKY

Malting

After it has been harvested, barley contains starch which is a non fermentiscible sugar. The process of malting is aimed at transforming this starch in a fermentiscible sugar which itself will be able to be transformed into alcohol.

To start with, barley is soaked in water for two or three days before being spread as a layer approximately twenty to thirty cm thick on the malting area made as a wide flat concrete surface. This is where its germination will start, lasting for about eight days.

Barley will have to be turned over several times a day with wooden shovels so as to allow steady and uniform germination, and its temperature will be controlled permanently. Once the starch has been transformed into sugar, germination will be stopped through the heating of the barley in a kiln during 20 to 48 hours.

Heat will be provided by the burning of coal and to a varying degree by the burning of peat. the smoke of the latest will impart to the malt a character and aromas of very specific type which will be found in the finished product, the peatiest whiskies being those from the island of Islay.

 

Nowadays, the majority of malts are produced in industrial malting plants, where the process take place in large horizontal steel drums including a perforated bed on which lays the barley, turning on themselves and through which vaporized water then hot air are spread.

 

Milling
The malt is then ground in a mill containing two or three pairs of steel rollers and transformed into grist. The latest must consist of about 10% flour, 20% husks and 70% "middles" or actual grist to allow for a satisfying mashing.