pH of Aged (and not so aged) Spirits

Eucyblues

I did a bit of a search and couldn't find this topic so here goes..

Some time ago in my never ending quest for 20yr old spirits in 20 days (or weeks - I am a patient man after all).. I grabbed my pH meter and ran amok amongst my grog and all the bottles of commercial spirits I had on hand - wrote the figures and date on the bottles/containers

The upshot of this (as you may suspect) is that pH is a very reliable indicator of the age of a spirit.

The lowest reading of 3.64 was from a 21yr old Glenfiddich.

Other examples:

• 12yr Chivas 4.05
• JD black label 3.89
• My 3yr old stuff - all gone (new years resolution - keep some)
• My 2yr old stuff about 4.35 (lovingly aerated/warmed/coddled)
• My 1yr old stuff about 4.6 av.

I can confirm that in the limited time I have been checking, the pH of my various bottled commercial spirit has not changed - ie lends weight to the belief that in the absence of oak and air 'exchange' - aging ceases on bottling (for all practical purposes)

Allowing for differences between meters, it would be interesting to see results from others - keeping a check like this does give a valuable measure of time changes in your spirit

Cheers

Eucyblues

Another noteworthy one is my JW Blue - pH3.98 - indicates the whiskies in that blend may only be 12yrs old on average

grim

Very nice work!

Studies with Brandy. I. pH - J. F. Guymon, N. E. Tolbert, and M. A. Amerine (PDF)

grim

Smaug

Excellent posts

Eucyblues

4.6 to 4.3 doesn't sound like much - but it's roughly a doubling of the acidity in 12 months if my maths moles are correct

A few more examples:

Rum

• Ron Matusalem 15yr Rum (Solera system so multiple ages) 4.05
• Beenleigh 5yr 4.2
• My Rum May 2015 - cooked 6 days (ref dunder thread) 4.52

Whisky

• Abelour A'bunadh (no age statement) 3.72
• Glenfiddich Cask Collection (no age statement) 3.85
• Bowmore 15yr (peated) 3.94
• Laphroaig 10yr (peated) 3.94
• Jura Superstition (no age statement) 4.09
• Caol Ila 12yr (peated) 4.10 (surprising)

What can be gleaned from this

1. wrt forced aging (dunder thread) - the 6 days cooking does seem to result in about 12 months aging (or a bit more) if measured solely by acidity - I may run my May15 rum through the cycle again to see what happens - undecided because it's tasting surpsrisingly 'old' already and I don't want to stuff it up - probably would need to do it without oak present- just act on the oak chems already extracted (it's fairly dark already)
2. There's most likely a slowing of reaction over time and if you can get your spirits down close to 4.0 then you could rightly claim they're pretty much done - it'll be interesting to check mine again at 3 years
3. Should test a sample pre and after nuking - my wild guess is that the acidity will be largely unaffected and if that's the case, nuking may not accelerate ester production

PS - I also tested a few vodkas - you can immediately tell which ones have been heavily charcoal filtered - eg Smirnoff 8.6 vs Mishka 7.5

Smaug

Interesting that you make those observations.

Dunderhead used to say that anything over 5 (or was it 7?) years old was just for bragging rights.

Eucyblues

I'd have to agree in general with that - but the 21yr Glenfiddich is a VERY nice drop

I'd more agree that the effect of years of aging have to take into account the environment. Warm climate spirits age faster than cold climate ones - So if you're using age as a guide - it logically should only apply to the same/similar climate grouping.

eg: - Jim Beam White 3yrs? - pH 3.75 (surprising that one) , JD Black 8 yrs 3.89 Appleton V/X rum 3.70, Pussers Rum 3.88, - All warm climate spirits equivalent in acid levels to much older cool/cold climate spirits

So for small scale use, keeping spirit temperatures elevated will significantly accelerate aging reactions (when combined with regular aeration if not barrel stored)

In a separate set of tests started in Feb 2014, I set aside 4 one litre jars of 62.5% whisky (Maris Otter) with oak of different toast levels to see the long term effects.

• Jar1 was T1 (oaky) toast level
• Jar2 was T2 (sweet)
• Jar3 was T3 (vanillin)
• Jar4 was and old charred stave

In Feb 2015 I halved each of Jars 1 to 3 and oak pieces and charred the oak for a second set of parallel tests

In July 2015 pH levels of the samples were taken and the results were:

• Jar1 4.25, 4.22(C)
• Jar2 4.37, 4.45(C)
• Jar3 4.53, 4.57(C)
• Jar4 4.54

(C) = charred oak

In Dec 2015

• Jar1 4.16, 4.14(C)
• Jar2 4.25, 4.22(C)
• Jar3 4.35, 4.43(C)
• Jar4 4.38

So it seems the lower the level of toast the higher the early acid development is, and with the exception of Jar 1, the immediate effect of charring is to decrease the acid level (as you might expect)

Across all samples the acid level has increased by between 0.1 and 0.2pH (approx) in 5 months

Overlaid on this is the actual smell and taste difference between the samples - Too much to go into but the tests continue.....

grim

The rums don't surprise me

Smaug

Yeah I have to say that 15 yo Barbancourt is pretty darn good. I have not sampled it against their younger versions.

FloridaCracker

Has anyone done any pH tests on US treated spirit, before and after or after a short age?

Eucyblues

@FloridaCracker said: Has anyone done any pH tests on US treated spirit, before and after or after a short age?

Seems not ...

PS Happy New Year all...

FloridaCracker

Guess I found my next project. Should be pretty easy though, as I have about 8 liters of neutral that I ran 2 weeks ago that's getting ready to go into the US machine. Results may be within a week. Stay tuned but I wouldn't think that there would be much of a change. Also, my pH meter is a cheap one which may negate minor changes.

Eucyblues

I'm loath to mention this because of the dangers, but as I don't have a US machine, I once tried using an ultrasonic pond mister - (chinese) submerged (just) in 62.5% oaked rum or whisky (can't remember which) in a sealed food grade container - It had an effect - firstly the 'jet' of al from the vibrator was so hot it burnt a hole in the lid of the container - this fixed with a deeper container - then all went (safely) well and I ran it for a few hours at a time over a few days - The obvious visual effect was that I had a black deposit of tiny clusters of what I assume were oak components - I decided that the long term prospects of a chinese electrical item remaining insulated in alcohol were slim and gave it up - Oh the things we do .... X(

Johnboy

@Eucyblues said: I'm loath to mention this because of the dangers, but as I don't have a US machine, I once tried using an ultrasonic pond mister - (chinese) submerged (just) in 62.5% oaked rum or whisky (can't remember which) in a sealed food grade container - It had an effect - firstly the 'jet' of al from the vibrator was so hot it burnt a hole in the lid of the container - this fixed with a deeper container - then all went (safely) well and I ran it for a few hours at a time over a few days - The obvious visual effect was that I had a black deposit of tiny clusters of what I assume were oak components - I decided that the long term prospects of a chinese electrical item remaining insulated in alcohol were slim and gave it up - Oh the things we do .... X(

Why fuck around with a Setup like that when a cheap purpose built US machine can be had for about $100

Johnboy

Also I no longer U.S. Oaked product as I've have the tannin separate from the spirit resulting in a cloudy batch of spirit made slightly better by adding glycerine to help bind then back together

FloridaCracker

I have posted on the US thread here that subjecting an oaked spirit to US is not a good idea for the reasons that you stated. It will murk up a clear whiskey and give you something that may never clear up. I now only use it on clear spirits and have noticed enough of a difference that it is done to everything that comes out of my rig. I also upgraded to a 6L capacity that makes things go a lot quicker. It has a timer that goes past 8 minutes (I think to 30) although I just do 2 15 minute runs because the instructions say that past 15 minutes may shorten the life of the unit.

Oh, it was $125 US shipped to my door.

Eucyblues

@Johnboy said: Why fuck around with a Setup like that when a cheap purpose built US machine can be had for about $100

Simple - A short experiment - I had a mister - I didn't have a US machine and I had no idea if it would be effective - and they were considerably more than $100 when i did it

PS - my oaked spirit didn't cloud - maybe a slightly different effect..

I haven't bothered with it since - maybe I should