Instantly Age Alcohol - Ultrasonic Treatment

this is normal white rum and this is rum that's been barrel-aged for several years or at least that's what you'd think if you saw or tasted it but in reality they're the same rum from the same bottle the only difference between them is 30 minutes with the right kind of wood chips and an ultrasonic cleaning bath today we're going to look at how you can rapidly barrel-aged a variety of liquids both alcoholic and odd in only 30 minutes it's very rare that one of my projects starts with the sentence there's no way it's that easy and doesn't turn into a month-long ordeal with dozens of tests and trials to try and make that easy thing happen but today I'm excited to show off one that really was almost too easy and worked on the first go the basic idea is simple normally to make good alcohol especially distilled spirits and wine their flavor is slowly developed over many years by aging them usually inside wooden barrels there's some of a handful of food products they get better and not worse with age but that ageing time is one of the things that can make alcohol so expensive having to keep the product literally in a basement for five to thirty or more years obviously slows down how fast you can make a top-quality product and so you can charge a premium for it but what happens if you could cut that time down from years to minutes you'd get a top quality product that you could churn out while your competition is left waiting for their liquids to do their thing the slow way and while I can't promise the technique I'll show you is a hundred percent as good as leaving things to slowly aged for decades it does a damn fine job and gives a product that is remarkably tasty and at the very least many months further through the aging process after only 30 minutes the trick to the rapid aging process is to use ultrasound we've talked about ultrasound a lot on this channel as it can do some really weird interesting things recently we used it to punch water so hard that light came out it's a pretty remarkable technology that's often overlooked or neglected but can be a very powerful tool depending on your application today we'll be using one of these ultrasonic cleaning baths as I mentioned as you might expect people typically use them for cleaning usually tools or jewelry but we'll be using it to age a wide variety of liquids the one other thing we'll need for the process is our barrel substitute a lot of the flavor you get from aging actually comes from the various molecules in the wood of the barrel itself slowly and liquid these compounds can then go on to react with oxygen and compounds in the liquid that's being aged to develop that complex rich flavor so we need some of the wood itself to provide these compounds so the reactions can take place and also the compounds themselves add a nice flavor conveniently you can just buy a bag of chips made of used barrels that have been put through a wood chipper there's a wide variety of these available online with everything from cognac barrel chips to red wine tequila and more these will each impart a slightly different flavor and come in different levels of roasted so you can really mix and match to get the exact flavor you want the first time we tried this we used a normal dirt cheap jewelry cleaner and some cognac barrel chips we of course wanted to see how distilled spirits behaved but also wondered how other liquids behaved as well so we tried some vodka apple cider and some heavy cream for something really out of left field to get started all we did was fill a jar 3/4 of the way with our test liquid and then add about 1/4 cup of cognac barrel chips to each jar the little jewelry cleaner can only hold a single jar and do five minutes at a time so we cycled between each jar and just kept hitting the button until all three had gone through 30 minutes of sonic exposure the vodka was by far the most different appearance-wise and had taken on a caramel brown color which had intensified after each five-minute cycle the cider and cream were harder to see a change though to make these drinkable one at a time they were strained to removed the wood chips now let's give him a taste test to see how they turned out i filmed this first part of the video while I was in Indiana visiting my friend Gabriel so here we are both giving our freshly sonicated a try [Music] the oak on the milk bowl okay bird okay I mean it's it'll smells like vodka similar brother girl call it's just the I'm gonna clean my mouth Oh intensely buckets like not a lot of taste to it yeah well mostly mostly just Bernie and alcohol tastes like it doesn't really there's no there's literally there's no vodka yeah yeah it's a you know put it in the cocktail but otherwise no drinking I taking a big huff of vodka just isn't something anyone ever does it was like it was like oh that's a great bouquet know basically alcohols doesn't actually I mean there's like a weird little tan any kind of snow but it doesn't actually smell yeah I mean there's a little bit extra but yeah it's still mostly just smells like however our color is yeah nice day like absolutely ninety day there's no it's literally other person okay do this wrong okay but you can't don't say anything I want to be surprised I'm not even gonna look at your face really good it does kind of have that like barrel-aged issue like I feel like also we're working with vodka here yeah it's not really a tasty spirit just know I think the vodkas too clean actually I don't think it's reacting with the other things that are in but if there was like a Carly ish note to it you do get the the like okie there's also a little but no I mean it does kind of have that like like reminiscent of whiskey ish to it well considering that started as vodka and now there's actually some extra flavor in there it's it's see dissipate okay so here's the thing if you add a bit of lemon and honey in there I mean at the very least this is a great ingredient for like a cocktail like it's a it's taken vodka from just kind of like and now you are drunk and you're drinking super juice to like you can actually build on this like it's something you could like work into a cocktails not solid lead on that oh yes I'm going to be this is the apple cider so it got a little bit darker it got a little bit of color I'm actually interested just like I'm starting to think that it's also the things in the liquid interacting it all costs it makes you wonder like what else we could put in here other than just the straight wood chips like if there's something else kind of tight I'd like to give it more quinoa amaranth no seriously though you can probably put lots of stuff but yeah so it's just it's I mean that's pretty good cider yep it's a some Michigan swishing an apple cider Michigan apple cider it's tasty solid that's over this monstrosity I'm excited good I'm more excited about this than I about the milk okay no sense of exploration I mean the smell on this one's better it's like it's closer to almost Apple Piyush like it is that's kind of cool I'm excited I've given these notes of October 29th I mean Halloween the 29 yeah my bad dude dude in the home line yeah so that's that is a winner right there I would I would need a [ __ ] ton of that can we do actual true so we can't you're in America we have Amazon that's true that is fantastic that is absolutely fantastic that's hurt but that went from like it's just solid cider - it's not like a like a caramel II know you know candle smoky this is awesome that is solid wait okay we're gonna finish the tasting and we're going to make something all right this is Amish creme fraiche rough from the Amish ridiculously dank cream plain normal straight from the cow mostly buy a bottle of the Amish yeah great yes for the dough creep yeah it all wanted me to taste butter which is impressive considering its cream feels pretty good that's all this is gonna be weird definitely that one cuz yeah I mean it's it's so oily it's ya know this is no so oily yeah it's so good though yeah nice you creep tell me cheese oh that's gonna be great okay let's try this first thing I'm telling you that's there that we made but we definitely made all presumably Sonic Youth's ultrasonic butter by accident the ultrasonic oak barrel butter that actually sounds pretty good yeah okay okay okay now okay that's [ __ ] that's awesome we don't need the ball [ __ ] this is oh that is great so for like a for a for a one day experiment of like just messing around I just like those cognac chips like $10 yeah I was like 10 it was 10 bucks for vodka a box of a box a bag of so it was like 10 it was 10 bucks for a bag of this stuff before we get to cocktail time because we were so thrilled with the results as soon as I got home I wanted to really put the process through its paces to start I want to try some alcohols that have a little more to them than vodka so this time we're going to try a couple different wines some rum and for a wild card some coffee the wines aren't necessarily a great test though as I bought the wine from a store and had already been aged a bit a more fair test would be to start with a wine that had been freshly fermented and find to remove particulate but otherwise hadn't been aged the coffee I'll be using today was actually provided by the sponsor of today's video trade coffee I love coffee but have always been picky when it came to finding the right one for me otherwise I end up just drowning in milk and sugar rather than enjoying the coffee itself and also I love baking with coffee so you don't get the right kind the flavor is totally off never make muffins with instant coffee so trade is great because on their site they have this little quiz to match you with a coffee that you'll enjoy and seem to have something for everyone they work with 50 awesome Roasters so that each order is roasted fresh and have a great selection of ethically sourced coffee I ended up going with a pre-ground coffee called John Brown and an unground bag of one called Huck I wanted something not too dark so it has a nice smooth flavor with minimal bitterness for today's experiment I'm going to be making some cold brew with the John Brown using my French press we did a bit of experimenting off-camera with ultrasonic coffee and making cold brew and then treating it with the wood chips is definite the way to go if you try and ultrasound the coffee while the coffee grounds are still in the liquid it gets super bitter and unpleasant even with really nice coffee to start with also I've just always preferred cold brew as you get that full rich flavor with minimal bitterness trade is giving the first 100 people to click the link in the description 30% off their first coffee or use coupon code thought Emporium at checkout it really is great coffee so if you're a coffee drinker and looking to find your perfect bag trade is a great place to look while the cold brew is sitting in the fridge overnight we can work on our other liquids something I didn't mention was that this whole process isn't something we came up with and was based on several research papers which I've linked to in the description not only that but professional Brewers and winemakers are legitimately starting to work this method into the production runs because it's so powerful but one thing our initial test was missing was aeration for a lot of the reactions to take place you need oxygen to get into the liquid in a barrel or bottle oxygen slowly diffuses in over many years but since we're condensing the process down we need to supply lots of oxygen for our short 30-minute runs to do that I'm going to be using a little peristaltic pump and some silicone tubing to suck up the liquid as it's being sonicated and allow it to drip back in mixing it with the air to make this easier I'm using one of these silicone fermenting lids that are meant to fit on the mason jars I'm using I can just jam the tubing through the hole on the top and it holds everything in place while preventing any of the liquids from splashing out or evaporating while also letting a bit of fresh air in through the gaps back in Canada it was a little harder to get barrel chips but what was readily available was just plain oak chips these don't have the benefit of absorbing compounds from previous batches of liquid that was stored in them like the cognac chips but they still have lots of good flavor to help bring those flavors out I laid some of the chips on a sheet tray and threw them in the oven with the broiler on for five to ten minutes until they darkened up this mimics the charring of the inside of the barrel that a traditional whiskey barrel for example has however there were red wine barrel chips available so I also picked up some of those this is going to be a lot of hours of Sonic ating for all of these tests so let's just go through the basic process first we filled the jar about half way up with our liquid here I'm using Bacardi white rum then we add our quarter cup of wood chips here I'm using the toasted oat chips that we just made next we had our special such that the input tube reaches into the liquid then screw on the top turn on the pump and pop the whole assembly into the ultrasound once it's all loaded up we just set the timer for 30 minutes and let it rip when the timer is up I turned off the pump and pulled the suction tube out so that all the remaining liquid drained back into the jar then chips and all the liquid was transferred to my French press so that I could strain it out the jar was given a quick rinse to make sure there's no wood bits left over and then the liquid was strained back into the jar I followed the same basic protocol for all of the liquids and when they were done I'd marked the top with a bit of tape so I could keep track of which were the ultrasonic ones one thing I didn't experiment with was temperature and some reports have said that heating the liquids does 60 to 80 degrees can make the process work even better but I figured with the aeration and all the different chips and liquids that would just be far too tedious to test here's all the test samples next to a control of untreated liquid we've got the rum done with both the red wine chips and the toasted oak chips red wine done with red wine chips white wine with toasted oak chips some apple cider again this time with the red wine chips and finally the coffee again done with the red wine chips just like the vodka the rum had had the most dramatic change going from clear to caramel brown and there was a noticeable difference in color between the two versions the coffee darkened up a bit which I thought was interesting the red wine looked identical but the white wine got a little bit of color to it and the apple cider also darkened slightly now it's again time for a taste test but this time my friend Nigel or as you probably know him Nile red is going to help me out so I can have an unbiased taste tester okay okay okay so this case like red wine if you like it mellowed the flavor out though like a little bit but it did taste different I thought it was a bit more yeah okay yeah I don't know I think it did kind of mellow the flavor a little bit and it was like I don't know it's because I mean the idea is aging right like so it's still gonna taste like wine regular normal it's definitely different right so like it's got some like extra flavor to it yeah I mean haven't redness no exactly go I thought it was gonna taste woody but this is plenty no like I mean even though it is technically soaked in wood no II just taste I don't know how to describe it I wasn't expecting much spine normal cider SOI like that I don't know if I actually liked it more but it's not bad nobody's just different it is different I don't know it tastes like it's been sitting in the barrels I kind of like it was these chips it was the the red wine there are the cue and smoking yeah red wine and cider I kind of like it so the reason I went with Rome is fun the first time we did this we did vodka okay and vodka is as harsh as clear spirits go whereas from my fine does a little bit more not much but it has a little bit more flavor to it it's less like drinking rubbing alcohol and more like a drink so this is like a control yes okay they did two different kinds of barrel chips this time so I did the red this is the red wine I mean the top one is oak chips that I roasted any other but so try them try the plain Rome first okay so you know it's it's got that like posh alcohol taste but there's a little bit of like sweetness to it there's a little bit of it's not just it's not like drinking rubbing alcohol the way about games it's close that close but it's not it's not it's not quite that thing personally I really like but I don't know it's got it has it's got more flavor to it right like oh no for sure yeah my it's not just before like you said it was like very close to vodka right and now it's I mean it definitely so I you know I've had I like dark rum personally I honestly I'm I have no more thing I mean all I drink is if I ever drink its vodka and maybe tequila that's all I have okay I don't like that no no I'm not into it did you like the other one better yes really okay this was just a lot thick the flavor feels a little too strong it's definitely different that like the taste is completely different no it's completely different yeah just put a slightly different that's really interesting it's completely different and I please it I don't like alcohol some bias for everything right no so it's kind of like if I do drink that is the least offensive is what a big and I find personally that it adds like an extra bit of weirdness to it I feel like this is one of the like if we were to keep it so yellow I like more okay the other ones like woody I thought that had like a nice floral like from the red wine right so other ones that like red wine enos just the slightest bit okay so the first one is cider no this is this is white wine oh it's white wine yeah and they did this one with the toasted chips okay which I would you like more yeah but I've made a difference is it number an alcohol it pulls out yeah and it's a pure note there's not other stuff going yeah I think that's why I did the white he's just to see how they've been kind of a alright so let's try that this is just like you know cheap [ __ ] white wine okay it's like wait wine actually like it went a lot more than red I find bread is too too punchy yeah he's strong yeah I mean it's not bad it's it is totally fine white wine like Ivan had what he went in a long time I can actually have a glass I've been served a glass of red and I just couldn't do it I can't do it that's right you know everybody has a preference yes totally totally definitely smells different yeah it's kind of got that leg barrel smell it definitely tastes I like it makes like a barrel let me get taste barrel-aged okay yeah I didn't kind of it it kind of has that light toasty actually I like the regular you're like a plane yeah because again like I said I think the thing I don't like alcohol for is like the bitterness mmm generally right whatever it stands out to me and I find that the added stuff adds a bit more to that okay but I don't think it tastes bad just for me that's why I like it that's why I prefer the original because it had a very it was very mild but this is a little bit more you know I mean it's it's not bad it's not bad it's different it's just different it's just different I like it person like it does like I mean I like it a lot more than the red wine over all right that's there I think I think it's interesting I don't know if I would necessarily like have this as my like default protocol for making a wine but as like a thing to try with a wine to like tweak the flavor a little bit I think would be really interesting this last one I think is gonna be good okay so first just the normal plane cold brew that's a plain plain Jane cold brew smells like coffee it's like if it didn't taste like coffee I'd beat you but no that's it tastes like good fine good copy like as these things go like I mean yeah it's vulgar but as these things go I feel like it's no it's good maybe we left it in a barrel maybe we all presented it who knows this matters so like the coffee smell is very overpowering but there's definitely a different there's a different note in the I feel like I can't tell the difference maybe there's something slightly it's not like the other ones well there's a real model it's really the other ones I can clearly tell where is this it's like I mean like I just smells like a brick if you're comparing like the rub right lighting you think there's a difference no no I know what everything that like it was very you smelled it and it was clear where this kind of smells almost the same yeah mostly like coffee with that like tiny tiny little indents there's something else definitely is different yeah but it's like spill over yeah well I mean I mean I found in the other ones cuz you did this for 30 minutes yeah they're all but it's all the same time at all so it's like I felt the other ones that the woody master whatever the yeah oakiness was kind of overpowering or here kind of like the lens in yeah I think I think it's this coffee is something like punchy flavor that like it I know I find that chances all like yeah like the the oak can't be overpowering like it was with the the white wine because the white wine was really over like it was like you've completely lost that like white wine flavor and mostly tasted like barrel whereas with this coffee is so good like punchy flavor that it really just kind of like blends in and just kind of like the ultrasound seems and pre consistently mellow out bitter flavors yeah so you like it's that going back and forth sorry going back and forth having this one again it does taste like there's a little bit of like I don't know a stronger under yeah where's this one it's very yeah I think that's probably the best the best report like it's but it also tastes like coffee yeah it doesn't taste like yeah I don't if you gave this one barrel with some coffee be yeah yeah the other ones I can tell that there's a big difference yeah whereas if you made this for me and just gave it to me really yes I would think that it was coffee yeah I think that I think that's a fair assessment like it's it's definitely good I wouldn't like I don't know it's definitely not worth the effort to like do this every morning I mean not through leaves the reasons that I mean if you do a cold brew you can do a huge batch and you could you grant it and then and then like just be set for the week it's not worth it but I feel like you can do it I mean so bad it's just like personally I hate the noise of the ultrasound so like you wouldn't be worth it to like wake up every morning like gotta turn them on for how I said I say if you uh if you run a huge yeah but if you were if you were to do it in bulk about yeah like especially your I think if you let this brew a little longer to like let it brew a little longer and do your big batch and then come back I think it's actually about that finally let's actually use some of these concoctions and let's make a cocktail only took a damn sonik a ting to make that Labor's I gotta say for like a random one-day experiment this was solid so I get what we call the oaken moose all-in-all this was a really fun experiment and the results were both fascinating and delicious if you make your own alcohols or even if you just want to put a fun spin on your favourite drinks I'd highly recommend giving this a try an ultrasonic bath like this is pretty cheap and I for one am very happy to add it to my cooking arsenal if you end up giving this a try tweet the results in me there's so many possibilities I'm really excited to see what you all come up with maybe try other wood varieties to not just oak or throw in some spices to make spiced rum in only a few minutes before we close out another quick thank you to our sponsor trade coffee and remember that if you click the link in the description or use coupon code thought Emporium the first 100 people will get 30% off their first order finally I need to say a huge thank you to my amazing patrons channel members and supporters on cofee that make these videos possible your support means the world to me and I can't thank you all enough if you enjoyed this video you know what to do hit that like button and subscribe and ring the bell to see when I post new videos to see these projects and more long before they make it into videos head over to my other social media pages especially Instagram and Twitter that's all for now and I'll see you next time

Channel: The Thought Emporium

Views: 686,036

Keywords: aging, alcohol, barrel, barrel age, cognac, wood chips, ultrasound, ultrasonic aging, fast, accelerated, whiskey, vodka, gin, wine, cider, cream, cocktail, mixology, nilered, chemistry, educational, how to, tutorial, coffee, trade coffee, brewing, craft, ultrasonic, oak, applewood, oaken moose

Id: YlQT4ptwLKs

Length: 31min 50sec (1910 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 11 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/WriterDave]

I just bought a bottle of "bourbon" done this way and...it's not bourbon.

The bottle is called "Quarter Horse" and it was about the same price as a bottle of Makers, which is (imo) the gold standard, entry-level bourbon people typically know and drink.

The review I linked is not mine but does a far better job of describing it in depth than I'll give, but suffice to say it definitely tasted like someone half-assing and short-cutting their way to an end result they missed by a mile.

Long story short...you can't make bourbon quickly, but you can make an alcoholic drink that's whiskey-ish quickly.

[u/kcmatx]

I’m not trying to downplay these guys abilities, but I would like to see the 2nd round of testing with someone a little more versed in tasting, specifically spirits. I feel since the kid on the right, like he said flat out a few times, didn’t like alcohol, was already swayed. Had a hard time describing the what he liked and disliked. I think it would be interesting to have a liquor rep or sommelier or cicerone try these tests.

[u/RPDRNick]

"You gotta help me! These two guys work me night and day! They don't feed me! They make me sleep on the floor! They put anti-freeze in the wine and they gave my red hat to the donkey!"

"Anti-freeze in the wine? That is a very serious crime."

[u/workyaccount]

Well shit, now I’m thinking I need a ultra sonic cleaner for the kitchen, not really for booze but for quick marinating or combining. Although I think it would be good for booze that you really aren’t looking to age but rather impart flavors into for example lemoncello or pepper vodka.

[u/boot20]

There is no shortcut to aging. All they did was speed up the steeping process and it wasn't aged at all.

[u/Darth_Cody]

Good video but it annoyed me that every time the guy on the left tasted something he needed to like violently act out his shock and awe at the taste

[u/Atomskie]

We did the same thing with our vape liquids, it would "steep" them artificially to recreate 2weeks worth of aging in 20 minutes. Had no idea it worked with alcohol as well. Neat!

[u/DeadFyre]

It doesn't work. You get the color, and some of the compounds which are absorbed from the barrels, but none of the chemical reactions which occur during aging are triggered by this process. In particular, the conversions of phenols into esters don't take place. Bottom line, don't buy the hype.

[u/Yaghiz]

Just before I was thinking to make my own gin. Perfect timing.