From Grain to Whisky: The Craft of Grain Preparation at the Distillery

Did you know that to create a great whisky, you actually have to start by brewing... a beer? This is the very first, essential step in our production process. And to make a proper distiller's beer, everything begins with a rigorous selection and careful preparation of the grains.

Today, we are taking you behind the scenes into our milling room to show you how we prepare our grain recipes using a fully automated system.

Choosing the Grains: Crafting the Perfect Recipe

At Distillerie des Cantons, our star cereals are barley and rye. Depending on the flavor profile we want to achieve, we always malt our barley, and occasionally, we choose to malt a specific portion of our rye as well.

Thanks to our multiple grain elevators, we enjoy great production flexibility. We can store corn, rye, barley, or wheat. Depending on the specific whisky recipe we want to create, we select the perfect combination of grains before moving on to the crucial milling stage.

To Each Grain Its Mill: Hammer vs. Roller

Not all grains share the same texture, which is why our setup features two distinct types of mills to handle each cereal with the appropriate care:

1. The Hammer Mill: This is reserved for harder grains. For instance, we use the hammer mill for our raw rye, as we need its high-impact force to successfully crush it into a fine powder.

2. The Roller Mill: When handling our malted grains (malted barley or malted rye), we need to be much gentler to preserve the grain husks properly. With precise adjustments, this mill allows us to achieve the exact level of flour fineness required for our whisky wash.

   
   

Automated Precision

One of the greatest strengths of our setup is that the entire process is fully automated. Once a recipe is selected, the grains travel through various conveyors, pass through the appropriate mill, and flow directly into our grist hopper.

When we are ready to start production, our grain blend is already perfectly mixed, precisely measured, and waiting to be brewed into our future whisky beer!