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Because yeast can't continue to ferment under high concentration of alcohol, the alcohol concentration of the obtained mash or liquor generally won't exceed 20%. Volatile alcohol (ethanol) was distilled by distiller, taking advantage of the characteristics that different substances in liquor have different volatility. Distilled liquor has a high alcohol content, which is concentrated and collected into distilled liquor with a concentration of about 65-70% (v/v). The adoption of still is an epoch-making event in the wine-making industry. In addition, distillation technology can also be used in other industries. Distillers are widely used in modern petroleum industry and have made great contributions to modern civilization. Section 1 Production Technology of Ancient Distilled Liquor Chapter 1 expounds the origin of distilled liquor in China. This section mainly introduces the development of traditional distilled liquor production technology. 1. The traditional fermentation process of distilled liquor 1 and the diversity of fermentation containers are also one of the main reasons for the different flavor types of shochu. Traditional fermentation vessels are divided into two types: clay pots and cellars. There are also clay pots (mostly buried underground) and jars that are usually placed indoors. Since ancient times, the fermentation of wine can not be separated from containers. Most of the containers for rice wine fermentation are ceramic containers, and some shochu still inherits the tradition of ceramic container fermentation. For example, in the south, almost all the containers for soju fermentation are made of pottery. Even if it is like shochu, it is the same. However, since the appearance of distilled liquor, this traditional concept has changed, and the special container of wine cellar came into being. The so-called pit fermentation is to dig a good ground for the pit, pile the raw materials in it and let it ferment naturally. When this law came into being, there is still no recognized answer. In some areas of Sichuan province, it is said that there are old pits with a pit age of 500 to 600 years. If so, the excavation of the cellar was carried out in the early Ming Dynasty (this information comes from archaeological materials provided by Yibin Museum in Sichuan). Wine cellar is divided into mud cellar, crushed stone cellar and stone cellar. 2. Fermentation technology The fermentation technology of distilled liquor was born out of the fermentation technology of yellow rice wine. However, due to the characteristics of distilled liquor itself, a unique fermentation process has also been formed. (1), similar to the fermentation process of yellow rice wine. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica in Ming Dynasty simply recorded the making method of distilled liquor at that time. It can be considered as a fermentation method similar to rice wine, except that the distillation process is added. It is recorded in the book: "The method uses strong liquor and distiller's grains to steam up the gas, and the drops are taken from the container." All sour wine can be steamed and burned. "Recently, glutinous rice or japonica rice, or millet or glutinous rice or barley were steamed, put into a starter pot and steamed in retort for seven days. As clear as water, it tastes extremely strong and is covered with wine dew. " In short, some raw materials commonly used in rice wine fermentation are fermented in the jar for 7 days, and then distilled. So this is similar to the fermentation process of yellow rice wine. A case of barley soju was recorded in Shen Shi Agricultural Book in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, from which we can know that the brewing method of southern soju was similar to that of yellow rice wine. Fermentation is carried out in a clay pot, and solid-state fermentation is adopted. The fermentation time is seven days, and finally a distillation process is added. The southern rice shochu, such as the famous Guilin Sanhua Liquor, basically adopted the above method until the first half of the 20th century. In the early stage, it was solid, and the process of expanding culture and saccharification was mainly carried out. After about 1 day, water was added for semi-liquid fermentation. The fermentation time is about 7 days, and its technological process is as follows: water medicine Xiaoqu powder

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Rice → drenching rice → cooking → spreading and cooling → adding koji → adding water → fermentation → distillation → aging → packaging. The brewing process now called "slag removal method" directly inherits the above process, with a slight difference that it adopts secondary fermentation, that is, the first time, the dregs are dug out of the tank, no new grain is added, only a little steaming auxiliary materials are added, and the wine is steamed separately. The fermentation container is still a clay pot. In the Qing Dynasty, Fenjiu may have adopted this process, and Fenjiu became one of the best shochu in the Qing Dynasty. (2) Mixed steaming and continuous residue fermentation process The continuous residue method can be regarded as a circulating fermentation method, which is characterized in that after distillation, a part of fermented grains or distiller's grains are still fermented in pits (or jars), and a certain amount of new materials and distiller's yeast are added; Some of them were discarded. The purpose of adopting this method at first may be to save food, and the quality of repeatedly fermented wine is also good. The law of slag continuity was formed later. However, when the slag continuation method originated is still inconclusive. In the secret recipe of Sichuan Yibin miscellaneous grains wine mentioned earlier, the last sentence is "steamed with chaff." This sentence clearly shows that distiller's grains, bran and raw materials are distilled and cooked after mixing. This is a typical slag continuation method of mixed steaming and mixed burning. The main advantage of using continuous residue method is that the utilization rate of raw materials is improved after repeated fermentation, and it is also beneficial to the accumulation of bouquet substances after repeated fermentation. At the same time of distillation, the aroma components in fresh raw materials can be brought into the wine through cooking raw materials. Adding rice bran as filler can keep fermented grains loose, which is beneficial to steam circulation. In the fermentation process, rice bran also plays the role of diluting starch concentration, diluting acidity, absorbing alcohol and keeping slurry water. The practice of adding chaff as filler was adopted at least in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and the earliest written record can be found in Shen Shi Agricultural Book. In the production process of "rotten burn" recorded in Tiaoding Ji, there is a similar practice. (3) Moutai is the most famous among Moutai. 1936' s Continued Records of Zunyi House' records: "Maotai liquor, ... comes from Maotai Village in Renhuai County, ranking first in Guizhou Province ... Fachun takes sorghum as sand, ripens it with wheat koji, puts it in a grain cellar, then steams it, and then bakes it before brewing." It must be repeated several times to be completed. It was called "green sand" at first; After three or four rounds, it is called "baking sand"; In the sixth or seventh round, it is called "Dasha"; In the second round, it was called "Xiaosha"; Finally, you can get a drink. Although the above records are simple, the unique brewing technology of Moutai is vividly on the paper. In modern times, the production technology of Moutai was sorted out, and the technological process was as follows: in the production of Maotai, sorghum was used as raw material, which was called "sand". Once a year, there are only two times, the first time is called throwing bait in the sand, and the second time is coarse sand, each accounting for 50% of the bait. For the first time, after wetting with hot water, add 5-7% of mother grains (that is, high-quality fermented grains that were not steamed in the cellar in the last round of fermentation last year), mix steaming (steaming grain and wine at the same time), cooling, batch fermentation and fermentation in the cellar for one month. After the raw materials are crushed and moistened for the second time, the same amount of the above distiller's grains is added for mixed steaming. The first wine obtained after distillation is called "raw sand wine", which is all poured back into the original fermented grains, cooled, added with a batch of distilled tail wine, and fermented in pits for one month. The fermented grains are distilled to obtain secondary distilled liquor, which is called "crude liquor". The head part of the wine is stored separately for blending, while the tail part is still poured back into the fermented grains for re-fermentation. Cooling fermented grains, adding wine tails and distiller's yeast, accumulating and fermenting in the cellar for one month, distilling, and then fermenting and distilling again. Total * * * goes through eight fermentations and eight distillations. The wine obtained by the third distillation is called "raw sand wine", the wine obtained by the fourth, fifth and sixth distillation is called "big wine", the wine obtained by the seventh distillation is called "small wine" and the wine obtained by the eighth distillation is called "chasing bad wine". Among them, the wine distilled for the last seven times was put into storage as a product and then blended. Second, the traditional distiller In the first chapter, when discussing the origin of distilled liquor, we briefly talked about the original distiller in China. China's wineries have distinctive national characteristics. Its main structure can be divided into four parts: the pot body part is used for heating and generating steam; The body part is used for loading fermented grains. Early distillers, pots and retort may be connected together, which is more suitable for liquid distillation. The condensation part, called the celestial pot in ancient times, is used to hold cold water, and the other side is the condensation of wine and steam; The wine collection part is located at the bottom of the pot. According to the shape of the pot, the wine collection position is different. If the pot is concave, the wine collector is below the center of the pot; If the jar is convex (dome-shaped), the wine collector is located in the annular edge of the distillation jar. Distiller in the Eastern Han Dynasty: The distiller is made of bronze, with a height of 53.9 cm. It is divided into retort and pot. The retort is provided with a storage room, a condensation room and a draft tube. Judging from the shape and structure of the vessel, it belongs to a still. Researchers in Shanghai Museum also use this distiller to distill wine with an alcohol content of 26.6-20.4. This bronze distiller from the Eastern Han Dynasty can reflect the basic structural characteristics of distillers in China. It can be roughly divided into kettle body (heating or charging part), retort body (charging or steam volatilization part), condenser part, condensate collection part and condensate outlet part. This device-like structure has continued to this day. It is obviously different from foreign distillers. Song Dynasty Distillers: There are three historical materials about Song Dynasty Distillers, which represent two different forms. There is a heating furnace at the lower part of the "mercury extractor" of the distiller in the Fontaine Manual, and there is a closed container for medicine on it. Under the action of the lower heating furnace, the substances in the upper closed container volatilize into steam. This container has a bypass pipe, which allows the mercury vapor inside to flow into the nearby condensation tank. The Generation Beyond the Ridge, written by Zhou Qufei in 1 178 in the Southern Song Dynasty, records a tool for Guangxi people to practice "silver beads". Its structure can be inferred from the recorded words. The basic structure of this distiller is basically the same as that in Fontaine's manual, but the difference is that a tube is installed at the top. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhang Shinan recorded an example of a distiller in Volume V of You Guan Wen Ji, which was used to distill flower dew. It can be inferred that the flower dew is concentrated into liquid in the distiller. This shows that there is also a condensate collection device in the dehydration cylinder, and the cooling device may be included in this device. Distillers in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties: The structure of the Jin Dynasty copper distiller unearthed in Qinglong County 1975, Chengde District, Hebei Province is shown in the figure. Coincidentally, there is no distiller described by Zhu Derun from generation to generation in "Drumming Wine Fu". According to our analysis, it is exactly the same as the distillation pot in Jin Dynasty. The structure of distillers since Ming and Qing dynasties can probably get some enlightenment from the data of the Republic of China. Compared with the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, the basic structure has not changed much, mainly because the volume of the distiller has increased, and the distiller suitable for solid distillation has developed more perfectly. Here are some examples of modern static graphics. "Tuzan" is used to distill Xiaoqu liquor in Guangxi. The liquor vapor is led out of the distiller and cooled in another cooler. This is actually a still, which consists of a pot, a retort and a pot. The so-called sky pot is a pot for cooling water, placed on it, with wine grains built in the retort and water in the ground pot. According to the works of the Republic of China, the widely used traditional still is shown in Figure 4-6. 3. Distillation technology (1), liquid distillation and solid distillation: the earliest distillation method may be liquid distillation. It can also be solid distillation. In the Yuan Dynasty, the distillation methods recorded in Drinking and Eating, Drumming Wine Fu and Complete Works of Household Articles were all liquid methods. The liquid method is the simplest method. Both grape shochu and horse milk shochu in Yuan Dynasty belong to the type of liquid distillation. The historical evolution of solid distillation of shochu is unknown, but the earliest record of solid distillation of flower dew was in the Southern Song Dynasty. In addition, according to the analysis of archaeologists, the unearthed bronze hip flask was distilled in solid state. (2) Cooling and liquor collection: In the process of distillation, the cooling of liquor vapor and the collection of distilled liquor are important operations. There are two cooling methods for traditional distillers in China. One is to introduce distilled liquor steam into a cooler outside the distiller and collect it after cooling. Or let the distilled liquor steam cool naturally on the inner wall of the upper part of the distiller. The oldest cooling method can be found in the "Nanfan shochu Method" in the Complete Works of Household Articles in the Yuan Dynasty. The other method is to cool in the condenser (called Tianguo and Tianhu in ancient times) on the upper part of the distillation pot, and the liquor is collected in the wine collecting tank in the distillation pot, and then collected after being discharged. For example, it is recorded in Tiaodingji: "The water in Tianhu Lake does not mean that it is steamed two or three times each time. Depending on the length of the wine flow, it is hot and cold, and the flowers are light and tasteless. " (3) Look at hops and take wine by stages: At least in the16th century, Chinese people knew that the quality of distilled wine changed with distillation time. In Compendium of Materia Medica, it is recorded that "shochu is a bubble formed on the surface of wine during the distillation of shochu or after the shaking of shochu". The "hops" mentioned here are not hops, and the surface tension of the aromatic plant wine used in brewing beer is different due to the different alcohol content or the different types and contents of other ingredients in the wine. This will be shown by the difference of foaming performance. The ancients could roughly judge the quality of shochu by looking at hops, thus deciding the choice of distilled liquid. In business, the price of wine is determined by the characteristics of hops. So hops have become an objective standard to measure the degree and quality of alcohol. "Tiaodingji" concluded: "Soju, whose top is clear, piles fine flowers, followed by thick and sparse flowers (called' morning flowers'), whose muddy flowers are not. "The hops of traditional Moutai are divided into: fish dazzle, pile flowers, full flowers, broken rice flowers and circle flowers. Fenjiu hops are divided into: big flowers, small flowers, cloud flowers, splash flowers and oil flowers. The names are different, and some contents are actually the same. In ancient times, there was no concept of alcohol content. In the Republic of China, because the technology was not developed at that time, the use of alcohol content meter was not widespread. In order to facilitate the unification of hops standards in folk shochu workshops, Mr. Fang of the then Huanghai Chemical Industry Research Institute created a method to try to link hops with alcohol content. This method defines the definition, test method and unit of hops, and defines the standard conditions for measurement, and obtains the calculation formula. In ancient times, because of mastering the method of looking at hops, there was a reliable basis for taking wine by stages. The "first shochu" mentioned in Compendium of Materia Medica is the wine that comes out for the first time in the distillation process. The concept of "head liquor" is slightly different from the current "head liquor". In ancient times, wine was generally taken in two stages. The quality of soju in the first stage is good, but the quality of liquor taken in the second stage is obviously poor. The quantity ratio of the first shochu to the second liquor taking is 3∶ 1. For example, Shen's agricultural book, the first time shochu 15kg, the second time shochu 5kg. Modern times are generally divided into three sections, the middle part is regarded as finished wine, and the head and tail are not regarded as finished wine. The so-called "pinch the head to the tail, take the wine in the middle." "The wine head can be used as flavoring wine or fermented again. The wine tail is also fermented again. Four. Different styles of distilled spirits According to the literature and history data, ancient distilled spirits can be divided into north and south. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, distilled liquor was divided into at least two schools, one in the north and the other in the south. In Jin Ping Mei Hua Ci, besides "shochu" (the origin is unknown), there is also the name of "Nan shochu". But the reality is that in the north, in addition to distilled liquor brewed from grain raw materials, there are also grape shochu in the northwest and horse milk shochu in Inner Mongolia; In the south, it can be divided into southwest (centered on Sichuan and Guizhou) and south-central and southeast (including Guangxi and Guangdong). This classification is only rough, and there is no uniform standard. Because the main feature of shochu is its high alcohol concentration, the concentration of many aromatic components in wine increases with the increase of alcohol content, and the aromatic components and their depth of wine have become one of the criteria for judging the quality of shochu. China's diverse styles of shochu are mainly naturally formed by different brewing materials. Followed by brewing technology and other factors. The north is rich in wheat, the south is rich in sorghum, Guangxi is rich in rice and Xinjiang is rich in grapes. It is natural to brew soju with different raw materials according to local conditions. At the early stage of the development of distilled liquor, people may not know which raw materials are most suitable for brewing soju. After a long period of comparison, people have the opportunity to taste and compare the characteristics of shochu brewed from various raw materials, and have a more unified view on the characteristics of shochu brewed from different raw materials. Sorghum liquor: In ancient times, sorghum shochu was praised by people. Commenting on soju in various places, Three Talks on Continuing Wandering Series in the middle and late Qing Dynasty said: "Nowadays, soju is found everywhere, and sorghum is the most correct one. "Pei liquor, Lu liquor and Fenjiu in the north are all brewed with sorghum." From the middle and late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, sorghum liquor almost became the special name of shochu. This is determined by the characteristics of sorghum raw materials. Miscellaneous grains wine: In terms of material selection, shochu in southwest China probably inherited its dietary characteristics. In order to emphasize the aroma and richness of the wine, various raw materials were used and fermented according to a certain proportion. According to the relevant information of Sichuan Museum, Wuliangye liquor in Yibin, Sichuan was called "miscellaneous grain liquor" in Ming Dynasty (1567- 16 19), and the mixed raw materials used were sorghum, rice, glutinous rice, buckwheat and corn. An ancestral secret recipe collected by the local cultural relics department reads: "Rice, wine and rice are 20%, buckwheat is half-buckwheat, red beams in southern Sichuan are sufficient, and steamed chaff is mixed in the pot. This side will not be passed on to girls, so children and grandchildren must hide it deeply. " (This information comes from the "Chen Family Biography" in the exhibition of wine history in Yibin, Sichuan Province during the first wine culture seminar in China). Rice shochu: In the southeast, rice shochu is very popular. For example, Shen Shi Agricultural Book in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties once mentioned that compared with barley shochu, rice shochu is "rough in taste" and its quality is not as good as the former. Distiller's grains: mainly produced in southern yellow rice wine producing areas, it is made from the pressed residue of yellow rice wine by further fermentation and distillation. The method of making distiller's grains from yellow distiller's grains is recorded in Shen Shi Agricultural Book. After long-term tasting and comparison, people realize that different raw materials have their own characteristics, which are summarized as "sorghum fragrance, sweet corn, clean rice and strong barley". Distilled liquor has been clearly recorded in the literature since the Yuan Dynasty. After hundreds of years of development, China distilled liquor has formed several schools, such as Fenjiu, Luzhou-flavor liquor (represented by LU ZHOU LAO JIAO CO.,LTD) and Maotai-flavor liquor (represented by Maotai). Its brewing cycle is as long as one year, and it is fermented and distilled many times, and Dongjiu is brewed by a unique cross-fragrance process. In addition, there are grape shochu and horse milk shochu. How are these unique distilled spirits formed, developed and shaped? Judging from the ancient materials currently available, it is still difficult to get a comprehensive and accurate answer. Some monographs were published during the Republic of China and after the founding of New China.