Talk:Single malt Scotch

message: Came here because of the Featured Articles nomination. A technical question presents itself: Just when does the bulk of the starch get broken down? I suppose that kilning would denature the enzyme; so all the sugar production would take place in the Malting step; is this right? Then the Mashing section says that the hot water dissolves all the sugar and starch; but starch isn't soluble in water. Does some more starch get broken down here by the enzymes, or is this just a misprint, and should it just say that the sugar is dissolved?
Nice article; after some minor copy editing, I'll vote for its inclusion. Dandrake 07:33, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
More tehcnicalities: is it actually phenol, C6H5OH, that is contributed by the smoke? Or is it a complex mix of phenols (various similar compounds)? I'd suspect the latter, since the flavors are so variable that more than one compound would probably be involved. Dandrake 07:41, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
There's nothing here about the mystique of the water used in making whisky. (Falls on granite, trickles through peat, or it's not good enough for whisky.) Has this gone out of fashion? I know that many years ago when Inverness was considering fluoridaton of the water supply, obections were raised that it might interfere with the making of whisky (mainly or entirely mere grain whisky in this case). How serious that was, I don't know, but it did appear in the papers. And the magical water was one of the popular explanations for why no one could quite duplicate Scotch whisky. Dandrake 07:55, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
:About the conversion from starch to sugar.  If the malting process were to continue untill all the starch was converted to maltose the barley would be at full sprout, the cotyledon would be producing chlorophyl, and the resulting whisky would be very bitter.  The kilning temperature is controlled so that the malt is never at a temp that would denature the enzymes needed to breakdown the starch.  It takes several hours to dry the malt, up to 24 hours. Every refrence I have available to me suggests that the enzyme breaks down the starch during the mashing process, but you're right, the starch is broken down by enzymes and then disolves, not the other way around.  I'll go fix that now.
::I've made beer, and it starts out starchy and winds up sweet.  The temperature of mashing is critical in the nature of the beer - the malting produces alpha and beta amylases - alpha nibbles a single glucose off the end of a starch, while beta takes bigger bites. More alpha amylase activity gives beer more fermentable sugar, but beta makes malto-dextrins for "mouth feel". How, exactly, that plays out in whisky is not obvious to me. 
:: I've also lived with a distillery in town - they have a unique smell, not particularly pleasant to most people. Henry Troup 00:11, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're right, it's more than one phenol.  I, as a biochemist, should have realized that such complex flavors could not come from one chemical, but I got caught up in the refrences always refering to phenol level, not phenols.  I could go run an analysis on some Scotch to make sure, but why waste the Scotch?  There must be literature out there somewhere in a peer reviewed journal describing such a test.  Hmmm, more research, yippie. Fortunatly, that's another easy fix to make.  Thanks for the input, and the copyedits. Gentgeen 08:07, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: I put in a section on water, including the water source being the main consideration for placing the new Arran Distillery, which I hope covers "mystique" regarding water.  As I don't fully understand it myself, (I'd use distilled or deionized water for production, so I could get consistent results, but that's why I'm a scientist, not a distiller) I must have left it out subconciously. Gentgeen 08:23, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: It's mashing as is done for beer production, hot water is used to get the desired compounds out of the grist, so "mash the tea" is probibly the right idea.  The grist is about the same texture as cracked wheat, not creamy like mashed potatoes. Gentgeen
And it might be a good idea to take the link to the wikiproject out of the article, it leads to a template with items such as "another fake link" etc, which I don't suppose was intedted to be seen by readers.  fabiform | talk 00:01, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: I don't know.  By clicking that link, readers and taken to a page that asks them to become editors.  They are encourgaed to add tasting notes to the various whisky pages.  Because of that link I went from doing copyedits to adding pages back when I was a newbie. Gentgeen
Regarding the lack of photos - despite my being in at least four different distilleries in the last year, I seem to have neglected to take a single photo (as such thinks are surely only for the touristas).  I've emailed my companions to see if they have anything decent they're willing to GFDL/PD.  Also, I think I can get a decent product shot tomorrow (sun), assuming it's sunny enough. -- Finlay McWalter |  Talk 23:58, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: I got decent shot of Royal Brackla in the bottle today, will upload it tomorrow. Gentgeen 02:11, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: older entries

message: Inadequate references. An article like this would benefit from inline citations. Four generic sources in the references is far too little. Good work otherwise. savidan(talk) (e@) 04:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Failed GA

message: Hi All,
I give up.
I have removed maps made by "Brian Gotts" numerous times. He keeps putting them back.
They are wrong.
1. The islands is not a region.
2. His Speyside isn't even in the right place
3. He originally didn't even have Islay on the map
4. This is an article on "Scotch" and he shows Irish Whiskeys
I will suggest that someone replace his map with a correct one form any of a dozen sources - including the SWA. 
No wonder these entries are a shambles.
--ScotchGuy 05:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone has been adding the text "Click for an accurate map of Whisky producing regions in Scotland" and an external link alongside the map. This is surely unacceptable. If the map can be agreed to be wrong, let's fix it. I observe that the map quotes three sources. Are you saying all three sources are wrong, or that the map inaccurately reflects the sources (I asked this in another talk page a month ago)? Notinasnaid 18:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Parallel discussion: Talk:Scotch whisky#Map Notinasnaid 21:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: Why was the change allowed.
How was it done.
SINGLE MALT SCOTCH is a protected term...and wahat people will serach for. NOT Scottish Single Malt.
Can someone change this back?
:By using the page history, I can see that a logged in user with a small number of edits chose to move the article back in March. Moving pages to another title is a simple task for any user who is logged in, and is one reason you might choose to create an account. However, as the exact same move was discussed earlier on this talk page, and no consensus was reached, the move should not have been completed without another discussion. I'll go ahead and move it back. Gentgeen 22:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Change of Name

message: I feel it is important for any changes to this article, and there have been a few recently that have harmed here, to maintain a link to the wider world of single malts, which now encompass many other countries than just Scotland. Please don't obscure this knowledge for readers.  The aim here is to inform and I believe it is basic knowledge for anybody reading this page in any of its forms to know that Single malt Scotch is a type of single malt whisky. I have tried to do that in as unobtrusive a way as possible.Buyo 11:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Maintaining the link with the wider single malt world

message: Anybody know just how big the ones used are? Mention it?  Trekphiler 04:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: On the cask

message: The article seems to suggest that malting converts starches to sugars, when in reality it does no such thing. The true purpose of malting is to develop the enzymes (most notably α and β amylase) that will break the long starch chains down into the smaller glucose, maltose and maltriose bits during the mashing process. Basically, the article attributes many of the elements of the mashing phase to the malting phase. I am not a regular editor, but as someone quite familiar with the process, I thought I should bring this to the attention of the community. Look to wikipedia's malt page for sources, etc. 71.208.112.157 (talk) 06:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition and Purpose of Malting and Mashing

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: no consensus. No suitable balance can be achieved between concision vs. consistency with Scotch whisky. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 22:01, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Single malt Scotch →  – Noun missing from article name. Scotch is the geographical origin. Coldupnorth (talk) 11:47, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

text: This is a contested technical request (permalink). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 17:30, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

text: *The names of groups of people and other words derived from the names of places are generally capitalized, so uppercase is correct (see, e.g., MOS:GEO). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:44, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: *But it is not a proper noun / proper name. It is a type of whisky, not a unique particular thing, so it is a common noun. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:55, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

text: Yes, fair points but I would argue there is also a complication in that we also have the parent article Scotch whisky. Coldupnorth (talk) 12:08, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 29 June 2022