MASH MASH MASH !!!
There are many rules for distilling. One of the most important is,
that it is the mash that matters most. The better the mash, the better the distillate.
Quite simple, actually, - and this is the reason why we produce all on our own,
literally, from grain to bottle.
Often underestimated: the water. For FREIMUT Wodka we wanted a water, which tastes good even without alcohol.
We found this water in an old water gallery in the Hochsauerland region: A soft, natural spring water with a round and very pleasant taste.
The main ingredient of FREIMUT Wodka is a North German Champagne Rye of an old and genuine German variety.
The rye for FREIMUT Wodka comes from the Niederlausitz Heath, a region between Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin. There our grain is being cultivated from a family business in organic farming.
Accordingly the malt for FREIMUT Wodka is also genuine, made from our North German Champagne Rye. It comes from a small, family-run malt house in Central Franconia.
The malt provides us with important natural enzymes for producing the mash. Thus we can do without any artificial enzymes at all.
Moreover, the malt provides a unique taste which we do not want to miss.
The mash is the basis of every distillation - and the real challenge in manufacturing FREIMUT Wodka. Water, grain and yeast are crushed for fermentation. If something went wrong at this stage, the flavour would irretrievably get lost.
By 90% the quality of Wodka is determined by the quality of the mash. And we produce our own mash!
As good as we possibly can – carefully, with clean and whole grain of top organic quality.
LOW & SLOW - Moreover we ferment 4 times longer than in an efficient mass production. By colder fermentation we improve both the quality of alcohol and the flavour of our mash.
We distil the alcohol for our Wodka in our own distillery and in two steps.
We distil the “raw distillate” to extract the alcohol from the mash.
Then we proceed with the “fine distillate”. Now great care and time are crucial. 48 bubble plates within a twelve meter high copper column still destil the alcohol to 96.4% vol.
Jürgen Behlen is probably one of the best and most experienced master distillers in Germany. - He has the skills, the expertise and the appropriate equipment to bring our FREIMUT Wodka from the field into the bottle.
He is both perfectionist and enthusiast, and he never gives up, even when it’s getting difficult. He always keeps his goal in mind – to get the best out of the mash without ruining the fine distillate by overdoing the distillation.
The fermented mash is a kind of an "raw" Craft Beer.
For one litre of Wodka we need more than ten litres of mash.
FREIMUT Spirituosen GmbH
Wiesbaden
Germany
Tel.: +49 611 880 4708 – 0
Fax: +49 611 880 4708 – 1
