Reduction of cooling costs associated with filtering whisky and spirit beverages

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Scotch whisky is a multi-billion-pound industry accounting for 75% of Scottish food and drink exports, 1.4% of all UK exports and directly employing over 11,000 people (SWA, 2022). Despite progress towards a more sustainable industry and net zero, there remain targets across the distilling supply chain, notably the heating and cooling of large volumes of liquid. Prior to whisky packaging, the majority of products are chilled from ambient temperature to between 0 and 4 C and held for up-to 24hrs. The primary purpose of this chilling is to force the formation of haze particles which can then be subsequently filtered, resulting in a more stable product. Product clarity is a key quality measure of many Scotch whisky brands and achieving a suitable specification is necessary for product recognition and consistency. This project will identify novel filtration strategies that reduce the energy intensive chilling step prior to filtration linking to key sustainability targets within the industry. These strategies will exploit variation in temperature and use filtration material (existing and novel) to identify and understand impacts on key liquid quality markers. It links the specialist knowledge and equipment of the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling with FILTROX Carlson Ltd., a company with significant industrial experience and application in this area. Established links with the Scottish distilling community will see the results disseminated to the industry as a whole as they seek to meet their ambitious sustainability targets. Whilst the focus is primarily on whisky, the results also have implications for the spirits industry as whole with the majority of products undergoing some form of chill filtration.