Classic Lloyd

On 10/21/2019 at 1:47 PM, JustAndy said:

That's probably true as well, but I assumed that use of koji rice in brown sugar shochu was to provide some yeast nutrients and acid modulation, as sugar can be deficient in both. 

This is probably part of it, but a lot of the examples I know of use koji (or variant) for their enzymatic power. My assumption is that there would be some sort of benefit to the overall fermentation, either attenuation or additional ester production.  My experiment is around growth on sugar cane; were I to take the next step, I might try and utilize the enzymes, but not the koji, by heating it in a way similar to a whiskey mash killing the koji in the process.  Most of the non-alcoholic uses (e.g. shoyu, miso, fish sauce) of koji do something similar to this through the use of salt in the fermentation 

That said, it looks like the shochu you mentioned and arracks both utilize a sake-style by adding in koji and fermentables periodically throughout the fermentation. I went out and got a bottle of Batavia arrack, and I have to say that I'm really enamored with the result. Short of some of the Clairins I've tried, it might be my favorite agricole-like rum. But....

On 10/20/2019 at 7:08 AM, Silk City Distillers said:

Imagine the brown sugar base would make for a very rum-like profile, probably far milder in flavor than typical Shochu - less koji, less rice.  Interesting history on that, but has more to do with access to sugar as a result of sugar production, and taking advantage of it.  This is more like an interesting cultural mashup than some sort of symbiotic fermentation product though.  You could argue, kind of similar to home distillers goosing their product yield by adding sugar to simple grain fermentations.

I think you're right here. Part of the test on the sugar cane was to see if you could design something more symbiotic, as I suspect the koji is mostly working on the grain separately to create that agricole-like funkiness. Using grains is a fallback for sure, but it'd be great to design something cane / sugar based.

On 10/20/2019 at 2:20 AM, Curators Reserve said:

Great stuff - and your Aspergillus culture source?

There is good stuff on google Scholar about ligno-cellulosic R&D in this..

http://docs.bvsalud.org/biblioref/2018/09/914332/cultivation-of-aspergillus-niger-on-sugarcane-bagasse-with-vinasse.pdf

What do you typically do with your bagasse otherwise or have you sourced some cane sticks to trial?

Ahhhh - thanks for sharing this article! At first glance, this should help answer my main question (how will the koji interact with the cane plant structure / fiber?).

This is a test fermentation, so my sugar cane is from the Mexican grocery down the road from me. Â The spores are sourced from a company in Japan (Hishiroku) through a reseller here in the US - I namely use this strain for other non-alcohol uses (shio koji / miso). Â I should also note that I'm using oryzae, not niger for this test, but if the oryzae shows promise, A. niger would be an interesting next step.

On 10/1/2019 at 11:56 AM, JustAndy said:

There is a style of shochu made with koji-rice and sugar (kokuto shocho), as well a sort of similar process for batavia Arrack made with molasses and an inoculated rice starter. 

Minor update - this idea has stuck with me and I'm running a test fermentation to see if I can get Aspergillus Oryzae to grow directly on sugar cane (as opposed to a grain), and it seems to be taking so far. One curveball - the sugar cane I'm using had a red/purple colored fungus that was present on the husk (and slightly in the substrate), so we'll see if that sticks around.

3 hours ago, Curators Reserve said:

Anyone used Aspergillus in a molasses/ rum wash to push Citric and Malic acid output rather than Lacto?

Is this a thing? I work occasionally with aspergillus and have found it to be very finicky on anything but grains. (I suppose you could add inoculated grains, but then it would cease being a rum)

15 hours ago, Simpo said:

Have you found out since? 

That strain was definitely a S. Cerevesiae. It eventually adapted to be a prolific producer of acetaldehyde and we ended up shelving it.  Generally speaking, our experience is that wild strains lose a lot of their dynamic nature (and diversity) in just a few generations.

Does anyone know of any good repositories of craft spirits market research ?

Can't say whether or not yeast is your issue, but I would recommend trying other yeasts than bread yeasts. Some factors you might consider in choosing a yeast are attenuation, ester / flavor production (or lack thereof), and to a lesser extent strain origin (some yeasts were cultured off of whatever plant you're intending to ferment).

Here's a helpful chart from White Labs:

https://www.whitelabs.com/sites/default/files/distilling_guide.pdf

But also experiment - I'm starting a fermentation today with White Labs Belgian Saison II

1 hour ago, Hudson bay distillers said:

Rum ie cane sugar and brandy ie fruit both can be fermented quite well with lavellan ec118, it very forgiving .

This is a great yeast for starting out with - you can use it on pretty much anything, and it ferments relatively fast.

I'm curious as to folks' techniques for blending in heads and tails into their final spirit. Our experience has been a bit mixed - heads and tails are definitely are your ticket to flavortown, but wilder rums (thinking Mexican charandas as an example) can get pretty funky and acetoney (sidetone - I actually like these funky rums). What are you guys looking for in your extended distillations to get that a developed rum?

For those of you making brandies - I'm curious as to whether or not you're using pectinase or not.  It seems like there's some potential to increase yield and make your wash significantly easier to deal with, but that comes with an increase in methanol production.

If you're not using it, how do you deal with pectin heavy fruits.  If you are, how are you approaching heads blending?

Thanks!

Howdy folks, we're considering sharing a space with a small, existing distillery, for a while we do product research as a way to minimize risk and learn the business landscape. While there's obviously a ton of benefits for both parties, this seems like the sort of thing that Fed / State laws could make really complicated.  Does anyone have experience dealing with a sitiuation like this?

(FWIW, we're in Texas)

Thanks!

Soap flavors can result from actual soap (salt of a fatty acid) forming - could be the water source for your fermentation and/or too high fermentation pH?

It seems like I've come across a fair number of anecdotal accounts that suggest that adding lactic acid does affect the end flavors - it being a fatty carboxylic acid and all, but it still seems like some folks are using it. That said, from what I've seen, most folks are using gypsum, citric acid, or sulfuric acid (or some combo of these) along with lime to control pH.

One learning since I posted this. The pH doesn't affect bacterial growth as much as it does yeast growth.  The range you're in encourages a fast, clean fermentation. Lower pH's will ferment slower but seem to produce more flavors (for a number of reasons).

Also, it takes a number of generations for your backset to become very acidic (well, actually just one really acidic batch).  Think about it as a chemical environment that resembles what you're going to ferment in.  Carrying batch to batch helps keep consistency there.  

So, I would definitely think about an acid additive.

Y'ALL.

Help the guy build his project and answer the damn survey.  It doesn't matter if his customer is doing it wrong - he still needs a grade.  Just imagine a hypothetical world where you're lautering after you ferment.

That said - @UAHJoe - can you give us a little more information about what grains your customer is using and what the final product is?

13 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said:

Probably one of the best recent PhD dissertations I've read recently on this exact topic:

 The microbial ecology of a rum production process

Dr. Victoria Green - Working at Bundaberg Rum in Australia.

Thanks for sharing this - it's fantastic. We're currently running a series of fermentations with a culture cultivated from fresh-pressed sugarcane, which have over a few generations, has whittled down to one dominant yeast, with 1-2 other yeast species also in there.  I'd assumed that the dominant species was S. cerevesiae, but this article makes me wonder if I'm not working with something different.

1 hour ago, Foreshot said:

I don't know much about Koji. Seems like interesting stuff though.

Oh yeah - very much so, although probably less relevant to rum. (I use it mostly for protein-rich fermentations.)

Really, I’m trying process all the great stuff in the thread. My original question was really “where do I find bacteria to produce butyric acid esters” and it’s evolved to “how do I create the most conducive environment for overall ester creation?” The shochu article has me wondering, specifically, “how I can utilize dunder to set up a successful fermentation?”

Sort of relevant - a friend of mine using a mix of an enzymatic mold and yeast to create esters on quince:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsss6e2AcHQ/

12 minutes ago, Foreshot said:

I believe that part of the premise of stillage - be it fresh, seasoned dunder or muck. It helps build precursors to other more interesting compounds. SCD/BA - is that how you're interpreting it? As for higher alcohol output - do you mean volume or fusel alcohols? I think you mean volume - I can't answer that as I'm not sure. Interesting question - you mean like a starter or something else?

1

Well, with koji-malted fermentations, the koji keeps producing enzymes even after the fermentation has started - mostly amylase, but also a whole host of other enzymes (lipase, protease, beta-glucanase) which dries out your fermentation and often raises attenuation above 100%. I'm thinking about loud, but maybe some dunder can have building blocks for chemical / enzymatic transformation, in addition to the bacteria and concentrated ingredients I'm familiar with reading about.

Quote

 

The Formation of β‐Damascenone in Sweet Potato Shochu - Yoshizaki - 2011 - Journal of the Institute of Brewing - Wiley Online Library

 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2050-0416.2011.tb00464.x

 

I was just reading this paper today!  It made me wonder what role enzymes play in the overall creation of esters and damascenone.  Like - would prefermenting some of your ingredients to prep your main fermentation (a la the use of koji in shochu production) result in higher ester output, in addition to higher alcohol output?

12 hours ago, bostonapothecary said:

One thing I'd like to see is more of the development of a lower skill folk method for working in this territory, sort of like the pied de cuvee procedure. You can create a small scale sterilized must, walk it over to a vine, take your clippers and drop a single grape or fruit right in to capture their yeast/bacteria. Sometimes it is left to ferment right in the field. There are lots of accessible ways to vary selection with this; pH, brix, specific added acids, or even antiseptic botanicals. The very first starter material for sour mash ferments had hops. As this scaled up to the next size footing, the hops were left behind. Certain very specific botanicals have also been known to harbor certain aroma-beneficial micro organisms. They have evolved together. The crude low tech pied de cuvee method could likely help select for them. However, it is probably wise to expect a ton of failures. I wish some universities could be enlisted to back this stuff up.

As a huge fan of mezcals, I'd love to see more distillers use this approach. It seems like it's been embraced whole-heartedly in the beer and wine worlds, but most distillers (folks on this thread excluded) have seem more focused on sourcing local to produce something mass-market than they are on trying to ferment local to produce something unique.

In case anyone is wondering or hesitant to experiment, I will buy your weird, one-off spirit.

4 hours ago, Foreshot said:

When you're looking at natural biological activity in yeast/bacteria there's a ton of secondary process that can effect the outcome based on conditions. I think there's a lot of people that believe they can laser focus on achieving an outcome, over production of a specific by product like fatty acids, without understanding the conditions that it requires. How you ferment, what you ferment, the conditions of the ferment (open/closed, tall/short vessel, etc) will effect each strain of yeast/bacteria differently. So what works in an open short wooden fermenter in the summer in Jamaica might not work the same as in Chicago in winter in a closed SS tall tank.  I agree it's a good starting point to use what they use as a starting point - but to SCD's point - it's probably best to experiment to see what work for you. You can also manipulate yeast to produce acetic, lactic, propionic, and other acids, but in lower quantities. 

 It's fully good to use the try it and see method to get started, but it doesn't help with repeatability. You really need to account for as many factors as you can to understand which conditions are best for the outcome you want. Timing of the additions, temps, pH, ferment size, ambient temp/time of year, anything. The Birectifier is something that can help with this to check for non-quantitative olfactory effects. 

 I think mixed culture fermentations is some of the best stuff going on today in the industry. It's taking something that happened in the old days and recreating it after we took it out of the process for sanitary/efficiency reasons. I'm happy to see people working on it! 

I dig this.

I've had a lot of luck producing extremely impactful and flavorful ferments that distill into complex spirits by utilizing spontaneous or hybrid-spontaneous ferments. The problem is that there's low consistency from batch-to-batch, and it's nigh impossible to capture whatever went into the ferment when 99% of the microbes probably die off early on. The challenge I'm working through right now is trying to understand how I might replicate a wild-like ferment using a multi-strain fermentation.

One avenue - looking at a lot of this research, and following @bostonapothecary's work - assuming that many of these microbes come from the Jamaican terroir that you may get from a spontaneous ferment, and trying to construct something that way.

The second is maybe sending off some sugar cane juice to a yeast lab, and having them identify fermentation friendly strains within the juice, and trying to run a ferment with those, similar to how Jester King brewery got started up.

Regardless, I'm learning a lot from being attached to this conversatio  SO KEEP TALKING PLEASE.

13 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said:

produces enough butyric acid to hate yourself

😂😂😂 

I'm guessing that there's some technique on when you decide to introduce your bacteria into the fermentation, so it gets killed off by alcohol % before things get out of control?

For those that are using bacteria to increase acid production in their rums, where are you sourcing your bacteria from?

• House strains from aged dunder?
• From a lab?

I've been looking into C. saccharobutyricum, but there doesn't seem to be a reliable source selling any samples.

Thanks!

I’m trying to get a sense on how I should be adjusting pH during my rum fermentations.  I currently add acid to a 4.6 pH and this ferments fine, but I’ve read of folks going lower and higher (presumably to encourage or discourage bacterial growth?)

How do you guys adjust your pH in your rum fermentations?

thanks!

Thanks everyone!

Hey folks,

I'm looking for a reseller in the USA that sells Danstil EDV 493 / Distillimax RM yeast. The only resellers I've found are in AUS and NZ, and I'm no wild about the delay and the shipping costs.

Thanks,

-ll