Hello from Austria

[treskatz]

Hi everyone,

Our family is running a small distillery since 17 years. Our main focus is fruit brandies (100% distillates from 100% fruit mashes, i.e. eaux-de-vie/brand) like so many in the DACH-region (i.e. Germany-Austria-Switzerland).

We distill classic pip fruit, stone fruit, berries and wild fruits, as well as some unusual stuff like weiki, red beet, beer, tomato, carrot, oranges...

In recent years we also started to distill "Geist": plant/fungi material macerated with neutral alcohol and then distilled - among others: lemongrass, boletus, grapefruit, cinnamon, tea, coffee, cacao, lavendula, hazelnut, ginger, ...

Also like 100-200 others in the DACH-region we started to make whisk(e)ys. We use conventional malts from barley and rye as well as malted oat, spelt, maize, einkorn and emmer.

I wonder why there is so little exchange of experience/research between US and the DACH region.

They things I discuss with other distillers are among others:

- What varieties of apple, pear, sour cherry, etc. are best to distill?

- How to crush/mash different kind of fruits avoiding to introduce off-flavors at this stage?

- What kind of yeast to use (e.g. we are comfortable using a hybrid yeast:bayanus x new world wine yeast) ?

- Which enzymes to use to crush pektin, avoiding too much methanol and extracting the right kind of flavors

- The best ph value to avoid infections AND for the best flavor

- the best fermenting temperature (depending on fruit and yeast)

- the best way to distill: column, raw/fine distilling or mixed variants (depending on the fruit and year)

- the best dephlegmator temperature (can be quite different e.g.: rather warm/soft for williams pear and very cold for citric flavor pears)

- filtrating: from 5microns to 0,7 microns, depending on fruit and kind of distilling

- what kind of neutral alcohol is suited best for macerating herbs, fruits etc: maize based or cane molasses based, extra fine filtered etc.

- what are the things to put in a flavor basket

Cheers,

Robert

[Jedd Haas]

Wilkommen Robert. I would love to hear more about what you are up to in the DACH.

In particular, what are your thoughts on:

- Which enzymes to use to crush pektin, avoiding too much methanol and extracting the right kind of flavors

- The best ph value to avoid infections AND for the best flavor

How has your whiskey turned out so far?

[MXJ]

Robert

I would love to know how stroh rum is produced

Regards

Max

[treskatz]

Wilkommen Robert. I would love to hear more about what you are up to in the DACH.

In particular, what are your thoughts on:

- Which enzymes to use to crush pektin, avoiding too much methanol and extracting the right kind of flavors

- The best ph value to avoid infections AND for the best flavor

How has your whiskey turned out so far?

- Which enzymes to use to crush pectin, avoiding too much methanol and extracting the right kind of flavors

1) products like Supra Mash, Ultra Fruit contain many different kind of enzymes:

.) different kind of pectinase (galacturonase, pectinesterase, lyase, endo-variants...)

.) different kind of hemicellulase for the hairy region

.) and others (google "pektin hairy region erbsloeh" for some nice pictures)

positive:

+ they fully decompose pectin including the hairy region, work quite good also at low pH-levels (3,0pH)

+ for some fruits (e.g. raspberry, plums) it supports extraction of complex flavors

negative:

- but for some fruits (apple,pears) I think the extract too much of harsh/bitter stuff,

I guess this is done by hemicellulase

- pectinesterase releases all the methanol quite fast

- speeding up fermentation

2) 100% pure Lyase products

positive:

+ this product just decomposes pectin without supporting the release of methanol

+ a research paper showed that the release of methanol is reduced by ca. 30%

as compared to mashes without any enzymes.

But this is only true for the first two weeks: then the methanol content rises

again up to 100% within two months, due to the esterase released by the fruit itself.

(But fermentation should normally be finished within 7-14days).

+ we use it for:

. apples: because we don't want to support additional flavor extraction

. quince: because of high pectin: to reduce methanol

(nevertheless you should look for very sweet quinces,

because legal methanol limits are relative to ethanol content,

e.g. in EU for quince and some others:

1350g methanol / hl ethanol, otherwise 1000-1200g)

negative:

- liquefaction is less compared to other products, but acceptable

- not allowed for organic (at least in DACH), because it is produced

by a self-cloned aspergillus niger variety (GMO)

links: google "Einfluss verschiedener Parameter während der Einmaischung und Gärung auf die Methanolgehalte in Obstmaischen"

(altough in german: some tables and english abstract)

PS: leo kübler might introduce a cheap, semi-quantitative and fast methanol test this year

Is there any feasable methanol reduction alternative known in the US:

e.g. some protein inactivating all the pectinesterase?

3) beta-glucosidase products:

releases a certain group of flavors (especially terpenes) contained in muscat/traminer grapes,

stone fruits/prunus and berries

positive:

+ muscat grapes: the muscat flavor can double, much fresher/complex

+ some berry brandies become more complex

+ for some plum brandies: a fuller body/vanilla

negative:

- apricot: too spicy

- some sour cherries: too much clove

- some berries: a little too spicy

But I guess you have to test this first with a small batch for each fruit variety.

links: google "Freisetzung von Aromastoffen in Obstmaischen"

(erbsloeh pdf, although in german: the tables tells you some numbers)

- The best ph value to avoid infections AND for the best flavor

. to constantly avoid infections in fruit mashes: <3,2pH

. a research paper from Klosterneuburg concluded:

among the different williams/bartlett mashes (2,6pH - 2,8pH - 3,0pH - 3,2pH - 3,4pH - 3,6pH)

- the brandy distilled from the 3,0pH variant tasted best

- the higher ones: not crisp enough

- the lower ones: less body

. I am also quite happy with 3,0-3,2pH

. I accidentially lowered the pH value of a perry pear mash to 2,8pH: and it turned out to taste even better

==> maybe the high tannine content of this pear has been reduced to a nice level

. we are using phosphoric acid (food grade)

- we have made negative experiences with sulphur acid (H2SO4) and stone fruits

Where can I find any accessible research papers in the US concerning:

- fruit mashes

- malt mashes

- herb/spice/root/fruit maceration/distillation (Gin, Geist,...)

Or where do you get the most interesting distilling infos beside talking with colleagues?

How has your whiskey turned out so far?

mixed results:

- two whisk(e)ys I think turned out very good:

1) a maize/corn whiskey aged 4yrs in new American oak (Missouri)

(got a rating of 93 points in Murray's whisky bible some years ago)

2) a spelt malt whisky aged 4yrs in American/Sherry oak

(rated best spelt whisky at the 1st alpine whisky challenge,

but this is currently a small competition)

- On the other side we have to improve:

some of our whiskys lack smoothness, body and complexity,

albeit the nose is very typical of the raw material we use

Some DACH/Alpine Whisky(e)s producers:

. Säntis Malt, Rugenbräu and some other Swiss distillers:

www.schnapsforum.ch/cms/fileadmin/pdf/Schweizer_Whisky.pdf

. Blaue Maus, Henrich and association of some german whisky distillers:

http://www.deutsche-whiskybrenner.de

. You'll find 1/2 of Austrian whisky distillers here:

Austrian Whisky Association - AWA - www.austrian-whisky.at

Some questions:

. Do most of the artisan US whiskey distillers lauter the wort or not?

. Do you use some of the Fermentis yeasts like

Safspirit Malt, Safspirit American Whiskey, Safale S-33, Safale S-04, Safale S-05?

[Denver Distiller]

Where can I find any accessible research papers in the US concerning:

- fruit mashes

- malt mashes

- herb/spice/root/fruit maceration/distillation (Gin, Geist,...)

Or where do you get the most interesting distilling infos beside talking with colleagues?

I have a feeling you are already aware of all of these sources, but in case you are not:

If you're speaking as to US research papers on malt mashes, the Master Brewer's Association of the Americas Quarterly is your best option. http://www.mbaa.com/publications/tq/Pages/default.aspx

The Journal of the Institute of Brewing has infrequent research on distilling topics, though this is a British Publication, and I'm sure you are familiar with Brauwelt International.

And there has been some exchange between the United States and Austria. I spent some time with Mr. Hochmair many years ago at his distillery in Wallern.