Distilling Craft
Distilling Craft
My Lucky Barley
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In this episode, we talk with Dylan Mobley from Bottle Logic Brewing in Anaheim, CA about how their brewing process works. Later, we talk about Barley and what to look for in selecting the variety you use for fermentation.
You're listening to Distilling Craft, episode (13) "My Lucky Barley". Today we're going to be talking with Dylan Mobley from Bottle Logic Brewing in Anaheim, California.
Podcast PromoDistilling Craft is brought to you by Dalkita, a group of architects and engineers who specialize in designing craft distilleries across the U.S. More information is available at our website www.dalkita.com. [ d a l k i t a.com]
Colleen MooreHello everyone. Welcome to Distilling Craft. I'm Colleen Moore. Hey, just a quick thing before we start today's show - while we're hard at work, lining up new interviews and producing new shows, and you are so kindly waiting on us, we're going to reissue a couple of our episodes from season (1) with some previously unreleased material mixed in. We revisit episode (13) with Dylan Mobley- Head brewer of a cult favorite in Anaheim called "Bottle Logic Brewing". Today, he's going to talk with us about their brewing process. Later in the show, our radiogenic part time distiller DJ spin to talk with us about barley, specifically what to look for in selecting the variety to use for your fermentation. Welcome to our show, Dylan.
Dylan MobleyThanks. Thanks for having me.
DJ for DaliktaYou are a fairly successful brewery, you have a handful of gold medals at GABF last year, right?
Dylan MobleyNot this last year, but the previous two years before that we've won two golds, that was 2014 and 2015 for the Lagerythem dark lager, then we've won a gold for our Cold Baltic Porter at Great American, and also a silver with the same beer at a World Beer Cup. And then , Darkstar November, which is a Barrel aged Imperial Stout, also took a silver medal of the World Beer Cup. We've got a little bit of hardware up on the wall, it's been nice.
DJ for DaliktaThat certainly does help. How long have you been with Bottle Logic? Or, if it's from the start, how long have you been open?
Dylan MobleyI joined Bottle Logic in April of 2015, so it's been a little over two years for me there. They opened their doors in February of 2014, so shortly after they opened.
DJ for DaliktaWhat do you do in terms of styles of barrier making? Obviously, you mentioned a handful, you've won awards for it, but do you run the gamut or do you have a specialty?
Dylan MobleyI'd say that our specialty, our focus is definitely bourbon barrel aged beers. We've put a pretty big emphasis on our total production volume going to Bourbon. We've got a pretty good size program, we've got about 500 full bourbon barrels at the moment, and then building up some barrel inventory on the sour side with some wine barrels. But, at the moment, the sour thing is still sort of a new project for us and it takes a long time for those beers to really mature and have anything to release. But, I think, our fan b ase are mostly geared towards the bourbon barrel aged stuff.
DJ for DaliktaWhere are you getting those barrels from?
Dylan MobleyWe get a lot of barrels from Kelvin Cooperage . They'll supply us with a pretty wide range of different distillers. We get Buffalo Trace, Four Roses, Bernheim Heaven Hill and then within those distilleries we'll get like their specialty products also. We'll get some redemption rye, every once in awhile we get, I forget the name of the weeded whiskey that we haven't held as well, Will It, which is Buffalo Traces, wheat whiskey. So then we do get into the exotic barrels occasionally we'll get some rum and tequila. We got some scotch in a while ago, which was interesting because they get old bourbon, so they're old when the scotch facilities get them. And then they use them for a long time. I think by the time we 'd g otten th em, they'd been sitting dry for aw hile a nd th en, they leaked like crazy, but they made some really interesting tasting beer.
DJ for DaliktaOh, you're going to end up being a Cooper yourself by the time you're done getting some of those backup and running.
Dylan MobleyOh yeah. We've got the whole Cooper kit hammered, the bands back, plugging up with wood and wax. Yeah, we've done everything short of rebuilding the barrel.
DJ for DaliktaThat'll be a fun experience when you get to rebuild one as well. I guess one of the first questions I have is in your kind of variety of styles of beer , what varieties of grain are you guys using?
Dylan MobleyFor the barrel aged stouts, we're using an English Ale malt for our base. So that makes up about 60 to 65% of the gris , depending on the recipe. We just want a little bit more of a rich malt backbone , rather than just using a two room malt. So we'll use that. We're usually pretty heavy handed on the darker, chocolate or dark crystals. Then typically are using a good shot of oats to about 8 to 12% oats on those beers.
Are you guys doing any wheat beers? The beers that we use the most wheat in are actually these new hazy IPA's. I don't know if you're familiar with the whole trend. It got started by the brewery called The Alchemists down in Vermont. They made a beer called Heady Topper, which back when they started making it, hazy IPA was not a thing. They actually put right on the can they recommended to drink out of the can. And I don't know if that was to try to hide the fact that it was a pretty cloudy beer, but the whole concept caught on and now it's blown up into this thing that, most of the big craft guys are making a beer within this style. So they're fun, it's a totally new approach to IPA. Really what it is to me is a marriage between the variety of yeast we use , with the hop varietals. And then there is an argument that using the high protein malts, like an unmalted wheat or oats does something for the mouth feel that helps, try to emphasize the juiciness of these beers. That's really what people like about them, there orange juice and tropical. Very juicy, is the best way I can describe it. What we're doing is using a yeast that , even before we hit it with a big dry hop, it's got a really big peach orange juice flavor just from the yeast esters . And then we're emphasizing those notes with the type of hops we're using, source selecting hops that give us citrus peel, Papaya, mango, all those fun tropical fruit flavors that people are really into at the moment. So it's been a fun project for us for sure. Kind of a lot different than what I'd traditionally been doing in brewing. I went to school in Germany to learn how to make clear beer. And so now I'm trying to intentionally keep beer hazy. It's been challenging but fun. Where'd you go to school in Germany? I did the Siebel Institute which is a private brewing school out of Chicago, but then they partner with the Domains Academy, which is just outside of Munich. So I finished up that program in Germany and did a lot of hands on brewing and packaging and QAQC training over there, which was great. That was probably one of the best things I've done for my career, for sure.
DJ for DaliktaThat's awesome. Did you go straight from that program to working for Bottled Logic or was there a stop in between?
Dylan MobleyRight out of school I went to work for Stone Grain company. I went and worked at Stone for a little over a year. After Stone I worked very briefly at Angel City, was there for a few months and it was a good company just wasn't a great fit for me. I kind of was looking for jobs and saw that Bottled Logic was posting for a head position and the timing was right and they were doing a lot of cool stuff. So I hopped on board with those guys.
DJ for DaliktaSo you've got wheat, you've obviously got a traditionally malted barley. Are you doing any unmalted barley or other grains?
Dylan MobleyYeah, occasionally we'll use a flaked barley. We don't buy much. Unmalted, like whole kernel that we would mill necessarily if we're going to use it on malted barley. It's been rolled in. They do a heat process, which pre gelatinizes the grain for that. We'll throw that directly in the mash on certain Belgian styles. Sometimes we'll use those on a barrel aged stout; not too frequently though. I'd say the unmalted products we work with the most are unmalted wheat and oats.
DJ for DaliktaAre you guys milling in house or are you bringing it all in premium?
All in house. Okay. So how is milling the oates different than say milling the weed or milling you're malt ?
Dylan MobleyWell, before we start milling a grain, besides the malted barley we use, we'll assess the size of the kernels. Sometimes with malted wheat you don't need to adjust the MIL gap . Sometimes the kernels are quite a bit smaller and you'll tighten up the mil gap for that. There's also the fact that the wheat doesn't have husks, so you don't, with milling malted barley for a brewer we're looking to get as fine of a crushed as we can without destroying the holes. The holes on the malted barley are basically our filter aid in the mash. They create bridges in the mash so that we can allowed her off the work. With wheat you don't have that husk that you're trying to keep intact. So the finer the crush, the better the extract , theoretically. We see, good enough extraction with just keeping the mill gap where it's at most of the time. Malted oats, we definitely tighten up the mil gap. Malted oates are kind of an odd shaped grain there. It's kind of long and skinny. So we'll tighten up the mill gap a bit for the malted oates.
DJ for DaliktaAre you guys sieving your crist on the way to the Mash Tun? What size particles are you trying to get out of that roller mill?
Dylan MobleyI can't even give you like a micron size because they'll vary quite a bit. It really depends on how fryable the grain is. We're using a two roller mill that's basically just looking to press the grain and then release that endo sperm from the Husk. And it gets pretty powdered. So we've got a pretty good mix of intact hauls, some coarser pieces, but we do generate a decent amount of finer , almost flour through the mill. It's definitely different than milling for a distiller who's going to be fermenting on grain; that which you're just looking for as much surface area as possible cause you're never trying to remove your solids from the liquids. We do periodically do a CIF test just to assess the performance of the mill . But again, there's not like an average particle size that we're shooting for, through the mill.
DJ for DaliktaSo with the difference between say oat and barley, are you needing to use different strike temperatures? I know wheat and barley can be run at the same temperature but does the oat require a different mashing process?
Dylan MobleyNo. We're basically looking to mash whatever temperature we decided to mash at we're doing to achieve a certain ferment ability profile. If we want to yield a bit of a sweeter beer, we're going to mash warmer. If we want it to dry it out , we'll definitely mash a little lower. Larger breweries that are using a lot of adjunct, like if you're Budweiser per se, and you're using rice or corn , they're getting a totally different product than we do. And Yeah, you'd want a separate cereal cooker to pre gelatinize those starches before you incorporate it into mash, so the enzymes can really get to work on that product and start converting.
You were about how you have a different strike temperature based on the sweetness profile you're looking for. Can you talk a little bit more about that and kind of what temperature ranges give you what results?
Dylan MobleyYeah, sure. So the system we're working on right now is a non heated mash lauter Tun. So it's a combined vessel. The only means of doing any sort of step mash, it would only be by infusion. And even then we're really limited to only one temperature step. We really don't do that very often. The only beer we've ever done that on consistently is the lambic base that we're using on the sour side. We mash in at protein rest and ramp it up straight to an alpha emile's rest because of the amount of water we have to use to get to that next step, we're pretty much maxing out the volume of that Mash Tun. So we don't really have that flexibility , with the new system that we'll be getting for the expansion will be a heated mashed mixers. So we'll have a lot more freedom to do different temperature rests. So at the moment with doing single infusion, which is what most home brewers do , we've got to pick a temperature for that. That conversion rest that's going to give us as close to what we want out of a fermentation profile. So , yeah, if we're making a barrel aged beer that we want, we want to finish out at a higher gravity and be a bit fuller bodied, sweeter beer , we'll mash up towards 155 to 157. If we're making like a lager, we'll mash a bit lower, about 149 or so. Just creates the more or less fermentable sugar. More fermentable sugars if you're mashing low, less fermentable sugars if you're mashing high. That's the basic principle.
DJ for DaliktaMakes Sense. Are you guys doing, on the cooling side after you're done with your cook and everything are you guys able to slow down and do a secondary Beta rest or anything like that or do you have to do it on the front side as you're heating up?
Dylan MobleyYeah, the insulation on the Mash 1 0 is pretty efficient. We don't see much of a temperature drop through the m ash r est. We'd have to give it a pretty long rest to see it actually dropped down into Beta. That being said we talked about this in school, how traditionally, a nd it makes sense because if you're putting a bunch of grain in a mash, it's really not easy to go from warm to cool. So you always go from cooler temperature rest to warmer. The way that the two enzymes function, the most fermentable w ork you would make would be starting at an alpha r est and then letting it drop down into a Beta rest, because an alpha goes after those branch chains and then Beta gets the ends. So if you're able to start at Alpha and free u p more of those branch sugars, y ou're giving Beta more ends to chew on. It's not practical for brewing or distilling, for that matter, to do the opposite order. So you see most people doing a Beta and then ramping up into an alpha.
DJ for DaliktaMakes Sense. So are you guys doing any enzyme additions or are you just relying on your Malts carry that through?
Dylan MobleyWe're not using enzymes. Malt, these days, have the enzymatic activity you get out of a good two row malt is plenty. I mean, we've never had conversion problems.
DJ for DaliktaYeah, I'm sure it's mostly on the distillery and where we're not using malted at all for a lot of spirits. What are you guys doing for testing to ensure your conversion reaches the level you're looking for? Are you just doing iodine tests or what do you guys kind of running?
Dylan MobleyOn a day to day basis we don't even test because we are always using at least 65% malted barley. We know that we're getting plenty of enzymes regardless of what other adjuncts we're putting into the mash. We know that we're getting adequate conversion. If we did had some sort of an issue , we do have iodine around to make sure that we're getting conversion. But our mash, is relatively slow. It probably takes average of 30 to 40 minutes to mash in for a 17 barrel batch. We do a 20 minute rest and about a 20 minute vorlauf. So, you know, at the end of the whole mash before we start ramping that temperature up, it's had about an hour at conversion temperatures.
DJ for DaliktaAre you guys doing anything with the Ph to help out that conversion?
Dylan MobleyYeah, absolutely. So we actually have a pretty awesome water filtration set up. We do a blend of carbon filtration and reverse osmosis. So we would generally filter the water down pretty soft and then we're salting up. For lighter beers we actually still have to add some , acidulated malt to get down to the Ph that we're looking for. Styles like like a blonde ale, we're looking for like 5.3 to 5.4. IPA, we're looking to go a little lower. We've found that people l ike that flavor a little better. We're shooting for about 5.2 on the IPA's. And then on the darker big beers, like a big imperial stout, the dark roasted grains and the darker crystals actually c ontributed a decent amount of acidity. So with those, we don't need any acidulated m alt and we're actually using a higher proportion of salts to bring the Ph up. And for those w e're looking for a Ph of about 5 .4.
DJ for DaliktaCan you talk about how you determine your salt additions and what that process kind of looks like?
Dylan MobleySure.We have a baseline. We will send out our filtered water; one to assess the performance of our filters, but also just to see where we're at on all of the salts. Then we've got charts to help us determine how much to add of what type of salt to get either the Ph or a ppm, and the f inished beer.
DJ for DaliktaSo you said you're a running a lauter ton, off your grain in a pumping and clear ward over to your fermenters . Can you talk a little bit about what you're doing in the fermenter to get it ready for the yeast and then we'll get into what yeast, you're choosing and why after that.
Dylan MobleySo with brewing, cleaning and sanitation is a lot more important than in distilling. Whereas the distilling was fermentation's done, you're generally putting it over to the still and cooking anything besides the fact that you're boiling it. I do understand that a lot of the traditional w hiskeys, you actually want some of that bacteria that you get with the grain to help make a sour mash. With a brewing, unless you're making sour beer, and even then, we're boiling the wart, it's t he traditional process. It's where you're g oing t o incorporate hops a nd your spices. So we're starting with a sterile product. Then for fresh beer, you want to have as much control over that product as you can. So you need to make sure that you're starting with a completely clean and sanitary environment and all the culturing it with the b rewers yeast that we choose. So we do cleaning with caustic sodium hydroxide and we use a nitric p hosphor blend for an acid CIP and we're sanitizing with peracetic acid.
DJ for DaliktaAre you guys doing any adjustments to that wart to get it ready for the beer? Either oxygenation or possibly doing a Ph adjustment in the fermenter, nutrient addition, anything like that?
Dylan MobleySo it depends on the beer. We're generally not doing any sort of Ph adjustment in the fermenter , but we do oxygenate work. If it's a really high gravity beer or if it's a really high gravity beer, we'll use yeast nutrient or if it's the first generation, like if we just got a fresh culture of yeast from a lab, we'll hit the beer with some use nutrient. But generally, if we're harvesting yeast off of a healthy fermentation , the wort has everything that the yeast needs as far as nutrient levels go. So we're just saving ourselves a little money and an extra step. The yeast seemed to be pretty happy. We generally carry everything for about eight to 12 generations.
DJ for DaliktaHow do you guys do your oxygenation?
Dylan MobleyIn the hard piping on the brewhouse , it's fitted with a with a centered stainless steel stone. And we're using food grade oxygen.
DJ for DaliktaOkay, so it's actually in the piping before you get to the fermentor .
Dylan MobleyCorrect. Right on the backside of the heat exchanger. So as the cool wort exits the heat exchanger, it passes over the oxygenation stone and we run about three liters a minute on, on oxygen.
DJ for DaliktaSo you were saying you do eight to 12 generations with your yeast. Why is it eight to 12? Is that where you feel they're starting to degrade in quality or are you guys doing testing? What gives you that life span?
Dylan MobleyIt's kind of a rule of thumb thing that is industry-wide. 10 generations is generally what you see commercial breweries doing. For us , I say eight to 10 generously. We do so much weird stuff with the type of beers we make. We're lucky to make it that far. The theory behind it is that t here's a potential for mutation. The more generations that you get. If you don't taste anything though, if it tastes the same as the beer that you're trying to put out, there's no reason to stop r e-pitching yeast. That number, 10 generations, is kind of a rule of thumb for brewers, but there are guys out there who perpetually r e-pitch, everything. Anchor Brewing in San Francisco is one that they've been using the same culture, yeast for over 50 years
DJ for DaliktaSo yeah , I think they are a fair bit longer at this point. So how many different strains of yeast are you guys running? You said you're lucky if you're getting, eight out of some of them, right ?
Dylan MobleyIt's not necessarily because we're using so many different strains of yeast. But it's because of the styles of beer we're making. So generally we'll get about three harvest off of one fermentation. So, one beer will be able to provide use for three more. So we made sure to take one of those pitches and put it towards like our blonde ale or our single IPA, which is a little lower ABB . You generally don't want to harvest the yeast off of really high ABB beers. There's a chance that it's not the healthiest yeast that you could have, not an ideal fermentation on whatever you put that yeast into besides the fact that a lot of our higher ABB beers that we are putting these into our double IPA is where we're actually adding a little bit of hops during fermentation. So I don't even have the ability to pull clean yeast off. The hot sediments gooing to be mixed in with my yeast slurry. And then , with the amount of imperial stouts, we're shooting for like 10 to 11% alcohol in the fermentor before they even go to the barrel and it's just too high of an alcohol environment to realistically be harvesting that yeast.
DJ for DaliktaWhat do you kind of think is the cap to harvest yeast from alcohol? Percentage wise
Dylan Mobley8 percent is typically where I draw the line. If I'm really in a pinch, maybe, but that's all . We also don't make a ton of beers in that 8% range. Most brewers don't . You kind of see beers go from a six to seven, seven and a half, and then you jumped to nine to 11.
DJ for DaliktaAre you guys doing temperature control during your fermentations?
Dylan MobleyAbsolutely. Our house sales strain we ferment at 70 degrees. We actually knock the beer out, so we cool the out of the brewhouse down to like 66 and we'd let the yeast start a little low in temp , which is a little bit of a slower start for the fermentation, but it also suppresses some of those higher alcohol flavors that you don't really want in a beer. So we suppressed those in the beginning and then as it progresses it gets a little warmer and then we'll hold it at 70 degrees for the bulk of the fermentation. And towards the last degree plate over to a fermentation, we'll let it rise a little higher for diacetyl rest.
DJ for DaliktaAll right . Actually that brings me nicely into my next question. You're talking about monitoring your degrees plato during fermentation. Do you guys do any other monitoring along the way?
Dylan MobleyDuring fermentation, all we're really doing is we do a little sensory. So just smelling thee fermentation. You can taste it if you want to, it doesn't taste very good and most of what you're looking for can be picked up from the aroma. We do a little bit of aroma for sensory and then a Ph and gravity. We do that every day.
DJ for DaliktaWith your sour beers, how do they ferment differently?
Dylan MobleySo we've got sour beer going over there, two different ways that we've soured beer. The first round of sour stuff that we did we actually primary fermented with our house strain, strained in our stainless tanks. And then we took finished beer and put it into wine barrels. And then we hit the beer again with a wild yeast and bacterial blend to let it sour and mature in the oak. And then that just takes time. Ideally it's some temperature control, also. Warmer temperatures tend to not give the best flavor for pectinatus mitoses and lactobacillus pediococcus fermentations.
DJ for DaliktaSo were you air conditioning your barrel warehouse or how are you providing that control?
Dylan MobleyAt the moment we hit, a small area in that warehouse that is air conditioned but generally we've just tried to do the traditional Belgian method of souring where you really only want to start your primary sour fermentation in the colder months of the year so that you just let nature keep the temp down.
DJ for DaliktaCome on, we know you're in Anaheim. There is no cold month of the year .
Dylan MobleyYeah, hence our problem. January or February it's cold ish. We were actually just breaking ground this week on the sour facility. So we're putting up insulation HPAC and then a whole sour seller . So we're actually putting some pretty big stainless tanks over there for being able to primary ferment with wild yeast and bacteria present from the beginning of the fermentation, which I think is just going to help immensely. Then some fruiting tanks . So ideally what we'll do there is we'll get the work over to the sour brewery , let it ferment with whatever culture we want to use, rack the whole thing off into barrels for a little bit of a maturation period and then when the beer tastes good pull it out of those barrels back onto whatever fruit we want to use and then bottle condition those in our bottle conditioning area. So it's quite a project over there.
DJ for DaliktaSo where are you guys available right now? Obviously in California. But where else could we find your beer?
Dylan MobleyWe're pretty much California, basically southern California and even southern California is a reach. We're pretty local to Orange County. We're just not making a ton of beer right now, which is a huge part of why we want this expansion to go through. It's seemingly getting easier to get beer to other states, without necessarily picking up a distributor. Some states are getting a little more relaxed on shipping direct. So there's a chance we could either ship direct to the customer or potentially some retail accounts. There's a couple logistics companies that are doing some really cool stuff in that field. So hopefully we'll be getting some stuff out of the state into a few key markets. But for now, we've just been focusing on our local market.
DJ for DaliktaSo if you were building a new brewhouse from scratch , what would you do differently?
Dylan MobleyYou know, I think the one thing that people underestimate is how quickly they're going to grow. So I think number one is get the biggest brewhouse so you can afford and obviously if you have space requirements, I mean that's, that's a separate issue. But I see so many guys opening with a seven barrel brew house and by the first year of business they've outgrown it. Bottle Logic were even a little bit ahead of that when they opened a few years ago, everybody thought opening with a 15 was like so big. Sure enough, 18 months in and we've outgrown the 15. So going bigger would be my first recommendation. And then also planning for some add ons. If you're going to start with a two vessel system, put it in a footprint in the building where you can either dedicat mash mixer or a dedicated whirlpool depending on your process. Just having those multi-vessel systems really increases the number of turns through the brewhouse in a day with not much more added Labor. So I think those are probably the main points to take away for planning of brewhouse.
DJ for DaliktaWhat pieces of equipment would you say would be the best focus of your spending
Dylan MobleyThe brewhouse has to be quality. You know it's funny because brewings are relatively straightforward process. You know, you have to mix hot water with Malt. You've have to separate the solids from liquids and boil it and cool it. But you don't want to get the cheapest system out there because you don't know how efficient your lauter tons is going to be. So now you're wasting money to put more malt in there just to get the equivalent gravity on say a more expensive, more efficient system. If your heat exchangers under size well now you're wasting money on extra water and time. I think the brewhouse is probably the first place to really invest some good money.
DJ for DaliktaDid you find getting a formal education is helpful either in your career and in your day to day job?
Dylan MobleyYes, I do. I can't say that I would have the position I do now without the formal education, but I also wouldn't have the position that I have now without the commercial experience that I've gained. Education isn't always an option for people. I mean, I have plenty of friends that are still working at stone who started throwing empty glass on the bottling line and w ork their way up to being a filler operator and then a shift lead and then moving up to the seller side and work their way all the way up. And now they're shift supervisors or managing t wo, 120 barrel b rew houses up there. So you can go about it both ways. The education it provided me some good insight because while the experience was good knowing why we were doing certain processes a specific way was pretty valuable.
DJ for DaliktaVery cool. All right, Dylan, thank you very much for getting on the show and talking to us today.
Dylan MobleyYeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Podcast PromoToday's interview is brought to you by the team of architects and engineers at Dalkita. Dalkita has been serving the craft distilling industry for over 13 years and are committed to production facilities that work. Let's get back to the show.
Colleen MooreSpecial thanks to Dylan Mobiley for taking some time to talk with us about Bottle Logic Brewery today. Up next, our man on the scene, DJ, and his sermon on barley. What to look for in selecting the variety to use in your fermentation.
DJ for DaliktaSo when were talking about grain and in this case barley, malted barley; the reason we're mainly using barley is kind of twofold. One is that it does contain starch and that starch is the sugar that will get converted to sugar that our yeasts need. But it's also due to the really high enzyme content that malted barley has. These enzymes enable us to break down not only the starch inside the barley, but it's got a high enough content that we can use those enzymes to break down the starch and other grains. Generally speaking, there's two of them: Alpha amylase and Beta amylase . Alpha amylase is mainly there to convert starch into dextrins. Iit'll also help reduce the viscosity of our warts. And it does that by breaking down those starch chains into the dextrins. Also, by breaking down those long starch molecules, it'll increase the ability for the Beta amyloids to take effect. Basically, the Alpha cuts the big chains into little chains and the Beta comes in to nibble the ends off of chain. So if you're only using beta on a really long chain, it'd have to work from the outside in. While Alpha is able to come in and break a big chain into two and four , multiple smaller chains that then increase the amount of surface area that Beta can work on. So Beta is our key sacrifying enzyme and its main job is to create maltose and break down those dextrins that are created by the alpha amylase. So this is typically where we get our rests when we're doing our mashing. We'll do a higher temperature rest, allow that Alpha to do its job, and then we'll cool down just slightly to their range and allowed the Beta to do its job. Depending on how we're using those enzymes, whether we're using natural enzymes or added enzymes, we're going to need different Ph's. And so if you're using natural enzymes, you're going to have to take a swing and figure out what gets you the best yield. If you're using a commercial enzyme, you're going to be able to dial in the Ph exactly for what that needs. So that's why we're using barley. Barley's been in use forever and in fact, the first documented case of using barley for fermentation happened almost 9,000 years ago in Egypt. They actually have drawings of barley being used. So it's got this great history behind it and the main reason it does is because of those enzymes. Any more barley is mainly the spring barley is what is used. And actually, let me break that down a little bit. So there's two types of growing seasons, for Barley. We have our winter barley and we have our spring barley. And then inside of that we've got two types of barley. We have two row barley and six row barley. So that time of year mainly reflects when the crop is harvested. And then the number of rows is , if you look at the head of that stock there are two parallel and equal rows of barley kernels coming up off of that stock. In six row, they'll actually be six rows coming up. So what it tends to be is four nice parallel and even ones and then two on the ends that are a little bit smaller and kind of twisted. And those cause some issues that we'll get into here in a couple of seconds. In Europe, pretty much only two row barley is used. Six row is grown mainly for cattle feed. In North America, both six row and two row were used for brewing and distilling. But on the other end, only spring barley is used in North America. While winter barley, winter two row at least, is used occasionally in Europe. Some ways for people to kind of expand what we're using might be to either find somebody who's growing some winter six row and kind of play with the different styles there. So while the enzymes in the barley are great, the downside of barley is that it has the lowest starch content of all the major grains. Starch is what gets turned into sugar which means the potential for alcohol would be the lowest in a pure equal, weighted pure barley fermentation while the highest would be in corn. Typically we see 63 to 65% starch in barley, where corn can get up into that 70 to 75% starch range, that extra percentage while a lot of it is protein, we'll also see those enzymes making up a lot of that in the barley. When you get your barley, the most important thing to look at is the nitrogen content. Luckily, the nitrogen content has great parallels to the two things we care about most in our grain. So a low nitrogen content will indicate that you have a relatively high starch level in your grain, but it will also indicate you have a relatively low enzyme content. So if you're using your barley primarily for its enzymes, then you're going to want a little bit lower nitrogen level. While, if you're looking to get your barley, say for 100% of your fermentation, and so you're going to have plenty of enzyme content and you're mainly looking to use it for alcohol and alcohol generation. Lastly you want to get that nitrogen content as low as possible so that you can create as much alcohol as possible. So we've talked about the basics of what is barley. It's history is that kind of stuff. Well, let's look at our main decision. Two row or six row and any more , really the answer is it doesn't matter a use what's closest to you to row barley's primarily grown in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Colorado and Wyoming. And of course it's grown all over the country, but those states are the largest producers. Six or on the other hand is got a huge amount of growth in North Dakota and Minnesota. And then the next kind of tear down to be South Dakota. And then Idaho as well. After that, it's kind of spread throughout the country. You find who you know, a farmer who's close to you, who's growing what you want, or talk to somebody into growing which you want. What if you're buying from a major grain manufacturer? Those are the states that your grain is most likely coming from. So aside from choosing what's closest to you, the main advantages of to row a is that it's very easy to mill the processing. The grain can be done even in a two roller mill. You don't really need the extra rollers because it all is about the same size. You can set just a single grind with and it'll just pop those colonels right out, crush from where you need them to be deposited out. Obviously a hammer mill worked just fine, but traditionally Bartley's done with it with a roller mill . Anyhow , if you're starting to talk about six row you'd, that's where you need those additional rollers. Four and six will really help because of those end kernels. You're not going to get consistent size for the input particles into your mill, and so you're going to need a wider roller with on top to deal with those big particles and then you'll need to use a smaller roller with down in there to crush the smaller kernels. You won't be able to use a single width roller to get all those different particles. Oh , one of the other interesting differences is the six row ends up having slightly smaller kernels and what that means is that the husk percentage on those kernels is going to be larger. So for a given kernel of barley, you will have a higher percentage husk. That husk does a couple things. On one hand it increases the tenants and so it can create a kind of meatier texture right to your spirits. The downside, if you break that Husk up too much, it can make your distal at Maura better . Generally speaking, six row barley will also have a higher protein content. Protein is good in that it is related to the amount of enzymes available, so having a higher protein content, will give you a higher enzyme base which will allow for faster conversion and you can do shorter mashes to get more alcohol out. That being said, if you're using barley primarily for an adjunct, then that's not necessarily what you're going for because you need that higher starch content and so you'll be able to create more alcohol from two row than you would from six, but you'll be able to create alcohol faster if you're doing really short turnover times. With the six row are cool things for you to kind of be aware of. If you're looking at heritage barley varietals is a Ethel carbamate though Ethel carbonate is something that is not necessarily regulated in the U.S. But it is regulated in the EU and in general. It's something that we want to try to eliminate from our spirits because it does create some kind of funky flavors. Generally speaking, certain types of barley are prone to the creation of Ethyl Carbo mate during fermentation. And so what you can do is look at your grains and see if they have a high ABB number ABB is your G leick c austic N Y trial. And so basically at the end of the day, GN turns into ethyl carbamate . And so you want to make sure when you're looking at these heritage breeds that they don't have that high GN number. I'd definitely get anything you're looking at distilling tested first. Oh , you'd hate to fall in love with a grain and then discover that it kind of puts a weird flavor in a just due to this genetic component. Another thing to look at is if you are going to be using unmarked malted barley , unmalted barley can create some really cool flavors, just because it is an unusual component, it does have that lower starch l evels. So it will be decreasing the amount of alcohol by whatever you're replacing with that. And malted barley without giving you the benefit of the additional enzymes. But unmalted barley contains a gum, Beta glucan and Beta glucan will really make everything kind of thick and nasty when it gets into your wort. So as much good as you're dealing with all your enzyme rests to help thin it out and make it easier to move around your distillery and easier to distill by putting on malted barley in there, you can kind of be undoing all of that work as well. Those are the two major flaws you kind of think about with using barley in general. Something else I'd Kinda recommend, particularly if you're using six row a, is due to that higher protein content in there, it's probably worth throwing in a protein rest. Uh, normally that's not done in the distilling world. That's more of a brewing thing, but it will help eliminate some of that foam up in the still if you're able to destroy those proteins during cooking. And it also help with foam open your fermenter for that matter.
Colleen MooreAre you interested in filing a report with us while we're actively seeking professionals to give us the low down on the technical aspects of distillery operations? For our listeners, contact via our website with your pitch. Do you have feedback on this show? Well, send us an email to distillingCraft@ dalkita .com of course, if you want to find out more about this specific episode, go to our show notes on our web page. That's dalkita.com/shownotes. Remember, you can subscribe to this podcast on Apple or however you get your podcasts. Our theme music was composed by Jason's Shaw and is used under a creative Commons attribution 3.0 license and finally a special thanks to the Dalkita team behind this production and the man that puts it all together. Our sound editor, Daniel Phillips of zero crossing productions. Until next time, stay safe out there. I'm Colleen Moore,
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