Distilling Craft
Distilling Craft
Rye, Matey!
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Rye mashing, milling, and fermentation are discussed to finish up the grain portion of the fermentation series. Campbell Morrissey of Mother Road Brewing is interviewed to talk about his experience with rye in both breweries and distilleries.
Welcome to Distilling Craft. You're listening to episode (17): "Rye, Matey!". Today, we're going to be talking with Campbell Morrissey from "Mother Road Brewing" in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Dalkita PromoDistilling Craft is brought to you by Dalkita, a group of architects and engineers who specialize in designing craft distilleries across the US. More information is available at our website www.dalkita.com
Colleen MooreHello everyone. Welcome to Distilling Craft. I'm Colleen Moore. 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 one with some previously unreleased material mixed in. Campbell's going to talk with us about his experience with rye in both the distilling and now a brewing context. Later, our part-time radiogenic distiller, DJ, talks with us about rye mashing plus milling and fermentation to wrap up the grain portion of our fermentation series. Campbell, welcome to Distilling Craft.
Campbell MorrisseyThank you for having me!
Dalkita DJHow long have you been working at Mother Road?
Campbell MorrisseyI've been working with Mother Road just over two and a half years. I started here in 2015 and I've seen us grow from an 1800 barrel, very local focus, to a statewide 5,000+ barrel a year brewery and growing. And, we're actually opening our new facility in January. Before you got back into brewing, you were working at Stranahan's for awhile , right? Yes, that's correct. Most recently I was the production manager at Stranahan's. Helped them to start growing those Stranahan's brand as well as some of the contract bottling that we did for Proximo Spirits, our parent company. It was a really awesome experience. I got to start from the ground up, came in as a shift brewer, and then took the next step into that production management role and got to learn a lot and hopefully contribute a lot to that company.
Dalkita DJAnd then, along the way, you managed to pick up a master's degree in brewing.
Campbell MorrisseyThat's correct. I got my master's of Science and Brewing and Distilling at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. I did that 2012_2013 and was encouraged to do that from a boss of mine working at Durango Brewing, who had graduated from the same program, and really spoke highly of it. And obviously, getting to live in Scotland and learn about brewing and distilling was an easy choice to make.
Dalkita DJI can understand that you might have sampled some local product at one point or another.
Campbell MorrisseyAbsolutely. Actually, truth be told, I never really drank much whiskey other than the occasional Jameson shot prior to that and really didn't actually really care for it. And then, got exposed to the w orld of single malt and just totally fell in love with it. So, I got really excited about that and that led me to start discovering more of the American whiskey production, especially the Bourbon and rye whiskey boom was coming back around, so what was available was pretty amazing. And I 've started discovering that and then obviously learning a lot about the process. So, I ended up falling in love with distillation and whiskey in particular.
Dalkita DJYou've got an academic background, you're currently in a brewery. You've been in a brewery in the past. You've done Stranahan's . What do you see is the differences and commonality between breweries and distilling in their production process, obviously up until the still?
Campbell MorrisseyWell, the interesting thing about distilling is that mashing and fermentation will differ widely based on the product you're making, based on the distillery, based on the final distillation process, whereas for the most part in brewing, obviously, there's some variation, but overall that mashing and the Whirlpooling and Whirlpool, and fermentation is pretty standard across the board. You might ferment your lagers a little longer. Belgian styles are going to require little different fermentation profile. You can expand that into turban matching for sour beer while these production, however, it's still fairly consistent. Whereas every distillery is going to do something a little different. At Stranahan's, we were essentially brewing a beer like wash to actually replicate the original wash that was being produced at Flying Dog. So I got to learn a lot. I got to have that crossover where some things were very brewing like, and then some things are very unique to distillation. But then, you start thinking about Scotch Malt whiskey production, which is a multiple pass batch lauter into open wash backs versus bourbon production, which is, typically, I find ground flour mixed with water in the cereal cooker, which is then all pumped into the fermentation vessel. And then that's pumped into the still. So you're working with like a thicker slurry on grain versus Scotch, not slurry typical wash, but very open, different yeast strains. I mean, that's just scratching the surface. What people are doing in the craft world is completely different
Dalkita DJThe fun part is how weird and different everybody gets to be. So, we've been talking a bit about different grains. We got into a little bit of fruit production here on our last episode. What do you see the difference in distilling and in the brewery side between using all barley or starting to use some of the adjuncts in the beer side or doing rye and corn and that stuff on the whiskey side?
Campbell MorrisseyObviously, the number one thing there is "Flavor Profile". I mean, that's going to be the impact of using rye versus wheat versus corn, it's pretty evident. Open up a bottle of American straight rye whiskey brew or distilled at the same distillery as their equivalent straight bourbon, and those aren't even the same thing. I mean, chances are they have a really similar fermentation profile or really similar distillation profile. And there's usually two different grains and don't even taste like the same product. So when it comes to flavor, that's where you're seeing a lot of differences. But then in process, there's huge differences as well. I mean the gelatinization temperature's being different, viscosity being different. rye is notoriously difficult to work with. A lot of reason, a lot of smaller distilleries are struggling to put out as high quality rye as you're getting from Midwestern Green Products or what you see in some of the bigger distilleries in Canada. They're just set up for it. You have to use a ton of enzyme. You have to have a lot of specialized equipment and move that down the line, whereas it's a little easier to get corn flour from reputable distributor, and make pretty decent bourbon out of that. So, it just takes a little more nuance and then wheat obviously adds its own complexities. I haven't had the opportunity to still much with wheat, but I find it really interesting. Actually I find we did bourbons, which obviously it's a bourbon so 51% corn, but other part is made up with wheat instead of rye. And that change is a completely different flavor profiles than a high rye Bourbon for instance. On the brewing side, again, flavor number one but also process is really difficult. I mean, brewing high rye beers, probably the most difficult thing we've ever done. Just requires a lot of extra processing. A lot of eye on that lauter, separation is really intense. We haven't gone as high anything %20+, but I've read quite a bit about some different techniques either using to maintain some pressure on the mash, also using a lot of enzyme to cut down the viscosity. But again, everyone's systems are going to be so different that I'm interested in also terrified to try it.
Dalkita DJthat's interesting. So, you're actually brewing rye beers, I guess, I haven't run across those yet. The first question I have would be, "Why rye beer?" I get that rye adds a lot of depth of flavor on the whiskey side, but it seems that it might be a little intense on the brewery side without that still in there to knock back the flavor a little.
Campbell MorrisseyAt Mother Road, all the beers that I've had in designing and releasing. I'm a big fan of using adjunct, not necessarily as a dominant flavor, but as a background. Our IPA, which is by far our bestseller, we've brewed with wheat. It's about 9% of the batch of the Mashville and it just gives it a nice rounder flavor, gives a little more body. Our session IPA has about that equivalent of rye and it helps set that beer apart by giving it a nice spiciness on the end. Some people describe it as peppery, some people even pick up a little bit of Menthol, but I just get like a generic, you know, hit a spice at the end. And it helps round out a fairly full bodied beer with a ton of tropical fruit hops. We use a lot of eldorado. I love El Dorado because it actually tastes like Hawaiian sea fruit punch, but it can come off as coeing. And that the rye just helps to cut through it a little bit. So again, it's not a dominant flavor and you might not even say this is a rye beer, but using rye just helps you complete the palette, if you will.
Dalkita DJThat actually makes perfect sense when we're talking less than 10%, so you're getting the flavor through. It's flavor-wise the equivalent of doing a high rye bourbon, but then distilling it so you're getting that rye component, but it just gets knocked back. That actually makes a ton of sense. I just don't think enough about the beer adjuncts.
Campbell MorrisseySo often, if it's got wheat in the beer , it's a wheat beer. If it's got rye in the beer, it's a rye Pale Ale or whatever. You'd be surprised how many brewers are saying I'm not the only one doing it, there's a lot of brewers out there who are using these adjuncts as just that . It's an adjunct. It's part of the whole picture. And they really helps to round out flavor than just using straight barley even of various carmelizations and flavor profiles from that. The different grains really help a lot.
Dalkita DJWhat do you see on the processing side? It sounds like you aren't milling your own grains, so how much difference is there in how you gelatinize and your sacrification of your rye versus your wheat versus your malt? What do you see differently in how you have to treat those different grains?
Campbell MorrisseyWe are milling ourselves, which is actually funny you bring that up, because we just had a huge issue with brewing our anniversary imperial stout, which we did fittingly enough for grain, so barley, wheat, rye, and oats. We use quite a bit of malted oats in that. I'm a big fan of malted oats in brewing. And, we can not get it to crack so it's basically we're just moving through like a bunch of whole grains. And there was no difference in size from the barley and rye just through the multiprocessing , the amount of husk material. I believe by weight malted oats are almost 40% husk, just makes it significantly less fryable and we didn't account for that. We also used a ton of flaked oats, so t hat s eemed to really boost that up. So I'm not sure we actually got that contribution f rom the malted oats, but t hose a re real interesting learning experience possibly having to m ill those separately. Are you using a roller mill for that? Yes. We have a pretty simple two roller mill currently and that's one of the reasons we're excited to move up to our four roller, so we can actually get a little bit more of that control over our grass composition. And then back to when I worked at Durango brewing, our flagship was a 50% wheat beer. So 50% malted wheat in that, no husk material, so nothing to really support that lauter bed. Obviously, a ton of viscosity issues, a lot higher protein. So we use core , we use about a hundred pounds of rice hulls per 15 barrel batch just to help set that lauter bed. We're using a simple mash lauter combi , pretty typical in the craft brewing industry. So no real ability for step m ashing or even being able to just convert, and then have that nice wide lauter bed as you'd see in more advanced dedicated vessel system.
Dalkita DJJust to circle back to the milling, it sounded like you were running all the grains through the mill simultaneously. Is that what you guys were doing?
Campbell MorrisseyCorrect. We're able to m ill i n about five or six bags at a time. We run it auger to our hydrator and just did not account for the fact that the malted oats w ere going to give us trouble, and didn't think about it and regretted not. But in the end, the beer came out well. We adjusted by adding quite a bit of rolled oats directly into the mash, during the mashing process to get those adequately hydrated. We got the body w e w ere looking for. So, learning experience obviously, but something really interesting in the distillation world when you're talking about processing multiple different grains, I c ould see that being, unless you're just going straight hammer mill and turning everything into basically a flour, i t can be really interesting and played a lot of problems down the line if you're not really adjusting your mill p rep to each grain. Thankfully, we're not doing malted oats very often, but definitely something we would think about if we did.
Dalkita DJI've seen a lot of that where when you switched grains, you need to readjust your rollers in order to either handle the larger particles on the input, or to end up getting a a consistent output. Although just a two roller mill, I'm not sure how much you can really do besides just set it where you want the output to be and hope and wait.
Campbell MorrisseyCorrect. I mean, that's an issue obviously comes up with rye quite a bit. The kernel size tends to be quite small. Our supplier gets pretty plump kernels for rye and that's been really nice because, it's really allowed us to not have to make too many adjustments, but it's something we've been aware of. I don't know if you're familiar with rye, it's real long and thin, whereas like barley is shorter and fatter, and wheats even shorter and fatter than that. So, no issues milling wheat. Haven't had any issues milling rye current as of yet. But now that I say, I'm sure I'm going to walk in this weekend and something will have gone wrong.
Dalkita DJI wanted to circle back. You said you went to a Heriot Watt, how valuable have you found that education to be? I know there's always a debate in the industry between experience and education. Now that you've had the education, has it been valuable to you in your career? How do you look back on it?
Campbell MorrisseyWithout a question, it's been possibly the best decision I've ever made. My educational background, prior to that, I was a political science major in college, and was going to go work in the nonprofit sector. And since decided brewing was more fun, too much stress in the nonprofit world. But it, basically, allowed me to catch back up, use some of the science I did take in college, get that crash course in micro and brewing chemistry, brewing engineering especially. And then, develop those skills and learn a ton. But then it also allowed me to develop a network of international brewers and professors who I can look to and talk to and bounce ideas off of, so that was huge and still is. It's been over four years since I graduated, which y ou g et four and a half years since I graduated, which i s crazy. We still have a very active Facebook group of all things, but people are still posting, "Hey, this happened t o me, has anyone had this issue? Looking for some advice or looking a t change suppliers who you recommend", et Cetera, et cetera. So, between the actual coursework and the education, and the community and network that I built, I would never change it for the world. However, I'm not saying it's the only way to grow as a brewer distiller. One of our brewers here, he's a bio and chemistry major at Northern Arizona University, and he's just a r ockstar. And, honestly is g oing t o do more just focusing on that field of study not necessarily g oing into b rewing specific stuff. And we'll come out with as much as I did. So, if you have the educational background or the willingness to work hard and learn, and finding those mentors, everyone has a s good of a chance to make it in the brewing industry. However, finding a network of people to help out, be for advice at work, or someone's posting a new job, that's been huge and I'm just really thankful for that.
Dalkita DJThat's a great endorsement. That's really cool that you've seen both sides of it and still find it valuable. So, I remember when you went to school, your dissertation was actually on rye, is that correct?
Campbell MorrisseyActually, my first semester project, my full dissertation was a different project. It was on basically processing rye and in the brewing and distilling industry, and just different techniques people are using. Some of the implications of not doing it or not processing it correctly. And some of the unique aspects of rye about why it's a pain in the ass. It was a really interesting project and enlightening to see, cause it is one of the coolest grains in the world because it grows a lot of places t hat a lot of other grains won't. So, high altitudes as well as high latitudes, colder climates, less nutrients, solar and lower nutrients soils, so it's become this, especially in northern Europe and North America, h as become this like grain of like the struggle and hardship, if you will. If you think about the images of the eastern block and like these like dense rye loaves and despair, also what every brewer feels like when they've overdone it with the rye probably. So, just starting there, it's made its way into the brewing and distilling industry from those areas where it was the only feasible grain to use. So in every culture, what does excess green get turned into? Alcohol, of course. So, I did a lot about the history. As well, in Germany, the lesser known of their beers i s the rogue and beer, like a vice beer-- it's 50% rye . Very, very difficult to process. And t here a re some really cool schematics on old German breweries that specialize in rogue and beer. A nd obviously, holding to the reinheitsgebot vote; no endogenous and exogenous enzymes were allowed. So a lot of multistep processing, a lot of decoction mashing was required to make that beer lauterable. And then moving into the distillation world where advanced distillation, they're doing 95% rye where it's just cooked all hell. A ton of mycological base enzymes are added, and then they add another 5% multiple, basically cook it to crap and then cool it down, add 5% malted barley for amylase activity, and then can move it along the way. Obviously, they figured out ways to use it, but there's no one and no historical product that ever says, we just chuck it in, it's fine.
Dalkita DJKnowing all that, you're still deciding to not only use rye normally, but you're starting to talk about high rye beers. Are you crazy or just interested in trying new things? What's making you go, "I want to make more rye in my beer."?
Campbell MorrisseyWell, I decided to enter the craft brewing industry, so I'm clearly masochistic in some way. I just think the payoffs are worth it. it's a flavor that you can't get from another grain. Barley can't be processed any way to give the flavor rye does. And that's just using the basic malted rye, which is honestly pretty cheap. So, relative to the specialty barleys and there's no hop that create that in the distillation world. There's nothing that creates that, other than that grain. And I do think it is worth using. However, you have to just know what you're getting into. Will Mother Road ever release a Rogenberry at 50% rye? I surely hope not. But it would be fun to try. We're going to have to really think about how we're processing it from raw material handling as far as milling goes to our mash profile . Do we need to step mash ? Do we need to add enzyme to break down those dextrins and especially reproduce ? and things that are just going to create huge viscosity issues and stick mashes. Looking at equipment, do we even have the equipment to set up for that? I know a lot of people who brew high rye beers will actually run their ranks pretty hard during their lauter process to just keep that grain bed building. Do you have the appropriate kettle? I've had this experience on the homebrewing side, and I've actually heard of it, and I was actually reading an NBA thread, think about it not too long ago, but actually getting like a cooked ashtray flavor off of rye beer, and they'd actually sucked through so many dextrins and proteins into their kettle using a direct fire kettle. It was actually burning those, and they got this like smoky, not a pleasant smoke character off of it. So, there's some serious downstream flavor profile implications and not just difficult days on brew day. With that said, getting those flavors, I just think, there's such an awesome flavor profile. And like I said earlier, not necessarily the dominant profile, but it just adds that extra back end flavor that helps round out a lot of beers.
Dalkita DJActually talking about all the struggles makes me want to go ahead and give it a try. So, I think I do well in the craft beer industry as well. Last thing I wanted to talk to you about is, you've been in a fortunate position that you've got to watch some companies grow. What have you seen from those struggles of getting bigger? What challenges come when you start scaling up your operation?
Campbell MorrisseyCurrently, we're in the process of opening our new facility, which is gonna be awesome. However, like everyone else, we're super behind. So over the last 12 months, we've been contract brewing with a brewery down in Phoenix. It's been a great partnership. We're on track to do about %20 to 25% of our total volumes this year out of that brewery. It took us almost two months per recipe to scale those recipes from a 15 barrel brewhouse in Flagstaff to a 15 barrel brewhouse in Phoenix. So, just moving equipment and changing equipment requires a lot of time, and it brought in variables-- we didn't even think about everything from liquor gross ratio and lauter bed size and depth to key of kettle, how many you're actual putting into your kettle. Yes, a boil is a boil, but two boils; one boil at a super rolling boil to another boil that's more of a simmer. You're gonna have a huge difference on utilization than talking about fermentation profiles. Just we found cone, size, or a cone angle. Most of the fermentors down there are 45 degree angle, whereas ours are all 60. And, we get a significantly better copper roma off our fermentations than they do down there. And we've had to add a significant amount more dry hops to the beers down there. We just learned so much and that's just scratching the surface of what we've talked about. I mean, that's not even getting into water chemistry and all that. Cause, w e're using city water that we m ade some stock, salt additions, they're using all our own water, they're trying to build up. So, many variables there. And then consistency, obviously, meeting consumer demand without being out of stock too much. We've struggled just making enough beer. Trying to keep as quality as possible and just on the equipment reasoning now and then our flagship IPA, taste profile wise stays very consistent. However, we're trying to keep it on up with that haze craze and some batches are a little clearer than others and people are like, "Can't believe they're starting to filter this beer". We're like, "No, we're sorry". But that's been something that we don't really want to be known for and struggle with and are looking forward to having more capacity than we need. So we can slow down a little bit, really make sure we're looking at every variable, every critical control point is being assessed. We're taking some big steps in quality from what we can do now, which is the basics, to partnering with Northern Arizona University, their spectrophotometer and their QPCR to really just like watch ourselves as far as consistency goes. So the best thing that we learned is that, sometimes you don't need to follow that road map that everyone does; it's like you start with this stuff in your lab, and you get this, and then you get this, and you get this. We realize we have this amazing resource with this 20,000+ student university, where they're doing a ton of research, and we've made the connections. And now, we're going to start tracking all of our infection or plating samples. We're going to scrap plating in favor of PCR technology and we don't have to make a financial investment to do that.
Dalkita DJThat's a great resource. In the new brewery, have you decided to stick with the shape of the fermentors from the brewery in Phoenix? Are you going back to your own size s tuffs s o that you'll have to adjust the recipes again from a large 45 back to a large 60? What was your thought process when you were putting together yours?
Campbell MorrisseyWe decided to try keep on as far as the seller goes. We're sticking with the same tanks. We have same company in brand as we have currently, so we can at least take that variable out of it. Currently, we do two to four knockouts to fill our fermenters. We are moving up to straight four knockouts . So we won't be changing that variable too much. We'll still have the same on knockouts. We'll be able to shorten our length between CAS out times, which is really nice. Fermentation design and ratios will be the same that we're working with now. So getting to just make that leap. The biggest one is, we're going from essentially cobbled together dairy equipment to a purpose bill 4 vessel 20 barrel system where we get out 80 barrels a day. I'm really interested to see how our grain efficiencies change , but then a hopitalization and what that clarity is. A big issue we've had with clarity's on the hot side and when you're working with that equipment it kind of sucks. But now that we have the right stuff, it'll be interesting to see how those hazy IPA is due on a purpose built mashed ton.
Dalkita DJHow about in the distilling world? I know Stranahan's was growing a lot during your tenure there. Did you see any big differences in equipment sizes, anything that made a real impact on the flavor process?
Campbell MorrisseyAbsolutely. We were lucky that we just had the capacity to blend all of our wash prior to distillation, which is like a really nice crutch to have. Because we ran 360 barrel, 120 barrel and 450 barrel fermentors of various providence bought in stages over time. Similar to some of the original stuff for the old brewery that we bought out to put our brewhouse and stillhouse down there, to the ones we bought at the end, we're a little different. I noticed fermentation profile is obviously different in those rapidity of fermentation evolves will compound concentration. And, thankfully, we just blended off and we did have the size to then even blend. Multiple still runs we get blended into a barreling batch. Multiple barreling batches will get blended into a bottling batch. So we were able to use that to maintain flavor profile. However, if you're a small distillery, you have a few fermentors; you can only do so many runs of you're still. You only have so much space that can really be problematic. And that's a difference in the craft brewing world. There's a lot more forgiveness when you're a small taproom brewery. People are just drinking at the taproom, they expect a little variation, where as that model was in quite translated into the distilling world where you still have to distribute, have your product on shelves or at bars, and maintaining. True to brand is important in both, but is a lot more critical early on in the distillation world.
Dalkita DJThere's certainly a lot of distilleries that are having success with the single barrel batches in every barrel is different. So, if you like it, buy it now, and the next one will be good, but it'll be different good. But it's a little harder to represent that when you're not present. So, I definitely see where you're coming from. If you're going to start your own distillery, what would you do differently?
Campbell MorrisseyThe number one thing I would do is, invest the money to be able to buy multiple stills or at least a set up to do run multiple kinds of distillation. One of the biggest things I notice is, a lot of small craft distilleries have a very distinct flavor profile as a result of doing whole slurry or whole grain fermentation, however you want to call it, and then doing single pass distillation in t hese smaller stills that are being offered by all the major s till manufacturers. But to me, you get this like really oily, almost cookie dough character. And honestly, it's off putting, it's just really weird and it all tastes really similar. Being able to do multiple still runs akin to obviously Scotch whiskey production or having like a beer still nto a finishing still like in a bourbon production or running. Continuous distillations allows for a lot better final product and a llow m ore control of that final product. When you're trying to do everything all at once using a five to eight column reflux, I just don't think you're getting that level of controll that you need to compete on the greater distillation market.
Dalkita DJSo, if somebody came to you and said, "Hey, I've got a limited amount of resources, what should I focus them on both time and money?" What would you say is the most important thing to focus on?
Campbell MorrisseyThe most important thing to focus on is one thing, it's "Are you going to be a whiskey production facility?" "Are you going to be a clear spirit production facility?" And then create a brand and production mentality around that. Some of the best distilleries in my opinion are the ones that make whiskey. They're really good at making whiskey. And a lot of them, unfortunately that sucks early on, you have to be a straight American whiskey or minimum of three years. But they built that into their business plan. They built that into their production process. Obviously, there's trying to forecast for releasing in three years. But the best ones are the ones that don't rush it. Staying away from small barrels. Using 53 gallon barrels and holding onto them for three years, and really relying on your processes and your expertise to make an amazing product so that investment is worth it. Just saying, some of the best gins come from distilleries that are focusing on making gin. If they're making their own grain neutral spirits or buying it on the open market, they focus so much on their distillation process and botanical blend. And actually when they're separating those botanicals out, that's who makes the best gin . I'm a little biased maybe cause I worked at Stranahan's and we just made one thing. But, there's a beauty in that and there's a beauty in making one thing.
Dalkita DJWhere do you see the craft distilling industry going in the next five to 10 years?
Campbell MorrisseyI don't know. I am not on the pulse as much as it used to be on the distilling side of things. But, I really expect to see it go the way brewing has gone in the last five years, where we went from taking market share and the distribution side via on premise, off premise, shelf space of grocery stores, seeing more draft handles at your chain restaurants, your sporting events, your airports, etc, to a move towards that point of sale, the taproom model. It's amazing to see some of these more developed brewing communities or even some of the less ones. It's, how many places are popping up and all they do is sell beer right out of their taproom. One, it's a real profitable proposition because, your margins are still high. But that's where I see the distillation world going. And I've seen some really cool cocktail bars based on distilleries. They're selling bottles there or they have a couple of beers on draft too, that some local breweries brought in. But creating that community space and the so-called third place, it's a really awesome place to hang out. You can have a cocktail or just a glass of Bourbon, whatever, and your margins are a lot higher. So ,if you can get butts in the seats, you can make a lot of money.
Dalkita DJIt also helps if you have local regulations that let you do that, that's one of the fortunate things up there in Colorado.
Campbell MorrisseyAbsolutely. That's one of the best things to have happened in the brewing industry is the rise of the state guilds, who are really fighting for craft brewers in each state, making sure the laws are staying favorable or trying to make them more favorable. Arizona has done a lot, obviously Colorado's a lot. But, there's only like eight guilds for distilling, craft distilling guilds in the country. I would really recommend to all current and fledgling distillers to get involved with their guild or start a guild. It's possible to make change in the distilling world. Just look at all the breweries who've made the change. And, if you want those laws to be changed, you have to be active and have boots on the ground at the State House to make those things happen.
Dalkita DJAs somebody who sold or made both beer and whiskey, what do you think is the key to getting your product on the shelf that first time or into somebody's hand the first time?
Campbell MorrisseyWell, talking about whatever we were jumping off that. I was reading a recent article, put out by the brewers association, that taproom sales actually can lead to more off premise and on premise sales through the distribution market, that a lot of people who drink beer in your taproom are likely to then buy it when they see it in the t read. With brewing, yeah it's awesome, we can get a l ot o f tower Station in people's hands when they come to t he Mother Road itself. They leave with such a good feeling about that, they're like, "I love that beer. I'm going to buy it when I see it". And that's g oing t o be the same thing with distillers is like, "I had such a great time there. The cocktail is amazing. T heir w hiskey is so good. I see it at m y grocery store an d m y favorite liquor store". I'm going to pick that up because I know it, I recognize it, and that's going to be an easy decision for me to make versus just trying to pick a name off a s helf of the crowded wh iskey s helf.
Dalkita DJAwesome Campbell, well thank you very much for coming on the show.
Campbell MorrisseyThank you very much. This was really fun. Let me know if I can do it again.
Dalkita 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 under committee to production facilities that work. Let's get back to the show.
Colleen MooreA special thanks to Campbell Morrissey for talking with us on our show today. Up Next, our field reporter, who wants to be a distiller one day, and his presentation on rye mashing, milling, and fermentation to wrap up the grain portion of our fermentation series.
Dalkita DJrye is a very important grain. it's what makes high rye bourbons awesome. A rye whiskey is a huge trend right now, so figuring out how to get right to work for you is crucially important. The downside is that rye is a nuisance. It has a couple of major problems. First of all, it tends to mash very thick. It also has a tendency at high concentrations of rye more than %10, %15 to start putting out acidal height , which is both a carcinogen and a potential cause of hangovers. So, just using large amounts of rye can make your spirit much harder to drink. The good news is, it makes it spicy and peppery, and adds a lot of depth of flavor and high rye bourbons are just awesome. There's a lot of things we can do though to make rye easier though to use. Generally speaking, and we've talked about this a little bit in the wheat episode, rye is very similar to wheat . They're both considered small grains. A lot of their across the board properties are very similar. The flavors they give off are different and how you treat them is a little bit different. But generally speaking, they're fairly close. So like wheat, rye doesn't have a husk and this is a good thing because it makes it easier to access all that wonderful starch. It is a bad thing though, if you guys are looking to lauter or do anything to separate off the rye through filtration. It has a tendency to gum up and be very slow between creating a poor filter bed, and then creating a very viscous. It does some fairly terrible things. So the first thing with rye is needing to mill it. Not everybody mills their rye. It's certainly not required, but I would highly recommend it just because like everything else, it allows you to access that starch a lot faster. We don't want to crush it too much though. Generally speaking, the best milling for rye, about 60% of your grist should pass through a 20 mesh gra and the other 40% needs to pass through a 16. So we still want it small. There is no hole here, so we don't have to have those big chunks like we would, say, in barley. Once you've got it broken down, the next thing to remember, and this is the core of the problem with rye is that, it has a lot of Beta-glucans in it. That's what makes it thick. And then once those are absorbed by the water, that's what makes the water thick. So what we need to do is deal with those Beta-glucans. There's a handful of ways to do it. One of the most common suggestion is just use less rye. The less rye I use, the less problems you have. If you're in that %10 to %15 range, really you don't have a lot of problems, you can just treat it like you would, your conventional stuff. So if you're using %10 to %15 rye and your bourbon, focus on your corn , focus on your barley. If you're doing it as just an adjunct to help your wheat whiskey have a little more pepper in there, whatever. Like I said, generally speaking, small amounts of rye, you can ignore. Once you get over that %10 to %15 though, this is when we need to start paying attention to it. A couple of different ways to do it. One of the easiest ways to do it is, use less rye. So if you're not using less rye in percentage, use less rye in total volume. Generally speaking, we're looking at about two pounds per gallon is a good amount of of rye to use. So, if you're doing 100% rye with enzymes, shoot for that two pounds a gallon mark. I've seen people use less than that where we're getting down into the 1 to 1.5 pounds per gallon range. Really you don't want to just crowd out that water, you need as much as possible to thin it out. The next things you can do is, really focus on your beta rest. Having a solid beta rest during your mashing will allow you to thin out that liquid, depending on what you're making. Obviously, if you're making corn, you need to do it on the way down, cause that corn is going to burn up all your Beta-amylase . Arso, if you're not doing corn in there, let's say you're making rye whiskey, 60% rye, 40% malt, you can do it on your way up and do an initial beta rest and then do another one on your way back down, this will really help thin things out. We're looking somewhere in the neighborhood of 110 to 130F for about 30 minutes, we'll really thin things out. If you do a beta rest before your alpha rest , that 145 number, what you're going to do is, you're actually going to produce smaller dextrins. When that amylases in there breaking up your starches. And those smaller dextrins will allow you to have a thinner wash than if you did the alpha first and then the beta-- you're going to end up with a longer dextrin chains. Also, depending on how you're adding things, we need to look at what that viscosity is doing for you. It's very common to have foaming problems when you're using a lot of rye. The easiest solution, and I know a lot of people get nervous about doing not only enzymes but adding anything into their mashes, but add a little bit of soy bean or vegetable oil into your wash. It doesn't affect the flavor, but having that oily coating over the top will help break up some of your foaming issues. So first, we want to attack the proteins that are causing the foam. If you just can't get it done, this is where we come back with a little bit of oil, and it'll just act as an anti foaming agent. Obviously, we want to pick something food safe, which is why I recommend that soybean oil. It'll help just decrease your foaming, that also works in you're still, if you're having issues there. The last real thing to remember when we're mashing rye is that, rye tends to have a fairly high amount of protein. Again, this is why we're having those foaming issues. But what that protein really does is, it acts as a buffering agent to the Ph. A naturally rye mash is gonna run about 6Ph. If you're trying to do a souring process, you're going to need to add more acid in order to drop that Ph down into that five range. Just keep in mind, if you historically you've been making a lot of bourbon or you've been making a lot of wheat whiskies , you're looking to add rye, you're gonna need to probably add twice as much acid as you have been in order to get that Ph down to where you want it to be. You're happy with your natural Ph, don't worry about it, but just something to keep in mind. Those high proteins will act as a buffer. Couple more tips. When we're working with rye, one of the things to look out for is temperature . So I was talking earlier about how to deal with rye and say corn. It is important not to go over about 160 before you add your rye . Especially if you get over 161 to 165, you're going to increase your chance of having dough balls form when you dumped that rye in. So, if you are doing corn first, make sure you get that temperature down solid, get it below 160, then you can add your rye in and you'll have a much cleaner addition. Also, there's a good chance that when you add your rye , it'll start foaming. So as I said, if we're doing it, we did corn first. We're on our way down. We waited to 160, w e added it. Don't just dump it all in there. If you can break it up a little bit b ecause now we don't have that beta in there to help us break up the foam through the enzyme reaction. So add the rice slowly, let everything work itself out, and that'll help you so you're not seeing the foaming that way.
Colleen MooreAre you interested in filing a report with us? We're actively seeking professionals to give us the low down on the technical aspects of distillery operations for our listeners. Contact us 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 webpage, that's dalkita.com/shownotes. Remember, you can subscribe to this podcast at Apple Podcasts or however you get your podcasts. Our theme music was composed by Jason 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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