Distilling Craft
Distilling Craft
Slow as Molasses
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On this episode Coty Edwards with Hidden Still Spirits in Lebanon, PA is interviewed to talk about their products and some of the cool things they are up to. Later, molasses fermentation is discussed along with tips for buying and storing it.
Welcome to Distilling Craft. You're listening to episode (18): "Slow as Molasses ". Today, we're going to be talking with Coty Edwards from Hidden Still Spirits out of Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
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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. Coty's going to talk with us about their products and some of the cool things they're up to in Pennsylvania. Later in the show are radiogenic part time distiller, DJ is going to talk with us about molasses fermentation along with buying and storing tips. Cody , welcome to Distilling Craft.
Coty EdwardsThanks for having me on. I appreciated.
Dalkita DJSo , how long have you been making booze at Hidden Still? And how long have you guys been open?
Coty EdwardsWe opened up in August, 2015. I actually started here as a laborer , training under the original master distiller. We were actually only four months into it and the original head distiller left and I got promoted by the fall, thrown into the fire within us- minimal experience. But, I was just reading tons and tons of source material. I'm just trying to improve. We didn't really have the ability to distill before we actually opened and like, just immediately had our soft opening and we're distilling at the same time. So, that's how I got thrown into a practice of distilling.
Dalkita DJWhat was your background beforehand? Were you doing some brewing or jumping into it?
Coty EdwardsActually, no. I graduated from Penn state in 2014. It's a degree in Theology. I actually wanted to be an exercise physiologist in a cardiac rehab facility. After graduation, I was working in an internship and as an exercise physiologists in cardiac rehab facility. Once that finished, I was thinking about going to school and get my master's in exercise science, but those take along time. I've just finished up school and I was looking for a break, so I got this opportunity and just ended up sticking around here and became the head distiller. So, my background in science is really helped me out-- reading textbooks and things online, and watching videos. The details as far as starch chains and things like that. I was already spun up. So the terminology was exactly, it is terminology worth the jargon, b ut it was so t hen when I was learning it.
Dalkita DJWell, I wouldn't have guessed theology was a good path for learning to read all this junk certainly is jargon to me.
Coty EdwardsIt was definitely helpful. I took the chance. I took exercise, physiology, diet, nutrition, a lot of th is s tuff, wh ile i t's not completely related, I was already familiar with it. It's really helped me a lot.
Dalkita DJDid you develop your mix of products? Was that a leftover from the previous head distiller or something that you guys have collaborated on all along? How did you guys get to this broad swath of products?
Coty EdwardsWe're actually primarily at the largest bourbon producer in the state of Pennsylvania. But, we actually started out with only vodka from Moonshine. After the head distiller left, we only had one or two more products that we added to our lines. So since I took over , I think about nine or 10 products that we have in our offering. For the recipes, a Masheville's a Mashville; stick with more traditional Mashville's. At one point, I took it further, made things more efficient, more cost effective, increase our yield . The recipes aren't necessarily mine. I improved the overall quality with cost effectiveness on that standpoint, and managed a much bigger wine then their original master distiller..
Dalkita DJHow did you tackle that process of increasing yields and making them more efficient process?
Coty EdwardsI actually asked around with other distilleries. We went to Pennsylvania whiskey convention and I met all these distillers. Being that ,this is my own experience, I didn't really, you know, working other distillers, where do I go? This is normal. This isn't normal. I was learning as I went, so I just talked to him . I was like, "Hey, where your guys' yields are? I s this w hat we shouldn't be getting with o ur size of equipment?" We started big as well, so w e have pretty big equipment, compared to other craft distilleries. I mean, we're not massive by any means , but we h ave a 600 gallon mash tank, 3600 gallon fermentation tanks and a 600 gallon stripping still o r wash still. And then we have 300 gallon.
Dalkita DJThats good size equipment.
Coty EdwardsOur b ig thing is bourbon h ere. And wh en w e're doing bourbon, we're barreling 4_5, three gallon barrels.
Dalkita DJIs that a double distilled bourbon you're making?
Coty EdwardsSo we put it through our wash still once and then we put into our 300 gallon.
Dalkita DJYou said it's a very traditional mashville. What is your mashville for your bourbon? We use a mashville of %7 corn, %20 rye and %10 malted ones. So not quite a high rye bourbon, then. What do you guys do with your shine? Is that a sugar shine or is that a white whiskey? How are you guys making that?
Coty EdwardsOur moonshine is actually a traditional corn whiskey Nashville . We use %80 corn and then 20% multiply it.
Dalkita DJAnd then you've got a rye whiskey. Is that a straight rye or what do you guys do in there?
Coty EdwardsWhen we came out to rye, we can't start coming out with it in six months. It was pretty good; 25 gallon barrel. It h ad good flavors. So start out, we built a decent amount of inventory. But the six months stuff, and then went on a huge r ye r un that w e barreled a ton of it. A nd I think we're going to sit on it until we hit that two year mark. It's aged really nice-- it's six months. It's still h ot. It's a little too spicy. But it's maturing r eally nice.
Dalkita DJWhat is your Blue Eyed Six whiskey ?
Coty EdwardsThat was actually pretty interesting, it's a source product . In source whiskey , when we were first getting started, we got it from a distributor called Ultra Pure. They wouldn't disclose the distillery that made it to them, but it's from Kentucky and it's actually 100% corn mash. They just use enzymes in the breakdown and then it's aged five years and used more than the rest.
Dalkita DJSo, you got a couple of different gins you guys are making. What differentiates them ?
Coty EdwardsWe have two gin offerings, one's your standard white gin and the other is just that virgin barrels . The standard white gin is more on the traditional dry side as opposed to the new age streams that have tons of citrus in them. It's a pretty standard. We had botanical list: juniper , some coriander, orange peel and lemon peel . It's not one of our main focuses. We made it whil e those I was still sitting on a lot. But our barrel gin is really nice. There's a lot of years, there's a lot of r uby or not es or when gin is just something that we don't pushed too much. We have a full bar r estaurant attached to our distillers. It was just made for the bar and restaurants give our bartenders options. The barrel gin now is something we came out with a while ago. But it's a tough sell to [i naudible ] . We've talked to some establishments that tried and bring on barrel gin before. They said the same thing; they learned that it's hard to get gin people to get into it because it doesn't really taste like gin, but it's almost like a whiskey , but it doesn't really mix or anything like a whiskey and you want really don't really associate gin with secondly on the rocks.
Dalkita DJYou guys make two rums, one of which looks like a straight rum and that you've got a spiced version of it, I'm guessing that how you guys make that?
Coty EdwardsWell we have a white rum and a spiced version of it. The white rum actually was one of our core products and we first came out with this , when we opened up back in 2015. We actually had heard that in San Francisco, 2016 San Francisco Spirits Competition and it won gold out there along with our vodka. So, winning gold with two out of three products we sent out was actually really exciting. We assured us that we were on the right track. The distillery is only been established for six months at the time .
Dalkita DJHow are you guys making that rum? Is it a white sugar base or molasses? Are you guys using cane syrup? What's your process look like?
Coty EdwardsWe use a split between sugar and molasses. It's actually pretty fair, 50/50 split, which is pretty high sugar. From my understanding, a lot of the rums out there, I understand that are %100 molasses. A lot more cost effective. Doing a rum is definitely a breathe of fresh air to everyone else because we do whisky most of the time. And then when it's time to do rum and it's just so easy, you just heat up some water, pour in and, let it cook for maybe an hour, chill it down and then often tentative affirm ative. Definitely good days where we're doing rum.
Dalkita DJDid you say you're coocking the rum? How are you doing that? Can you walk me through that process a little? Yeah , so also a bar I'm about to yeah , under 150 gallons of water you get up okay . Brown like a hundred to like 130 degrees. just to get the water warms cause it's easier for the the raw materials to base sitting together. and we'll Nash with our sugar glasses and we just let it just let it simmer that one 31 43 a little bit. Now when we want to crash it down, we'll add another 200 gallons are of water too get a cooler and then we'll start cycling through all of that. Sure. Our chiller and then once we're a down to 10 just pump it by you a picture at least . So with the doing a 50/50 molasses and sugarHow has your, how has your original gravity reading has all the solids in that molest molasses messing with you? Are you able to be pretty confident in your , your gravity change over the course of fermentation? yeah, where we're getting a , I haven't checked it a while cause I mean it was like the same every time we do this . I don't know the gee specifically off the top of my head, but the Rick's readings I'm pretty much through the charge. I mean it's a , um it's already simple sugars there's a ton . You get a ton in their use of sugar and molasses, so definitely have , The potential are extremely high. No alcohol. What would do you get for your final Abv after fermentation? Our final ADB is somewhere around 13%. I know the news that we use has a tolerance of 15, so yeah , pretty much . Pretty close to the the a hundred percent with that . That'd be Easter possibly . What yeast are you using? it's a pretty hardcore use that we get from a white labs. It's a turbo used, I'm going to, as you know, all the the nutrition and enzyme and everything built into it . So you don't have to rehab right or nothing . He , you just taken out. If they call them Saturates , just board out of the saturates and put it right in there. We do like a natural fermentation. We don't pull it down at all. I've tried it both ways cause I was reading some people let it get it, let it get hot because you know, down and living , know the more tropical regions of their rum is a usually made. Those fermentation's are getting pretty hot. So I've tried both ways and actually the natural just Kinda let it do its thing , product as opposed to the temperature. How hot does that un-cooled fermentation get for y ou? So intense. It actually gets up over a hundred. About 105. Oh Wow.
Coty EdwardsJust pretty crazy. Considering the use instructions tell you to.
Dalkita DJkeep it down around the 70s, right ? Like I said, I tried it both ways. I definitely prefer the the hotter fermentations , those, I certainly prefer those funkier rooms too . When you are cooling it down, how cold were you maintaining? You were saying seventies, where are you keeping it mid seventies there , or were you letting it drift a little higher will be . And what was your temperature point when you weren't controlling it? Yeah, my, we're controlling it. We were actually, we all still a little hotter , more on like the low to mid thirties . but it's that's still a vascular event and 20 degrees . between the styles. How long does your fermentation it 105 degrees, I'm guessing, two days We really let it sit for, okay about four to five days. we'll see . And I'll still be gone, but you know, it's really region That was first like 48 hours. no , I've had heard of some people letting it just sit and I , I take it as they're trying to simulate Dunder pits . I don't know if you've ever heard of them, but there's actually a, yeah, so he's done your pits . I have generations of you know , while you used to , the last is I have just been cooking out the sun for years. I think it's more Denton bolts of the Jamaican rums and they don't just let their fermentations sit in our tank, tiller almost rancid . And by doing that, they're creating these exotic esters and acids that will actually, but if under cylinder gives a great global flavors , well we don't do that just because we like to be I want to schedule and like Ron's like a do as needed type thing with us. So we're just trying to make it good would make it. Gotcha. That makes sense. I guess. All right. Have you done any playing around with adding some, some backset or anything from the still the also help emulate some of that funky Rome flavor? Um I've thought about it, but you know, we didn't, we really didn't want to change our flavor profile all right there we got that gold medal and honestly I just really like it. I mean it has these like caramelised sugar flavors in it that, yeah, I figured that I honestly wouldn't change it. Aye . We do have like a 10 gallon pilot system that I may try it on some time, but as of right now it's not really something okay that we plan on doing. right . It's been really fun. So after your distilling, are you guys barely aging your room ? What do you guys do into it? On the back side , when I made my rum , I use I'm still in, I take up pretty heavy math in my head . Scott , I have a cute , my heart's really tight, especially with the but white round because yeah, the barrel and the barrel can cover up that tails Enos and you get a little whirl . I don't know if my white or I'm super tight on the hearts. Now what I do then because I'm so tight, I quote unquote them tails , extremely high proof. So then that, you know , high proof tails , I'll run it down pretty low and then actually barrel it then. and the first barrel I actually did that and the, that two separate phase well I'm Brian I revisited it and it like four or five months later to see how I was doing those kinds of just an experiment to see how this stuff way age because as like a white it's pretty hot. but it's actually turning out really nice in the barrel. So like you said, we have the white rum and the spice rum , but I think going forward we're actually going to add a, a gage drum . That's why I run by guitar as well. Interesting. So with that, had a low tales proof or hightails proof that you're putting in the barrel. what proof is that or what does it of typically end up settling around? What I use for my white room as an entire solution, it'll be about it's usually high one 50s. I've had some that are the little one 60 years. But then when I take when I take my hyper details that I plan to Barrow it's usually finished off like around like one like high one thirties. And then I'll cut that to about once your team one 20 and and then put it into their all . And you were saying that's like six months in the barrel. Oh , we haven't really decided on how long we're gonna let that sit. we originally started barely wrong to use first maestro . So our spice drown . We made I think uniquely. so what we do is we take some needs drama. We make almost like an extract, so we will infuse, are age round with our spices. we call it a syrup , but then we'll after we string the extract of it , Sarah then we blend that with our white rum. so that's why we originally started barelyCome to learn that then and stuff. On out of the barrel. So that's why I think going forward we're actually gonna Do a barrel man . We usually like to sit on our barrels. like our Ra , our bourbon the actually just came out. First fashion up three weeks ago. That was minimum two years. we sourced another version that's two years. July , it's going to be two yearsWhen we do start barreling around [inaudible] , it'll probably be a long two years. Nice . I've made a couple of Nice two year olds and that's a nice sweet spot if you're using a big barrel. So when you're doing that extract, can you talk a little bit more about how you actually make the extract and what spices you're using to or how, you know the, if the way you extract is different based on the spices you choose, know cool . [inaudible] you know, you plan out how much we're going to make first. So I extract, well I think I'll need for the entire solution. So we actually, you only use 5% extract to 95% white. So it's lightly a spiced spice drum and it actually, you get the great combination and each drum, white rum spices. but when making that extracted , yeah, just pick out, all right , pull out how much I plan on [inaudible] with my white Ron . I kinda kept trying to sue like, oh , they'll lose so much during fusion . but I just, certainly my spices we use , and that would be not mad . It's all spice black pepper corn . I think that's it, but we just, but in there she use it four , four full days and like a cool area, which is actually important because we didn't really take into it like the first time we made it. We didn't really taken an account. We were doing it in summer and you know , body control, our distillery. So it infused hot really fast. So we learned to take our infusion down to constantly cool a temperature down in the basement. So if you were going to start your distillery over again or start your own distillery, what would you do differently? I would definitely oh , probably really see what distillery I'm going to be. Not necessarily from a product standpoint, but like where am I revenue's going to come from . So like, just like looking at different distilleries you got to understand like what market you're going to be in and you know, does that markets give us , sustain what sort of a revenue stream you're going to have. Like, are you a distillery that's a producing user? Are you a distillery that you know, producing movies ? Well, least first a started we, while we still have a bar and restaurant a attached to us and you know, we were thinking like, Oh man, that barn restaurant is yeah , they bring people in and they're going to be leaving the bottles . But you know, that it wasn't really, it did , it ended up being the case. So we retooled and geared towards distribution and you know, luckily, oh , we actually got linked up with a majestic one . Barrett's there of one of the, you , I mean distributors for the State of Pennsylvania, there parent company is a ally distributors, which a [inaudible] pretty massive. yeah it depends on what you want to do. So like, if you're going to survive on foot traffic and coming in, if you're in the sort of a metropolitan area where you have no , that sort of demographic, that's great. But you know, if you put your distillery in a town that's yeah, it's market isn't favorable right now, I mean maybe in the future, but it's not favorable right now. you may want to focus on the new tool and defined where are rather than the strings when you guys got your first product or when you're bringing a new product to market, what do you guys go through to get that first distributor relationship and then get your product onto the store shelves? So majestic wine and spirits, they primarily deal with the major market. It's true producers. we're actually one of only four crafts that they have in their cohort . Okay . Polio and first thing that they looked at was like, are you marketable? So are you going to have a product one week and then not be able to keep up with sales. so they want to know what sort of sell potential that you have. Um and then the second thing, but they start out with are you quality? Yeah, you can. You may be able to make a ton , but it's no good. Um it's not going to sell and it's you're not going to be sustained . no sales with that, so that's okay Probably the second thing I noticed with working with distributors and things like that. Thirdly , negotiations takeHuh they first contacted us. Well I would say April. Oh , this year. And we're looking to get some our first need your orders well probably no beginning of January . So definitely patience . It is urge you, they have to have, because they got a game plan, you got a game, they got to see how they want to market you see how much they can sell. It's a lot of, a lot of stuff that he goes into it besides just, okay , uh like, oh, we like you here's an order right away. It just , it doesn't work like that So if somebody came to you with a limited amount of time and money and they wanted to start a new distillery anyhow, oh , what would you tell them to focus, focus on first? What's the most important thing to focus on? Most important thing thugs on in my opinion is quality. Know , obviously her chronic has to have some depth. so a story is the , the story things like that or you know, great . and it's going to be inquiry people in the door, but to keep people there, it's got to taste right . I mean, you can grow your corn on the Boone and you know, maybe wrong with glasses. I was major Mars , but you know, it's not good. It's not good at it sustain . So definitely focus on quality because that is what's going to keep you in it . as opposed to thriving on focusing too much on setting yourself apart, being so different and crazy. You guys people don't , well, won't confuse uniqueness with foggy body . It is definitely. Boy , do you want me to say ? So where do you see the industry going in the next five to 10 years? I see an industry journaling in like a lot of these small crafts to the no phasing out because I mean we noticed you have to get distribution. She don't get distribution. There's no way you can actually grow so you can sustain you know, Aka with web traffic, but you know, out of these small cracks still these , they can get these distributors too answer the phone because just not big enough. They're not marketable than it's not worth their time. sell to mess around with you because you're just so small. So I think a lot of the smaller craft distilleries are going to start shutting down because people would get distribution more than these virtual stores and things like that . The state of Pennsylvania, we're starting to get into the grocery stores Salad, spirits and you know, they don't care about oh crafting. I mean they want hard numbers. They, they want stuff that's going to sell on them Distributors can't get behind you because you don't have selling potential . They're not going to pick you up. So I see, okay larger distilleries start taking off smaller neighborhood, hometown craft distilleries to kind of start shutting down. I can see where you're getting that from. Very cool man. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to walk through your process with us. I think some of the tips on how to make rum are really good. So Cody, thanks for coming on the show.
Coty EdwardsI appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
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, and committee to production facilities that work. Now, let's get back to the show.
Colleen MooreA special thanks to Cody Edwards from Hidden Still Spirits for talking with us on our show today Up next, our field reporter, who wants to be a distiller one day, and his monologue on molasses fermentation along with some buying and storing tips.
Dalkita DJWe're gonna talk about molasses. This is part of our sugar series and molasses is something I really enjoy fermenting, mainly, cause I dig rum, but it also works really well for a base for vodka and gin. In case you don't know, molasses is really what's used to grow most of the major dry yeast that you're going to be using in your distillery. It makes a great feedstock cause it has relatively low sugar content, but it also has a very high nitrogen content, phosphorus and a bunch of other micro nutrients that a yeast need to live. So, it's easier to maintain and grow those yeast, which also makes it great for us because we don't have to work as hard. So, let's start off talking a little bit about how molasses is made. Generally speaking, there's three major types of molasses of which only one of them is really anybody's heard of and that sugar cane molasses. This is what we eat and this is the molasses that's used to make rum. There's also beet molasses and citrus molasses. Beet molasses is really there, obviously, from sugar beets in the byproduct of making sugar from sugar beets. 40% of U.S sugar manufacturing is from sugar beets, so there's actually a ton of sugar beet molasses out there and pretty much all of it is used for animal feed. There's one distillery, I know out in Colorado, that is using sugar beet sugar. It's not mild distiller anymore, but they are using sugar beet sugar, not sugar beet molasses, that I'm sure there's some other ones across the country that are experimenting. The other weird thing out there is actually citrus molasses. It's a byproduct of making orange juice and stuff like that. They'll actually take that pulp, combine it with some other things, press it down, cook the sugar out of it, and it actually creates a molasses product as well, that's even more bitter and unusable than the beet molasses. You might run across a citrus molasses and police, then you'll have some idea what it is. Back to sugar cane molasses, which is what we all think of when we say molasses. So what it is, is we're going to go out there and we're going to harvest the stems of all these sugar canes, and sometimes they burn the field , sometimes they don't. But either way, we're going to chop down those canes , we're going to stick them in a six roller mill, and basically just squeeze the juice right out of them. The juice that comes out is typically about 15%_ 16% sucrose, and they get about 10% by weight out. So for every hundred tons of sugar canes they put in, they get about 10 tons of this syrup out the other side. Well, it doesn't affect most of you that much, if you are going to be processing your own sugarcane, make sure you do it quickly. Sugarcane is going to lose about 1%_2% moisture per week and that moisture is where all your sugar is. So the longer it sits on the ground before you process it, the less sugar you're actually going to get out of there. So, what do we do to get that sugar out? And this actually does apply to the molasses itself. So, how they processed the sugarcane juice to turn it into molasses affects the quality of the molasses you're buying. The best way to do it is to minimize that heat. We want to keep the sugarcane juice below 140 degrees fahrenheit. That's going to minimize the Browning in my yard reactions that can occur that decrease the sugar content and increase the ash and some of the other funky flavors in there. And funky flavors are good. But as far as molasses goes, we want to control that level by the amount of molasses we use, not let somebody else control it and how they're making our molasses. So the best molasses is going to be made initially by actually vacuum boiling. So it's similar to the vacuum distilling stuff I've talked about. And what we're going to do is pull a vacuum on that chamber, so that we don't have to heat. The blast is up above 140 in order to get most of the liquid to cook off. So, we're going to see the juice with a little bit of sugar crystal, like when you're making rock candy in junior high, then start that boiling process. The sugar that's in there is going to glob onto the currently existing crystals they grow. Then once that level has been reduced enough, we're going to ship that whole liquid off to a centrifuge. Once we're in the centrifuge, we spin it out. The crystals go to one side, the liquid goes to the other, they can harvest that nice sugar right there and now we have molasses. From there, you can do that process two , three more times before you start calling it black strap and feel that you've really extracted all the sugar. There are other ways to get that sugar out though. The one I'm most familiar with is from the beat world, this is the Stephens process. Basically, you're using sulfur as a catalyst to extract that sugar. Basically, you replace sugar with sulfur in the molasses, so it makes the molasses completely unusable. There are a ton of other ways to do this, but in the end of the day, we're lucky. They grade that molasses and then they'll tell us, is this a great molasses? Is this a black strap molasses? Is this one of those things in between? And we're able to take that knowledge and just and obviously talk to your producer and find out how they're making it to determine whether this is the best molasses for us. In the end of the day, about 40%_50% of the juice that comes into the processes are actually going to get turned to molasses. So we get a lot of molasses out. And again, 102 pounds a sugarcane, we'll end up with about five pounds of molasses. Consider they're only getting by five pounds of sugar, that's not a bad deal for us. So back to the whole thing about what are we looking for? There's a process and you can ask questions about, how do you make your molasses? But really what you care about is, what you're going to get at your doc . And they can tell you, I only use organic farmers to hand harvest my crop. And it makes it taste beautifully. But at the end of the day, what you get delivered is only what you got delivered. So you need to get it tested and preferably get it tested before you accept delivery. If for no other reason, we want to make sure that you're paying for the sugar in your molasses, not just paying for the weight . So if they deliver 6,000 gallons of molasses to you and say, "Okay, well I gave you 60,000 pounds of molasses, you owe me $60", which obviously isn't the number. You Go, "Well that's great, but I didn't order molasses, I ordered sugar". And so you need to go get that molasses tested. We need to be looking for 52_53% sugar, preferably 58+ as invert. So again, you get 60,000 pounds, you want to make sure that you actually received 31%_32%_33% 33,000 pounds of sugar. And then from there, we're looking five bucks a gallon, which works out to like two bucks a pound, something in that range for the actual sugar. It doesn't do any good to pay for the other stuff that's in molasses, and really they're just selling the sugar they could have extracted in order to make money on the other end. That being said, if you can't get into your contract, it is what it is, which you should still know exactly what you're buying. Other things to look for. Probably the biggest thing is ash ashes. Toxic to our yeast creates increases the osmotic pressure on them. which is something else we're going to get from the sugar. It's, we're going to get from the height of our fermenters. So we don't need to keep stacking pressure on our yeast. We want to try to make their lives as easy as possible so we can control the flavors they're putting off, stressing them as good, stressing them too much, just makes things taste terrible. So generally speaking, good molasses is going to be about 8% ash bad molasses can be 12% ash. I've seen numbers as high as 14 15% ash. So we need to make certain that we know what our ash content is and then take that into our fermenters so that we look at, okay with this batch of molasses, okay we can move from 8% to 10% well we need to use less molasses and we're going to get less alcohol. But this way we're controlling the stress on our yeast so that that way we're going to keep our flavor profiles similar. it's something to track more so than is to really worry about, generally speaking in the fermenter , we don't want to get that ash concentration anywhere above about 5% and even that's really high. There is some good news and it's something else we need to be looking for. Nitrogen molasses is going to be high in nitrogen, phosphorus . We're going to get a lot of good nutrients and so we need to be ensuring that the molasses is delivered, that we know what that nitrogen content is. We can look about one, one and a half percent nitrogen in our molasses. Anything above 1% great cause that means you don't really need to add any additional nutrients. You'll know you'll be okay. Your yeast are going to be well taken care of and there's some tricks we can do if you get a little bit below 1% if you're in that 0.8 to 1% range and we'll talk about that a little bit later so you just get your molasses delivered, we're happy with it. The first thing you're going to see is that it's typically delivered warm, cold molasses flows late, cold molasses and as everybody in the northeast is seeing right now, nothing moves when it's cold. And that certainly includes molasses. We want to make sure that it's warm enough to flow warm enough to be pumpable a in our distillery , that typically means a hundred degrees is a minimum. There's a couple different ways we can do that. The method I prefer is a warm water heating coil inside the molasses. A with a temperature limiter such that we don't get anything over about 135 f into that tank to heat that molasses. the reason is if we get above 140 the sugar in the tank and start caramelizing onto the outside of our coils, not only is that taking sugar away, that could be used for fermentation, it reduces the efficiency of our coils. There's obviously other ways to do it. Keeping your distillery a little warm, relying on some of that heat from, you're still I know people who drop immersion coils in there right before they're going to pump it. I just like to keep my molasses generally at a constant temperature, makes my life a little bit easier. But if you're going to have a plan production schedule, just make sure you're getting it up above a hundred so it's movable . That being said, movable is relative from molasses. Don't just grab your son. If you go pump and hook it up to your molasses and get cranking, you're going to end up tearing that pump up. we need positive displacement pumps when we're moving molasses around. After you've cut it with water and reduced that viscosity substantially, we can then use our standard pumps. But positive displacement is really the best way to move molasses for round . So you're going to want one big chugger pump and hook that right to your molasses tank for your initial dosing . The downside of that is you're not going to get as accurate of a flow and so you really need to be watching weight both on your tank and on your fermenter to know how much molasses are moving through that pump. What's ideal? I like about 113 hundred and 10 you know, a hundred really, like I said, is the minimum. 135 is really the Max, so sit right in that middle range, 115 if you can, and just keep your tank there by a nice well-insulated tank. The bad news is you can't just go buy a water tank and you really shouldn't be using a fermenter or any other traditionally jacketed tank, and if you do use it, you can't use all of it. So molasses is stinken heavy a , we're typically looking about 12 pounds a gallon. So if you take a tank that's designed for water at eight pounds a gallon and you max it out with molasses, there is a very good chance you're either gonna blow that tank out. You're going to break the floor beneath that tank. Either one of those are terrible for your distillery and you may get away with it for a while , but as those load cycles come through, you're going to kill that tank earlier . So let's make sure we're getting tanks that are designed for that heavier liquid and just spend a little bit of time. Molasses is cheap and it's a great feedstock, but it takes just a little bit of prep work to make sure that we can sustainably use it inside the facility. All right, so the last thing we're gonna talk about here is getting your molasses to ferment. Luckily it's really easy. Pretty much you cut molasses with water, you get it down low enough that that SG can actually support yeast and you're going to get something kicking off, whether it's wild yeast or something you pitched in there. And typically it's going to affirm it pretty good. So what we need to more look at is how do we control that fermentation just a little bit. I like the first step to be getting the Ph down. We tried to acidify it a little bit. That'll help fight off those wildebeest . If you're going for a while , d style, probably not the best solution, but getting that Ph down below five get it down to about four, eight and that'll allow your yeast to really outcompete everybody around them. That's just gives you that little bit of extra control. Even if you're making a real funky roam , it certainly helps when you're doing vodkas. You'll be able to turn them over real quick. Molasses based vodkas . The goal is no flavor. You want fast fermentations, you want to have basically zero flavor and you don't want to have to work for it. So if you're going to be making vodka, lower Ph, lower temperature and just turn that tank over, get it going 24 hours, kick it out the door, you're making roam . We can look at longer fermentations, hotter fermentations, which actually make them take less time. We can start getting up somewhere in that 90 to 95 degree range if you're really pushing boundaries, you can get up to a hundred and create that funky flavor that I really dig. Sulfur gets recommended a lot as the in a preferred acid out there to to drop your, I don't like it because it does put sulfur in there, which then neither can create bad tastes or it's played it out on your still and you have to clean.
Speaker 5You're still more eats a little bit more copper away. It's cheap, it's easy, but it seems to cause more problems than it's really worth. I typically recommend using either citric or phosphoric acid when you're doing this Alec citric, particularly with rum because it does add just a little bit of zing on the flavor side. If you did happen to get black strap and you were getting the the cheapest colossus you could get your hands on, you didn't get to that 1% nitrogen a typically the two best ways to get the nutrients you need and did the molasses blend are either going to be adding about, Geez , it's, it's, it's basically zero. You're looking at like three one hundredths to six one hundredths of a pound per gallon into your fermenter in order to get your nitrogen where it needs to be. So go really light on the the DAP or whatever other nitrogen supplement you're using and just make certain that you're only putting in what you have to. The other way to do it, which doesn't work well if you're making vodka, but it works really great if you're doing wrong, is grabbed some Dunder. Now, most people don't have the ways to make a Dunder pit , so I'm not talking about sucking out , you're still bottom. Dumping it into a pit , letting it open, ferment for years continuously and just pulling out a little bit here and there if you can. It does work great. What I'm talking about is taking that still bottom. Well, first of all, when you pump your fermenter over to , you're still pump all the crud with it, bring the yeast, bring all the other unfermentable ash and crap out of the bottom of that fermenter . Bring it over to your [inaudible] . Go through your process. Yes, this is going to hurt your still volume a little bit. You're not going to be as efficient. But when you bring all those yeast holes back to your fermenter, those yeast already have all the nutrients that you need in order to feed the next generation of yeast. And those yeast are nice little cannibals and they'll eat it up. So if you're able to recycle your yeast holes from one generation to the next, you'll be able to just keep that fermentation rolling perfectly with the exact right amount of nutrient. And you don't need to worry about adding more nitrogen in there. So that's the easiest way to do it. Plus then you've got that Dunder and the font and the acid and a little bit of extra alcohol in there to help get your, your yeast used to alcohol at the beginning. And sometimes you can get a little higher gravity that way as well. So speaking of east , what yeast? Oh , I'm lazy. I like Baker's yeast . It's a quarter of the price of brewer's yeast. It's like a 10th the price of Distiller's yeast, you can buy it anywhere and you can get large volumes. It's very traditional for Rom . It creates a really nice flavor, tends to be a little sulfuric , but you know what? That's why we have copper stills, so I don't worry about that. It does well in the heat and it puts out a ton of banana flavor. That being said, if you're making vodka, don't use yeast generally. In that case, we're going to be going back to the champagne yeast looking for something that's very clean, high alcohol, fermenting, and that works for well for as well. Something I've been thinking about lately is media east fermenting honey is going to be very similar to fermenting molasses. You needed to dilute it back. It's still going to have a very high osmotic pressure to your yeast and you want that little fruity flavor in there. So Mideast may be a really good place to look. The downside of mead is you're going to end up with a longer fermentation times than they typically need to be. A little bit colder than what we normally think of for rum , but as a way to be a little bit different, a little bit funky, that could be pretty awesome. All right . So now we're getting into some of the bad news on the program. If you somehow overheat your sugar, if you start that my ARD reaction in your storage vessel or if you overheat that molasses is you're getting it ready for what I call mashing, but mixing with your water, you can create something called five hydroxy methyl for referral, h m f and it's toxic to yeast above about 0.05% weight by weight. And this stuff is going to slow down your yeast function. Basically do a crawl. So we want to be very careful when heating molasses that we don't get above that hundred and 40 and this goes back to the initial conversation about ash. So if we're putting ash in, we're putting a little bit of HMF in. We already have a lot of sugar in there. We're just doing lots of things, distress our yeast that we don't necessarily need to high temp is a great way to stress yeast to create funky flavors. Chemicals that are hurting their growth cycle is not the best way to do it. So we just need to be careful in our storage and in our preparation that we're not overheating our molasses. Generally speaking, once we do this mixture, we're looking somewhere in the 10 60 to 10 80 SG range. Unfortunately most of that is going to be non fermentable stuff. So really after you ferment, you know all the way to complete, you're still going to be looking about 10 28 10 30 and you're just never going to get it complete mostly because of the ash and the sand and other unfermentable in that molasses. It's just the downside. You always, you never get it as far as you'd like. One solution to this is use less molasses and kicking a little bit of white sugar. I don't personally like it, but if you want to get a higher gravity, that's probably the easiest way to do it. If you want fast molasses, fermentations, dial back your sugar a little bit, target that five to 7% alcohol. You can kick over a fermenter in 24 hours generally 72 hours is where the yeast really like to do their best work. But with molasses, there's so much nutrients in there that you can really get that thing cooking, especially when you're cooking at like 93 95 I've been turning over a fermentor everyday is pretty easy. This is a way to decrease your capital costs up front , faster fermentations , more product out the door with less capitals , generally speaking at good thing. One other trick you can do to decrease your final gravity on these molasses washes is to clarify your molasses. Initially. When we talk about clarifying molasses, we're typically talking about a process that the big distilleries use, and so what this is basically doing is taking your molasses, mix it with a little bit of water, and then add some chemicals in there that'll promote sedimentation. This is dropping out your ash , dropping out the sand, basically clarifying the velocity itself and getting all those salts down to the bottom. Once they've settled out, we can then pull the now clean molasses off the top. It works pretty good, but you know craft, distillery size, this is a fairly large operation. We're looking two to three tanks and typically 24 to 48 hours of settling just to get your molasses from your storage tank into a fermentor . I'm not really a huge fan of it. I'd rather deal with lessen fermentor volumes. We're typically only talking 15 to 20% maximum of your fermenter . That van goes to this gunk, and if you're using the Dunder method, you're going to be kicking it over anyhow and then you just clean out your tank a little bit more.
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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