EPISODE S.7, E.5

[YEAST SIDE STORY: A FERMENTATION TALE]

Brittany Drennan (00:10)
welcome back to another episode of the BrewDeck Podcast. I am Brittany and I am joined by Heather and Matt. Hi guys.

Heather Jerred (00:20)
Hi, how’s everyone doing today?

Matt Sprinkle (00:22)
Doing well. How are you guys doing?

Heather Jerred (00:24)
Good.

Brittany Drennan (00:25)
Good!

Matt Sprinkle (00:26)
Great.

Brittany Drennan (00:26)
We’re good, it’s like mid peak stress level, but it’s fine, we’re coping. We do what we do.

Heather Jerred (00:27)
I think we’re good.

Yeah, I mean, I feel

like we operate like that pretty normally though.

Brittany Drennan (00:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Matt Sprinkle (00:36)
Yeah,

too blessed to stress.

Brittany Drennan (00:38)
I’m on the road. I’m in Dallas. We had rodeo weekend. I know you know all about rodeo, Heather, from Stampede up there. yeah, we’ve got rodeo season in Houston just came to an end and we went last weekend and it was

Heather Jerred (00:48)
You do.

Brittany Drennan (00:56)
I mean, come to Houston.

Matt Sprinkle (00:57)
We don’t really have rodeo

up in North Carolina, but at our state fairs, they spray paint numbers on pigs and have them race.

Brittany Drennan (01:03)
That is so fun. have ⁓ at the rodeo in Houston, have a llama costume contest and they dress up all the llamas and alpacas and they have a costume contest and I still have yet to see it. I miss it again this year. It is my life’s mission to make it to the llama costume contest. That’s what I was up to. You guys do anything fun?

Matt Sprinkle (01:14)
Bye.

Heather Jerred (01:15)
I feel like he told me about this.

I really shocking for anybody that knows me well enough went hiking this weekend.

Brittany Drennan (01:30)
In the rain or in the sunshine?

Heather Jerred (01:32)
It was sunny

This will get cut because I’m to say a really bad word. But I told Brittany, I was like, it has been pouring rain here for five days straight and I’m

Like I was

Brittany Drennan (01:43)
Hahaha!

Heather Jerred (01:47)
Oh my God, I was getting so cranky. But the sun came out on Friday, which was glorious. And then I went hiking on Saturday and it was, she was a beaut of a day, but it’s raining again.

Matt Sprinkle (01:56)
⁓

Heather Jerred (01:57)
Anywho, you can cut that part out.

Brittany Drennan (01:57)
Cute.

Matt Sprinkle (02:01)
Any who, who are hiking as well. Can you see that?

Brittany Drennan (02:04)
Nice, now.

Heather Jerred (02:05)
What are you showing us?

Brittany Drennan (02:06)
I think it’s because of the background. You can’t see it. Was it, you posted a picture of your dogs though, was it that was you’re trying to show us or two dogs or something? It was so cute. Okay, it was so cute. Love

Heather Jerred (02:06)
Are you showing us photos? You can text them to us.

Matt Sprinkle (02:08)
Yeah. because the background’s on.

Heather Jerred (02:15)
I did see the pictures of the peppers. Yeah.

Matt Sprinkle (02:16)
Yep, that was it.

Brittany Drennan (02:19)
Love that for you.

Matt Sprinkle (02:19)
Yeah, it was

like 90 degrees.

Heather Jerred (02:21)
I don’t know what that means.

Brittany Drennan (02:22)
How is how is hiking with

dogs? it stressful or like, because everybody that I know that hikes with dogs makes it look like it’s really easy, but I’d be afraid like my dog would

Matt Sprinkle (02:32)
Yoshi is way too attached to run off. So, and he’s just the best dog ever. So sometimes he’ll run up like maybe 30 feet in front of me and I’ll say, come back. And he normally stays like whoever I’m hiking with, he stays between me and the other person. So he’s, he’s amazing.

Heather Jerred (02:32)
What did

Brittany Drennan (02:50)
That’s nice.

Heather Jerred (02:50)
June’s a

bit of like, she’ll get a little bit, she likes to chase like ground squirrels and tree squirrels and anything else that she could find in the bush. So she will take off to chase things, but she always comes back. I don’t find it stressful. I find it more stressful if I would have to leave her out in the ish. Those are like, cause she like, all she wants to do is

Brittany Drennan (03:09)
Okay, yeah, let’s get back on track. Okay, on today’s episode, we are talking about distilling. More specifically, we’re talking about distilling yeast. We are going to be learning how distilling yeast can apply flavors to spirits, and we have lined up a couple of amazing experts on the topic, truly, truly knowledgeable humans. Denise Jones from Fermentis and Kevin Kawa from AVBibotech.

Heather Jerred (03:09)
Long day. All right. Yeah. What are we talking about today?

amazing guests.

Matt Sprinkle (03:34)
So a few housekeeping items. CBC is only a few weeks away, so make sure to pop by and see us at booth 937. We will have 17 beers to try, an innovation station, live podcast recording, and of course the highlight, dogs!

Heather Jerred (03:46)
So fun to say.

The dogs are coming back.

Brittany Drennan (03:52)
Doggy doggie doggies.

Matt Sprinkle (03:55)
They’re coming back. They’re making their return. So be sure to come on by.

Brittany Drennan (03:58)
If you come

by and do anything, just give the dog pets. That’s what they’re there for.

Heather Jerred (04:03)
They’re there to help make us happy. come and see them. and see them. they do.

Brittany Drennan (04:05)
And that they just want to be pet. What’s going on? We

have an exciting Canadian update here.

Heather Jerred (04:12)
Excited

Canadian update. Yeah, the Canadian web store has finally

Matt Sprinkle (04:14)
So exciting.

Give it a view!

Brittany Drennan (04:21)
EWWWW

Heather Jerred (04:22)
the Canadian Web Store is officially live and operational. For anybody that wants to actually see anything about the Web Store, Canadian or American, please feel free to come by the CBC booth. We’re going to be having live demos there. ⁓ And we can kind of show you how to operate it if you have any questions. Of course, reach out to your territory manager if you need some help with anything as well. ⁓

So far the feedback has been absolutely amazing. I’m just getting texts from my brewers who are so excited about it. So yay, welcome to Canada Web Store.

Well, we got a full house and a packed agenda. So let’s just hop right in.

Matt Sprinkle (04:54)
do it.

Heather Jerred (04:55)
And we are now joined by Denise Jones, Technical Sales Support Manager for Fermentis. And I think if anybody has been in the brewing industry in North America or distilling industry in North America for the past, we could say how many years. You have to know who Denise is. So welcome, Denise. Thank you so much for joining us today. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners if they don’t already know who you are?

Denise Jones (05:17)
Yeah, thanks Heather. I am Denise Jones. I’m a technical sales support manager for Fermentis and I most often work with the spirits industry, but occasionally do some work with other beverages outside of beer, wine and cider. I have been in the started off as a brewer.

was early graduate of American Brewers Guild under Dr. Lewis and I’ve been at this business for about 33 years now between brewing and making washes and distillations. So, bit of experience on both sides of it. Did a lot of different fermentations. I moved to Germany and worked for a maltster in Germany and did a lot of their…

creative distillations as well as beer work that I did on their pilot system and picked a lot of fruit, made a lot of Bavarian fruit spirits and beer brandies and gin and things like that. I have a little bit of craft experience in my background as well. So just kind of parlayed this career in brewing into some distilling. now we get to talk about it and talk about fermentation and how fermentation takes a really high importance.

and flavor of what you’re distilling and the positive outcomes that you’re looking for.

Brittany Drennan (06:32)
done all the things it seems like. Where are you based Denise?

Denise Jones (06:37)
I live in northern Nevada. I don’t live too far from the Reno airport, about an hour’s drive. I’m about an hour’s drive from Lake Tahoe. So I live at the foothills of the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas. I am living probably less than 250 miles away from where I was born in eastern California. And I just enjoy the mountains and the weather here and

I’ve lived in different parts of the country, wine country, and for a short time in Colorado, and for a time in Germany, and I just keep coming back to my mountains, because I enjoy them so much.

Brittany Drennan (07:12)
Well, we are here to talk about whiskey, it looks like. So Heather and I were both lucky enough to hear and watch your presentation in person at the Pink Boots National Conference in New Orleans. But we would love for our listeners to get some nuggets of info that we got ⁓ from that presentation here from you directly.

So would you mind giving us kind of a high level overview of that before we kind of get into the nitty gritty with some specific questions, but maybe just an overall overview.

Denise Jones (07:47)
Sure. ⁓ Well, fermentist research and development has been working with both malt and bourbon whiskey mashes to assess fermentations with our strains. We went through an initial phase of fermentations under similar conditions to assess the fermentability, some of the character that each strain may bring to a congener profile. And in these parallel studies, we noted some similarities and some unique differences between the strains, not only with

the two different mash styles but also some of the flavors from each strain. Different efficiencies of ethanol production were notable and as well ester and acid production. Then these components are those that are important for a new make whiskey to mature into a flavorful beverage and maturation. So fermentation pretty much sets up

good base of flavor before you distill it and concentrate it in your distillation process. And then you lay it in a barrel and it has those transforming interactions later on in the barrel that start the actual maturation of flavors, conversions of acids and esters and micro oxygenation with the ethanol involved. And you get these transesterifications that really amplify

and create even more sensitive flavors in your maturation and in your matured whiskey. So fermentation is the baseline and just phase one was learning what these yeast strains will do not only in a malt whiskey matrix, but also in a bourbon whiskey matrix.

Brittany Drennan (09:18)
Very cool.

Matt Sprinkle (09:19)
So, you know, with prohibition and, you know, consumer buying trends, we’ve seen whiskey rise and fall, you know, throughout the last century or more. What are you seeing in terms of trends with the whiskey resurgence that we’ve seen over the last decade or two?

Denise Jones (09:38)
Well, there’s always going to be folks who like Scottish single malts around the world. And then there’s going to be those that favor bourbons with different grain additions, Irish with many grain additions, Japanese whiskeys with kind of a fruitier, ⁓ smoky disposition than some of the other world whiskeys. Lots of different countries producing different styles of whiskeys. So you’re to have your favorites that people have known

around the world for many, years, including the Canadian whiskeys, you the unique way that Canadians produce their whisky by one grain at a time, and fermenting independent grains, distilling independent grains, maturing independent grains, and then blending those different whiskeys together to create their own fashion. So these individual grists, you know, having them separate from each other really offer a different character for each whisky.

whereas probably more so in the United States we mix all the grains together for the mash and then tend to you know curate our blended grists with one fermentation or several different types of fermentations and just perhaps distill them together

different fermentations perhaps distill them differently age them

Matt Sprinkle (10:46)
perhaps distill them together, different limitations, perhaps distill the

Denise Jones (10:51)
together and maybe more independently

But these are just different ways to go about doing your business, whatever your laws will allow you to do and whatever your consumer is looking for. So there’s gonna always gonna be something different on the horizon. The United States also adopted a new classification called the American single malt and it has a lot more wide open latitude for aging and different types of wood and different types of grains. So that’s kind of something to look forward

in the future to taste some more depth and grain. Not that there’s anything wrong with a lot of corn in your fermentation, but some of these all malt and different types of smoke and different types of ⁓ caramelized, crystallized roasted grains can really lend a different character to the whiskeys that are being created now and laid down to rest for the next few years.

Matt Sprinkle (11:44)
I actually had another one for you tailoring, of tailing off of that other one. So with this whiskey resurgence, do you see that it’s led more by consumers or do you think it’s led by distillers kind of steering the consumers in the direction that they want?

Heather Jerred (11:44)
Yes.

Denise Jones (12:02)
I think a little of both. think what drives it a lot of times is regionality and local appeal. Similar to how craft beer ⁓ started to gravitate to smaller, more local efforts. think that there’s really a tale to be told with some of the heritage grains that might grow locally around you and local malters and just some kind of microclimate ⁓

opportunities

to adapt your water, your grains, a specific yeast strain that kind of allows for that terroir to shine through. I think that’s really on a horizon. And who’s to say if it’s…

us telling them what they want or them telling us what we should be doing. I think there’s a little of both and it’s a mirrored opportunity. I also think that there’s always going to be somebody who learned to love or learn to like or learn to make a specific style that they feel is traditional that can be

you know, quality time in and time out where there’s this ⁓ repeatability over and over and over again. People don’t like, you know, a little differentiation from year to year. And if you’re building a brand, you want to rest your laurels on a good reputation, know, consistent grain supplies, consistent yeast supplies, knowing exactly what you’re going to get time in and time out. That way you can build a program off of that too. So I see that there’s room for both, both the traditional palette

and also working with what’s around you.

know case in point there’s just a certain special flavor to Texas corn that has the higher color and with the right yeast strains you can really evoke a lot of floral characteristic out of it. So there’s regionality that really plays into the hand of the flavors that you’re creating and you know there’s just more than just grain there’s there’s yeast and how that interacts with your grain there’s how you distill and what you’re leaving in and what you’re leaving out if you’re using

more separation in your distillation and your cuts or allowing a lot more flavor and you know heavy oils to really kind of help shape the tail end of what you’re collecting to go into your barrels what kind of barrels you’re using are you using different you know head treatments and different body treatments how long what your ⁓

opportunities are for maturation. Is it dry? it humid? Is it high altitude? Is it low altitude? Do you find the weather gets extreme or is it very close together from summer to winter? All of these ideas and all of these things matter when you’re trying to take a look at what liquid goes in.

kind of what to sort of expect on the way out. So there’s never gonna be one way to tame the beast. And that’s what’s great for all of us is we all have an opportunity to really take a look at what we wanna do and kind of steer our goals toward what we feel is the right thing to do for our product, where we’re at and with what equipment we have and what background experience we have. So it’s wide open, wild, wild west, baby.

Brittany Drennan (15:10)
so you mentioned congener production. Can you explain to the listeners what this exactly means for flavor in the final whiskey and

Did certain yeast strains perform consistently well across different grains or were they substrate specific?

Denise Jones (15:27)
Yeah, it may be overlooked sometimes but yeast is one of the driving forces in flavor creation for any spirit. Different strains have different flavor traits and these traits can be altered with different conditions of the fermentation.

like dosage rate, temperature, time, pH, these can all affect the flavors that are derived from fermentation and these flavors or congeners are specific molecules that will be concentrated and perhaps created in distillation and then after the new make distillate is put into the barrel those flavors will go through those further changes to become new and different flavors and aromas.

The chemical reactions from the acids, the ethanol, oxygen, the wood macromolecules, this symphony, if you will, of transgressions that help shape and recombine into preferred characteristics of a matured spirit. That fruitiness, that spiciness, that sweet character, floral characters, all these notes can become even more influential with that maturation time. really conditionally, if you set yourself up in fermentation for some success,

You can almost expect success after it comes out of the barrel if you’ve treated all the conditions the way that you anticipate and you’re able to create enough flavor in the beginning to let it ripen and mature as days go by in your cellar.

Heather Jerred (16:48)
Were there any unexpected pairings that like kind of produced something that you didn’t really think would come out of it? Certain yeast strains with certain grains.

Denise Jones (16:56)
I think that some of it reaffirmed a number of things in the trials that we were looking for and had expectations thereof. And then I think that some of our expectations that were met with most of our strains, but a few things proved to be a little bit interesting. We knew that the Saf Spirit D53 was a strain that produced a great deal of isoamyl acetate in the character, that banana fruity characteristic. And it demonstrated that character in both malt whisky

and bourbon substrate. And the same with ⁓ some of the strains that tend to produce more of that phenyl ethyl alcohol, perhaps like the SaffSpirit M1, giving it a nice violet floral character. And what we do notice in a higher grist malt, so more of the malt whiskies versus the bourbon whiskey substrate, that the congener levels tend to be more elevated. And this is probably most likely due to an increased amount of fan or

or free amino nitrogen that’s associated with all malt grist bills. The other grains that might have differing amounts like corn and rye and wheat that are unmalted, they might have differing amounts of free nitrogen to help support that yeast growth and those differences can also alter metabolism that affects flavor generation. In some grist bills, it may prove to be helpful to add some of that organic nutrition, while in other cases, what’s in the mash?

may be just enough. Knowing what you have going in can be helpful if you’re going to add some organic nutrition or if the distiller wants to choose some other opportunities to help manipulate the fermentation by steering toward desired flavors that are created in fermentation. So most often what you’re going to find is higher adjunct.

types of grists that have maybe even dextrose in them. They’re going to be devoid of lot of nutritional character.

We’ve all thought about seltzers and you know trying to ferment 100 % sugar is really difficult because there’s really nothing there for the yeast to hang on to except for carbohydrate. So what we look to is to find a good match for what’s lacking in a nutritional balance of VG strains and most often grain doesn’t really need it. Proportions of malted barley really their enzymatic activity

goes a long way. They really help support that free amino nitrogen and they pack a punch when it comes to grain with those types of nutritional benefits. But when you take a look at really high corn, very little barley, eight percent barley, there might need to be a little bit of help with a malted rye or malted wheat or some definitely some enzymes to help break down the sugars to be able to get you to a simpler sugar pattern that’s going to help you ferment.

you know, what we look at in spirits is fermenting as much as we possibly can. We don’t like a lot of residual sweetness in there. We want to use everything we possibly can that we’ve put into the mash. So finding that efficiency and creating those flavors are really what we’re looking at and a balance between the two. Some people sacrifice efficiency for flavor and some vice versa, but there’s always a happy medium with most people where you know you’re going to collect a really good, fair amount of alcohol in your fermentation while deriving all the care.

and flavors that you’re looking for in the final whiskey. So I probably rambled a little bit, but a long answer to simple question probably.

Heather Jerred (20:16)
No.

Matt Sprinkle (20:17)
That looks great.

Well, you

mentioned isoamyl acetate and I can always pick out a brown formant product because of

Denise Jones (20:27)
we found a couple of yeast strains that typically we don’t necessarily suggest for whiskey, but we have some clients out there using them. And one would be like the South Spirit HG1, which we would suggest for people making neutral spirit because it really doesn’t offer a lot of flavor, congener profile.

And we found that it really makes a nice flavorful whiskey, but doesn’t have any of that isoamyl like by a long shot. It was really diminished in that if any at all was detected. there’s, know, the yeast strain itself has a lot to do with how the character is going to portray itself.

we know a lot of people who just can’t take any more isoamyl acetate and we know people that think that that’s the best thing since sliced bread. So we know how to steer them toward the strain first and foremost and then maybe take a look at their equipment and their temperatures and their pHs and see if we can help provide them with the best efficiency for the flavors that they’re looking for. So sometimes it’s not always plug and play, sometimes it takes a couple of tries

to figure out what you’re really looking for and, you know, take into account what…

base materials you’ve got and how they portray flavor as well. So all in all, we know that we have some that have a little bit more fruity and floral, and we know that we have some that have a balanced attack of good organic acids and some favorable esters. And we know that we have some that don’t create a lot of flavor, but let the grain really shine in its disposition. So you can kind of pick and choose what you’re looking for. You can make all the different ones and then

Brittany Drennan (21:33)
Thanks.

Thanks.

Denise Jones (22:00)
them later.

That’s whiskey, you know, typically these single barrel expressions are few and far between. And most all whiskeys out there are a blend of something with something else just to help elevate the best of all the flavors and create something that can be repeatable. And, you know, it has its own unique mark on what you’re trying to put out there in the world for your craft. So it really is a craft. And, you know, the more you look at fermentation as part of being able to set up the flavors for your craft.

Brittany Drennan (22:01)
Mm.

Heather Jerred (22:03)
Yeah.

Brittany Drennan (22:07)
Thank

Thanks.

Denise Jones (22:29)
the more likely you will be kind of testing some different things out and really kind of acquiescing to the type of flavor that you really prefer in your whiskey.

Matt Sprinkle (22:38)
So in talking about, you know, kind of steering people in the right direction in terms of which strains they should use, do you ever come across distillers that are maybe under utilizing some of the yeast benefits, the yeast strains, whatever they can get from using some of these?

Denise Jones (22:55)
Yeah, we see a lot of distillers still using brewing yeast and there’s nothing wrong with that, but your efficiency levels probably aren’t going to be as high as you would like them to be. You might have really flavorful washes, but you probably are missing out on some of those residual dextrins that a lot of beer yeast just ferment to a certain degree, RDF like 82 to 90%, whereas spirit strains tend to go a little deeper into that.

can ferment to dry without any sugar remaining. You also want to take a look at spirit strains exclusively selected because a lot of them have a higher thermotolerance that can take a little bit more heat and aren’t gonna really suffer ⁓ inconsistencies when summer comes along and you don’t have the cooling capacity that a lot of people don’t enjoy.

And then there’s also the opportunity of having, you know, a little we go into these things with a little bit higher gravities going in. So we want a yeast strain that can handle the higher sugar levels as well as a yeast strain that once it’s all fermented can handle those, pressure of those higher ethanol levels that are pushing on the yeast cell and still continue to perform. So these yeast strains that we choose have a little bit more robust character to them. And they have

a better opportunity of giving you what you want in the ethanol ⁓ column as well as the flavor column. So really that’s what the balanced attack is, is to make sure that whatever you’re putting in you get the most out of it so you’re not leaving everything back in the mash tun.

It’s great for a beer because we want to balance things with hops and a little sweet and a little malt and a little hop mix for a deliciously balanced beer. But when we’re talking about spirits fermentations, it’s a little bit different. And we want to really create a lot of flavors with the ones that we’re going to lay down. If we’re creating a neutral spirit, we want to do the exact opposite and do whatever we can to mitigate any flavor creation. So much more close to a beer fermentation that’s going to be clean and

quick and on its way to fermenting really classic base to be able to you know put underneath something that might have flavor or to put something through filtration again to have yourself a nice white spirit or a gin after that so kind of different tax for neutral spirit versus flavorful spirits we want to create all these flavors so we can lay them down and and really anticipate how they’re going to mature and

Brittany Drennan (25:24)
Thanks.

Heather Jerred (25:29)
How have you been finding them maintaining that flavor as they mature?

Denise Jones (25:34)
Will

That’s really kind of user dependent because what I might feel personally is something that’s well in its way, but someone else might choose to say that, you know, it’s time. So I think we all have different propensities to kind of lean on what we’ve learned in the past or what we enjoy on an everyday basis. And a lot of times these decisions aren’t made with the craft in mind. They’re not made with the romance of the perfect liquid

Brittany Drennan (25:40)
You

Denise Jones (26:01)
mind they’re made with finances involved and sometimes you got to put stuff out there that may need a little bit more shape but you you got to make money too so there’s there’s ways to you know take a look at white spirit and maybe get something that’s fruity and has a lot of character as a white spirit and yeast can do that for you while you lay down your other spirits and wait for them to mature nicely so there’s ways to put a couple of different things out there in your tasting rooms and in your ether to

be

able to make money along the way and a little balance of both sometimes can really help people get to that maturation bridge where you’re starting to release stuff that’s really worthy of being released.

Everybody’s gonna be different. Everybody’s gonna be in a different atmosphere for their maturation and how quickly these things happen and where your whiskey falls in line is really up to the distillers and the people who make those decisions for themselves independently. If it were me, I’d leave it for a little bit longer every time. So that’s just my advice. Don’t touch it yet. Don’t touch it yet.

Heather Jerred (27:05)
No touching.

Denise Jones (27:07)
Let it ride, you know, that’s right.

Heather Jerred (27:08)
Give it some time.

Brittany Drennan (27:10)
Well, so if you were advising a brand new distillery, how would you tell them to approach choosing yeast and grain combinations?

Denise Jones (27:21)
You know, most distillers have a notion of what they like and in general

where they might want to begin with their products. So different grains from different sources will influence the flavor. And some may want to focus on letting the grain character shine within that flavor profile. Like we’ve talked about these indigenous grains that are close to you, regional, microclimate, things that matter to the people around you. And then some may want different compounds from a unique yeast character to lead the way.

in the case of something like Diff does, Saff Spirit D53, that’s really fruity banana and really can, you know, kind of in some cases overwhelm the grain character to some degree if you’re looking for something like that. I don’t ever think it overwhelms it, but in some profiles it can be the shining beacon of the flavor profile.

And some might want something different, to have a barrel opportunity to be able to mature and shape the product a little bit differently and feel a different tone in the final product. And all of these are true, the barrel, the grain, the yeast, and the distiller can choose what emphasis they want on what.

So if it’s something similar to a scotch that you want, you know that the Saf Spirit M1 typically is the strain that has that diastatic effort. If you’re not using any enzymes traditionally like they do in Scotland, the M1 goes that extra mile with a little bit of more diastatic effort to ferment a little bit better.

and it has the classic flavors that line everything up for a nice peated whiskey. If you’re looking for a bourbon, that Saff Spirit W06 is, USW06 is probably the classic bourbon strain that’s gonna set up a nice corn whiskey.

just a good influence even with rye. I noticed some nice phenol conversion and wheat, some nice phenol conversion with some of these classic whiskey strains that really set up those types of characters really well for a spicier or a sweeter, softer addition with a wheat. So, you know, the right yeast for the right job, of course, fruitier, D53. We have a new release called the

WFF8 that’s going to come out soon, probably in the next month or two. And WFF Whiskey Floral Fruity, it’s going to have a diastatic effort as well. And it’s going to give you a lot more opportunity for some different fruity characters other than banana, more of a basket of fruit and stone fruit as well, as well as some of those purple flower floral characteristics that we kind of like. So it can set you up for a different

whiskey in barrel and you can mature that out to your liking or you can blend it back to kind of some of your other whiskies create different character amongst them. So there’s a lot of different strains that we would look at what your base grain is and how what your true north is because everybody’s got their own true north about what direction that they feel like they want to go in with their whiskey style.

Just try and find the right thing for the right people and give them the opportunity to trial a few things so they can feel confident with the fermentability and the opportunity and the repeatability of a fermentous yeast strain. So that’s really what we’re looking for.

Heather Jerred (30:37)
Do you recommend a nutrient as well?

Denise Jones (30:40)
Like I said, with most green, we have plenty of nutrition. It’s only certain grains that might be devoid of a little nutrition. Sometimes organic grains don’t have added nitrogen to the soil. So you would probably see a little bit lower content in those. I would venture to say that anything that’s got a higher proportion of barley, you’re going to be.

just fine with if it’s got 100 % corn, we look to maybe finding out where the corn comes from and maybe recommending a little bit of nutrition. And I, you know, that’s something that we definitely can discuss on a one-on-one basis, because we certainly don’t want to recommend like a one size fits all for all nutrition, because there’s different situations with different spirit fermentations that we would recommend one product over another.

So it’s always good to ask your fermentus representatives some specific questions so we can try and put you in the right opportunity for the best flavors, for the best fermentability and efficiencies for whatever you’ve got going on in your.

in your grain profile. Different parts of the world have different qualities to their grains. I know when you talk about country malt group, you can always count on things time in and time out, knowing exactly what’s been selected. A lot of folks will use some local grains and integrate them with country malt grains. And it’s nice to know what’s going in so we can kind of anticipate what we’re going to need to make sure everything is efficient, effective, grabbing all the

flavors that you’re looking for. So long answer to a short question is most often no, you don’t need it in a green fermentation.

Brittany Drennan (32:13)
⁓

Matt Sprinkle (32:14)
Well, with all the innovation that you guys are doing, where do you guys see whiskey going in the next five to 10 years?

Denise Jones (32:20)
Well, you know, I’m thinking I’m going to see a lot of local emphasis and ingenuity with fermentation. I think that’s what makes each distiller unique and can help them tell that personal story for their marketing efforts and to really endear their local clientele to what they’re trying to produce.

I think looking further into the frontier of synergies of yeast and bacteria are quite important and how these microorganisms can work in tandem to create different flavors. I think there’s different ways to generate differentiation while maintaining these efficiencies. And I think that these…

at what we have in front of us as far as research and development and what I feel that distillers will look for and consumers will find interesting is just different flavor variations as time goes by. I think we’re always gonna have that traditional feel to a lot of our companies that have been around for a long, time. But I think that some of the smaller craft, smaller regionals,

Brittany Drennan (33:22)
Thanks.

Denise Jones (33:26)
can really take a look at what’s around them and create their own repertoire by just doing what they like to do, feeling the flavors around them and really letting that locality shine.

I don’t think anything’s gonna go away. I don’t think you’re not gonna see very little bourbon. I think bourbon’s here to stay. I think single malts are here to stay. But I also think innovation will start to drive flavor a little bit more and kind of change our expectations as to what the perfect whiskey might be. So there’s a lot of flavor to be created and a lot of work to be done, but we’ll be there side by side with you to help you figure it all out as we figure it out.

That’s what’s fun about the future, know. Figuring out what’s next and what might work. What flavors might taste good in our glass. that’s to me what it’s all about.

Heather Jerred (34:10)
where it’s gonna be next.

Matt Sprinkle (34:16)
Yeah.

Heather Jerred (34:16)
Kind of

on that note, when you had given the presentation at the Pink Boots Conference, you had said you’re going to be continuing on with this research and development. What are any specific questions that you really want answered from this research?

Denise Jones (34:28)
Yeah, the first phase was all the same temperature in the same conditions in microfermentations. The second phase will bring in and pool in not as many yeast strains, but the ones that we found the most interesting. And we’re also going to alter some pH to see how things are challenged in different pH.

substrate, as well as different temperatures and as well as different dosage rates. So we can kind of, you know, analyze the differences in these fermentations with these different conditions. That’ll give us another layer of information that we can ascertain from what our yeast strains can do in varying conditions. Further out from that, after phase two is completed and the analysis are in, so we can, you know, kind of assess what we have going on, then we’re gonna select

a few yeast strains and take them to a pilot distillery where we can expound upon that and create some different conditions, different pH and more of a real world.

type of situation so we can really gather a little bit more volume and understand how some of these interactions might change when you actually take it to a larger format. So we’re going to do that. And from that, after we distill those products in phase three, we’ll probably take those to a barrel and investigate on a yearly basis what’s going on inside the barrel. So we can, you know, from the very beginnings to the very end and maturation really quite readily understand where

each one of our yeast strains will take you from the beginning to the end, at least in these trials. So it’s a long-term endeavor to figure out what’s going on. of course, nothing’s going to be perfect, but we have these parallel studies in Europe for malt and in Kentucky for bourbon. And I think we have the good basis to take these phases to the next level and to a higher pilot style system to really give us an opportunity to help predict what

Brittany Drennan (35:58)
Thanks.

Heather Jerred (36:00)
Hehehe.

Denise Jones (36:20)
might happen for you as you start to use these products too.

Matt Sprinkle (36:24)
Denise, you mentioned earlier fermenting with bacteria. Can you talk to us about some of the research you guys are doing with co-fermentation with yeast and bacteria and how that influences the final product?

Denise Jones (36:35)
Well, know, similar to a wine, you want to have a strong implantation of select yeast to be able to ferment. You want to have it out compete any number of bacteria that might be around.

And it’s always kind of a co-fermentation because unlike beer, we’re not boiling our product. We’re raising it up to a certain heat level to expose the enzyme activity, but we’re also not boiling it. So there’s always going to be a level of bacteria already in the product. And it’s a good yeast pitch that gets it from sugar to alcohol. And then these bacteria can start to populate and take over. I know a lot of distillers that

Brittany Drennan (37:06)
Thanks.

Denise Jones (37:14)
want to make sure that they get their.

gravities within a good realm and then leave the bacteria to take over a little bit and to create flavor. I know some people who want to just get the ethanol created and move on from that to distillation. I know some people that only want 80 to 85 percent real degree of fermentation and then they’ll open up the windows in their distillery and let whatever breeze that’s blowing in help populate the local bacteria that might be lingering

on the top of a fermenter, an open top fermenter. So there’s all sorts of creative ways to kind of implicate bacteria that comes on your grain and in your resident equipment. But there’s also that opportunity if you want to lower pH, we have some different bacterial options like with a kettle sour that you can pitch a little bit of.

Lactobacillus plantarum or brevis and create a little bit different acidity and a little bit different lactic character. Those are all opportunities that we can look at.

We are on the frontier looking at some other bacteria that comes from some of our other portfolios. So we’re always kind of looking to create value with some of the other bugs that we already have identified, that we already have the ability to put through a drying regimen. That’s something that bacteria isn’t really the same as yeast on. It takes a little bit more to dry bacteria. They’re a little more sensitive. They don’t have that cell wall that’s as rigid as a

yeast cell would have. So some of them are a little bit sensitive and if we can dry them or not.

So for menace knows how to do these things, it just might take a little bit of time to get them in an industrialized format. So it’s always a new horizon for us as well. When we find things that we like, and then we need to take them, you know, all the way through industrialization before we can put something on the market. Sometimes it takes years for all of these things to happen. But we’d like to do it the, you know, the long way so we know exactly what we’re getting into. We know that it’s going to work when it gets to you. We know that it’s going to have

highest quality standard when it gets to you so you can rely on it time in and time out. So lots of different angles to create flavor with nutrition, with bacteria, with the yeast strain itself. So I think that there’s plenty to do on those horizons. So adding more bacteria ⁓ to the program, it’s just hit and miss when you’re looking for something specific.

Most people try and find a repeatability. If it is a bacteria that’s resident to your distillery, sometimes that’s your house character. And I’ve known distilleries that don’t really clean the beer stone on the inside of their fermenters because it carries a certain house character that creates flavor, that’s the house bugs going to town and that’s their house, you know, their house character. So everything, all bets can be off, know, anybody can

do it really a little bit of anything to really create flavor and whether or not you want to isolate those bacteria to try and dry them and use them in a commercial fashion that’s kind of what we look into and just knowing that we have the opportunity to do these things there might be something on the horizon to come I don’t know yet. It’s always research and development you know we always take a look at the possible and and figure out if it’s possible or not.

Heather Jerred (40:26)
Stay tuned. Yeah.

Matt Sprinkle (40:33)
And that’s really neat. And you know, people have been using a sour mash technique in some of their products for years. So how does the intentional co-fermentation differ from sour mashing?

Denise Jones (40:44)
Well, know, sour mash came as a means to do a couple of things. It lowered the pH of your mash. It added ⁓ yeast nutrition from autolyzed yeast. So that was, you know, burned, if you will, in the still and heated up to high temperature. So you had autolyzed yeast in there that acted as a natural yeast food.

Brittany Drennan (40:56)
Thanks.

Denise Jones (41:06)
And you also were able to harness some of the heat energy that when you were heating stuff up with wood back in the days, it wasn’t like steam where you could just demand the temperature that you want. So you had to kind of utilize what was there. And so they would take anywhere from 20 to 33 % of that back set, that stillage, and either move it into the fermentation to get things going or move it back into the next distillation to help with flavor characteristics.

So back sets kind of been the mother of invention for other reasons. And then you just come to find out, it’s doing some good things for me. So I think that heat recovery is always something that people look forward to in their engineering plants like that. Having the infrastructure to handle back set, that’s something that people have to have.

And then, you know, we also are taking a look at the idea of, you know, using bacteria and maybe using some different materials made from yeast to be able to create a, you know, a natural back set that is created from yeast parts. So that’s horizons that we’re looking into for sure.

but it just kind of ⁓ is, you know, trials at this point and ideas at this point. And when we have concrete evidence that things work really well that way, then we will definitely look forward to speaking on that. So we’ll see what’s in our future. Sometimes I don’t even know what’s around the corner.

Matt Sprinkle (42:31)
Wild West of whiskey.

Denise Jones (42:33)
It is and it’s all about good fermentability, getting your efficiencies so you can make money, predictability so you’re not guessing each time. can really run your operation with some predictability, not only in ethanol production, but in flavor creation and having that predictability. Because once you find something, you want to be able to do it over and over and over again.

It’s not like you always want to be changing up all the time. Because once you find something, you don’t want to have a bunch of other things getting in the way. You want to find that.

true unique character and I always kind of liken it to be like on the Titanic and it’s not that easy to turn the Titanic ship so you have these little turns here and there but once you kind of get a good head of steam with the flavor characters that you’re looking forward to and the repeatability then you don’t really want to be turning the Titanic around so those are kind of ideas behind it.

Brittany Drennan (43:25)
You

Heather Jerred (43:27)
Denise, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with us. You are obviously a wealth of knowledge on this topic. You, like I said, were the inspiration for the topic of this episode, so we really, really appreciate you taking the time to come and chat with us. And I will, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

Denise Jones (43:41)
Yeah, no worries. My pleasure.

Okay that sounds great. Yeah and if there’s anything else I can help you guys with, yeah let me know. You’re welcome. Thank you guys. Okay have a great

Heather Jerred (43:45)
We can talk about whiskey more and drink some whiskey.

Awesome. Thank you.

Brittany Drennan (43:52)
Thank you, Denise.

We’ll see you soon.

Matt Sprinkle (43:54)
Thank you.

Heather Jerred (43:56)
We are now joined by Kevin Kawa, Technical Applications Manager for ABBiotek. ABBiotek is a yeast company that we represent here. Hi, Kevin, how are you?

Kevin Kawa (44:07)
I’m doing great. How are you guys doing?

Heather Jerred (44:09)
Pretty good.

Brittany Drennan (44:10)
Good, thanks for coming on.

Heather Jerred (44:12)
Yeah, we really appreciate it. I you’re a wealth of knowledge in this topic. Before we dive into talking about everything that has to do with yeast, can you just tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?

Kevin Kawa (44:12)
Yes.

Absolutely. Yeah, no, definitely excited to be here excited to chat all things fermentation kind of consider myself a fermentation nerd to say the least. But yeah, so my background is kind of all over the place. I did chemistry to kind of start things off in my school career and really geeked out on some of the science things and then actually did the hair at watt program and did my master’s in brewing and distilling really thought I was going to be the full beer life and all that

of stuff, but the distilling side of things and my chemistry really kind of took me to the dark side, let’s say. So really started to focus more on the distilled spirits. I did work for briefly as a production brewer, but kind of got my feet wet in the rum distilling aspect of things. And yeah, I got to live the tropical life for a bit and

From there, kind of moved on into technical sales and applications and that sort of things. And I’ve actually been with AB biotech for coming up on six years now, just doing all things fermentation and ⁓ all that kind of fun stuff.

Brittany Drennan (45:29)
That’s cute. We got a real life Margaritaville guy over here.

Kevin Kawa (45:32)
yeah, absolutely.

Heather Jerred (45:34)
you

Kevin Kawa (45:35)
Love the, love the rum things. I mean, don’t get me wrong, whiskey’s fun and I will, I will drink whiskey all day, but man, I got a special place in my heart for rum.

Matt Sprinkle (45:44)
Where did you live when you were just going around?

Brittany Drennan (45:44)
Yeah, same.

Kevin Kawa (45:46)
I was down in Florida actually, I mean fully doing the beach rum life kind of thing, making all sorts of fun drinks and yeah, that’s got my interest in cocktails and tiki and all kinds of different things. yeah, it still holds a place in my heart and whenever I travel somewhere, I always try and check out if they got a cool tiki bar because yeah, there’s just something unique about that.

I mean, I don’t know, you can’t get that experience anywhere else. It’s always fun and wild.

Heather Jerred (46:15)
You are the second Kevin for

us to know that lives his life for Tiki Bar.

Brittany Drennan (46:17)
I was gonna say, our Kevin in Florida

is the tiki obsessed,

Kevin Kawa (46:22)
Yeah, I think that’s just what happens.

I think if you’re named Kevin, you live in Florida, that just kinda is what you have to do. Yeah, it’s a requirement.

Heather Jerred (46:29)
You have to love Tiki Bars. I’ve been to more Tiki

Bars with Kevin Lowe than anybody else in my life.

Brittany Drennan (46:34)
Kevin. Actually, I

think he has one in his house too, so that’s cute.

Heather Jerred (46:38)
He does,

I’ve seen photos of him. I’m excited, I get to go to Florida for the first time later this year for ADI this year. So we’ll have to go find a tiki bar.

Kevin Kawa (46:46)
Yeah, yep,

absolutely. There’ll be plenty of rum. think Miami drink consumes the most rum out of anyone in the US, so there will be plenty of rum to drink there. Yeah.

Heather Jerred (46:58)
Challenge accepted.

Brittany Drennan (46:58)
I think

it gets like a bad rap, I too feel. There’s really good sipping rums and then there’s bottom to mid shelf rum. And I think that a lot of the public hasn’t experienced or had a chance to try a lot of the top shelf, really, really good sipping rums.

Kevin Kawa (47:19)
It’s true and it’s kind of sad because I actually learned this the other day that apparently when they would do like the The everyone would meet for like the old-school politics They would have a barrel of rum at the the meeting and like that was part of what you were supposed to do is you’re supposed to drink rum and get drunk and then argue politics and I’m just like, know I think if we had a little more of that today, it might be better

Brittany Drennan (47:43)
Oui.

Heather Jerred (47:43)
There is a

chance I will drink rum in Florida and argue politics, so buckle up.

Kevin Kawa (47:47)
Yep.

Brittany Drennan (47:48)
Might have to walk the plank then too, probably. No one’s here. Okay, that digressed. Fun. Rub. Okay, you Kevin tell us a little bit about the distinction series of distilling yeast that AB biotech carries?

Kevin Kawa (47:50)
Yeah. ⁓

Heather Jerred (47:50)
I might, yeah.

DJ usually puts me on a timeout.

Kevin Kawa (47:56)
Hahaha

Matt Sprinkle (47:58)
Thank

Kevin Kawa (48:06)
Absolutely. So the Distinction Series was our Yeast for Flavor initiative. So it starts off a few years ago where we realized we’ve got over a couple thousand strains of yeast in our yeast bank in Sydney, Australia. And we wanted to kind of start categorizing them to know what they’d be able to do for

things other than kind of beer and wine and and and other usages so we started just kind of a Cataloging sort of thing looking at the different strains that we had Seeing which ones would be interesting kind of narrowed it down to a hot list of about a hundred different strains that we thought hey these have kind of the I guess ⁓ Characteristics that would be useful in distilled distilled spirits

So we went and started looking at those strains and doing kind of some experimentation and doing some small batch distillations and then some science work to look at the different flavor compounds and those sorts of things that they brought out and wanted to that again, a hundred strains is a lot. wanted to narrow that down. So what we did was we looked at eight strains that we thought were really unique, really different and really flavorful.

for the Distilled Spirits industry.

We brought those those eight strains and and kind of looked at them first on single malt So we did single malt fermentations And really saw okay all the different flavors that it can bring out without getting into all the specific strains and going into that I mean we saw fruity flavors Floral flavors and then some that that even highlighted like this cereal notes and those sorts of things And we’re able to categorize those strains into the flavor

that they brought out. So started in single malt and thought, you know what, this could look into other avenues. So we’ve actually done it in ⁓ some of your kind of typical bourbon mashes. So some of your high corn and rye mashes. We’ve also started to do it on agave. And I know we talked about rum at the beginning. We looked at, we’re looking at doing it ⁓ on rum. And so far, what’s been really cool is they’ve all.

translated pretty well. So when it says it’s a banana flavor or a like a fresh fruit red berry flavor, pretty much any of the substrates from single malt to agave, they’ve all brought out those kind of flavor characteristics. So that’s been really cool for us to ⁓ continue to experiment and see what kind of unique flavors can come out in distilled spirits.

Brittany Drennan (50:41)
Do you work with customers to do all of the testing for this or how are you guys?

Matt Sprinkle (50:41)
Yeah.

Kevin Kawa (50:46)
We.

Yeah, we’ve we’ve done a little bit of everything. So we’ve got a lab in Sydney, Australia, where it all started. And so that is where we just kind of did some micro distillations. But we thought, you know, that’s not that it’s good to get the data and and all that. But that’s not the real world example. So we’ve worked with different distillers in Scotland, in North America, in Mexico and around to do actual kind of real

world trials and we’ve even got some spirit that we put down a couple of years ago on a bourbon mash that I’ve got to taste through and it’s…

going really well. The barrels have done some really cool things to it and the flavors really kind of held through, which has been really, really cool. We were a little concerned that maybe some of these flavor compounds were to be really volatile and they would kind of come off in the barrel and turns out that’s not the case. The flavors are really shining and actually as a barrel does, just kind of making them even better. So that’s been really cool to see. I’m excited once we get even more age on there, upwards of the four or five year kind of thing.

Heather Jerred (51:51)
Yeah.

Matt Sprinkle (51:53)
Awesome. Can you touch on some of these flavor compounds that you guys are isolating and finding that these yeast produce?

Kevin Kawa (52:01)
Sure thing, yeah, I mean, one of the main ones that we see a lot of is esters. So you’ve got your fatty acids that are being produced by the yeast. Those are reacting with some of the higher alcohols that are in there and are producing some really fun ester characteristics. when we’ve looked at… ⁓

Especially on those eight ⁓ ones that I had talked about. We actually have a nine page document that goes through all the flavor compounds that we found that were at least one standard deviation away from some of our kind of our baseline yeast, which was a pretty neutral sort of baseline. So we looked at that, that we looked at reference material on those compounds and saw, these are these are some of the flavors. So there were esters that that were some of them. And then

some other kind of ⁓ aromatic carbon chains and those sorts of things that we found that brought out different flavor characteristics. But it was really kind of cool. I’ll talk about one specifically that’s pretty popular. That is our BLFF, which is balanced, floral, and fruity. And the cool thing about that was when we looked at the flavor compounds, it kind of had a little bit of everything in it. From the 30 different congeners that we looked at,

Heather Jerred (53:04)
Thank

Kevin Kawa (53:17)
had decent amounts of all the flavor compounds where some of the other ones were particularly high in one specific flavor and lower in another one. The balanced one was just a little bit of everything. So was kind of like that bouquet of all the flavors, which we thought, okay, this is cool that the sensory that we had done is also backed up by the.

⁓ actual like GC and scientific work that we’re doing. So we’re able to kind of combine all those two to give the name characteristics that we have on each of the distinction strains.

Heather Jerred (53:48)
So how do these different yeast strains, air quote, decide to produce like more fruity esters versus heavier alcohol?

Kevin Kawa (53:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. mean, getting, getting into kind of the, the, the science of it, but, ⁓ yeah, absolutely. I love it. so you think about each one of these trains is, genetically different. So, while they’re still kind of following that fermentation pathway, it’s going to depend on how much of certain, like

Heather Jerred (54:01)
Get nerdy.

Kevin Kawa (54:16)
precursors they have a lot of those times that their amino acid precursors or some sort of nutritional precursor and then if genetically they’ve got the ability to convert that into again like a fatty acid or Convert it into into something else It’s just kind of driven by genetics basically, so the different strains are genetically different they’re going to tend towards pushing towards again more of a

of a…

I guess a biotransformation. mean, you think of yeast as essentially biotransformers, the different strains are gonna transform what inputs you give it differently. And then depending on that, it’s going to, again, either combine into some of those really fun esters or just other flavor compounds that are there. without really getting into the actual specific pathways or anything like that, the best way to think about it is yeast are kind of mini factories and the factory, each strain is

gonna produce things a little bit differently. So just the way the factory’s built, just the genetics that are in it. And so it can depend on the inputs, but what we found for the most part, they’re kind of each pushing their own.

agenda a little bit. If you want to use that kind of terminology and pushing out those different flavor compounds. again, as humans, we’re really, really good at picking out, I mean, parts per billion, sometimes even parts per trillion or parts per million of these flavor compounds. So it’s not like there has to be a lot of it for us to be able to notice a big difference.

Brittany Drennan (55:45)
And then how does that translate to different grain bills? like malted versus…

Kevin Kawa (55:51)
Yeah, yeah, I kind of talking a little bit about it. It’s the substrate is going to I mean,

gonna have different sugars. So a corn is gonna have a bit of a different sugar, if using high enzyme or if using malt convert. The corn, those are gonna bring out different sugar inputs. And those inputs can change, again, how much of the flavor outputs that are going there. But really, what we’ve seen for the most part ⁓ that’s been pretty cool is…

The flavor that it says on there from the strain is holding pretty well, kind of no matter what sugar input is in there. again, we’ve seen it in agave, which is an entirely different kind of fermentation versus a…

bourbon fermentation versus a single malt fermentation. But there’s still sugars and you still need the nutrition. That’s the other kind of big key is. ⁓

without some sort of nutrient source, without some of those, again, amino acids and those sorts of things, the yeast doesn’t really have anything to convert and the yeast needs that to be able to run the fermentation anyway. So all of those kind of factors, mean, there’s a lot of inputs in there and there’s a lot of ⁓ yeast doing their own kind of fun thing, but yeah, it’s for, I guess, kind of…

To sum things up quickly on that, it’s the…

the inputs do matter and they can change things, but we found that for the most part, things still hold true to the flavors that these strains are producing. we’re open to kind of people experimenting and seeing what they can get out of the strains because just a real quick aside, they can be co-inoculated. So most of these distinction range strains can work with your house strain as well. So if you’re getting too much

flavor out of the flavor strain, can actually add like maybe 50 % flavor and 50 % house strain like our Pinnacle MG Plus or our Pinnacle AW and they’ll, for the most part, play pretty well together. It’ll kind of tone back that flavor by about 50%. Now, it’s not always that one-to-one case, but yeah, it’s open to that kind of experimentation, which is pretty cool.

Matt Sprinkle (58:11)
speaking of creating those flavors, how does the cut strategy, arts, heads, tails, and the blending, how does all of that come into play with the different profiles that you’re getting from these yeasts?

Kevin Kawa (58:22)
Yeah, great question. I think it’s a little bit dependent on what

the the flavors are being produced so with one particular strain like our our rose water and red berry we found that which is our ffr strain it we found that some of it is like really long chain esters and so ⁓ those are less volatile so for the most part your cuts are not gonna need to be as ⁓ as as tight you’re still kind of

Heather Jerred (58:31)
Thank

Kevin Kawa (58:53)
going to get the flavors that are kind of coming through with that. ⁓ Some of them, again, especially some of the delicate ones, like some of the floral ones or even some of your like delicate fruity flavors, you might need to take more of a look at your cuts on that to make sure that those are kind of still coming across. But from what we’ve seen,

A lot of these will make it through within your hearts runs. You’re not really needing to do too much of an adjustment on your cut strategy. Again, you don’t wanna necessarily go too far into heads or too far into tails or anything like that. So it could be done without doing a whole lot of adjusting. But yeah, again, some of the more delicate ones you might need to look at making a bit more of,

I

guess a less of a generous cut on things if they’re kind of coming across really early on. But yeah, and then into the, we kind of talked on blending with that. The cool thing is that ⁓ these flavors will blend pretty well kind of down the road. We’ve done some.

Again, we’ve got some two-year product and just kind of done some fun like, this one would blend nice with this one and just trying to see if we can craft a really, really cool bourbon. And again, with the agave, we’ve done it as well, and the single malt. So it’s all about, I guess, kind of providing the tools to the distiller to be able to make those decisions. We’re not saying this is how you have to do it. It’s more of, hey, here’s more options for you. Go have fun.

And if you want help, yeah, and if you want help or you want some guidance, we’re happy to provide that. But I’d much rather see distillers kind of take the reins on their own and say, I want to try seeing what this can do and what kind of fun things we can bring out with it.

Brittany Drennan (1:00:26)
Yeah.

I mean, we mix beer all the time, right? So.

Kevin Kawa (1:00:44)
Exactly,

Distilling’s behind the game. We gotta take some cues from our beer friends.

Brittany Drennan (1:00:48)
Yeah.

Heather Jerred (1:00:49)
you

Brittany Drennan (1:00:52)
You

Heather Jerred (1:00:52)
⁓ sensitive is the flavor production to the fermentation temperature or to temperature changes?

Kevin Kawa (1:00:58)
Sure, yeah, so especially with ester production and those kind of things, warmer temperatures will promote more of that extra ester production. So there is a bit of consideration going along with that. Low, cold, and slow, might not as get much flavor production of things. It should still be noticeable because again, that it…

Kind of going back to we talked about the yeast as many factories. The factories built to be able to produce these flavors, but optimizing how much flavor you can get out of it and that sort of thing helps when it comes to temperature and those sorts of things. So again, it’s not a fast and hard answer, but typically warmer is gonna produce more flavor. Now you don’t wanna go too hot. Anything above usually 90 plus.

the yeast will start to struggle and then you’re gonna start to get more of the flavors you don’t want like sulfur and and all that kind of stuff making sure your yeast are happy are going to keep them kind of doing what they’re supposed to do so not stressing them out too much but yeah typically when you go warmer above like the 80 Fahrenheit kind of thing is gonna is gonna promote more flavor production and that’s that’s

for the most part pretty much any yeast strain is gonna tend to do that. Any sacramieces, now non-sacs are a whole different game and that’s a whole different talk. exactly.

Brittany Drennan (1:02:19)
you

Heather Jerred (1:02:20)
That’s for a later episode.

Brittany Drennan (1:02:23)
What about nutrients? Are there any nutrients that you recommend?

Kevin Kawa (1:02:27)
Yeah, I mean,

having a good nutrient is important. We’ve got from our line of things, we’ve got a few different ones, but we’ve got an Opti-Still range. Our Opti-Still RS, which is a refined sugar nutrient, it kind of started out of doing like…

I guess, rum and just straight sugar fermentations. So it’s got a lot of things that you need in it to be able to ferment any sort of substrate. So straight sugar has obviously got no nutrition in there. And one of the things with straight sugar is that yeast will tend to drop the pH really quick. So that particular nutrient has buffers and vitamins in it as well.

so that the yeast doesn’t crash pH as you’re using it. Things like corn and malt obviously have a lot of nutrition in it already. So a little bit of supplementation can certainly help. Again, giving the yeast more of those amino acids to work with to reduce those flavor compounds can be beneficial, but you’re also not necessarily needing to when you’ve got a good nutrient base to begin with. And to be honest, enzymes will often do a lot of work for you there.

⁓ as well, especially if you’re, I mean, a single malt’s got, the malt’s got a ton of enzymes in it to be able to do a lot of conversion and those sorts of things for you to get you those simple sugars and get a lot of that free amino nitrogen and all that kind of stuff that you need for yeast health and flavor production.

Matt Sprinkle (1:03:59)
So what are some of the common mistakes that you see during fermentation, especially as distillers are trying to utilize these yeast for specific flavors?

Brittany Drennan (1:03:59)
Okay.

Kevin Kawa (1:04:09)
Yeah, so a great question. Some of the common mistakes, these strains are not going to necessarily be the workhorse strains that you’re used to. So one of the things that I can see with it is

especially on like a single malt or maybe if you’re just using malt as your kind of conversion enzymes, they’re gonna be a little bit slower. They’re not gonna take off as quickly as a workhorse train would. So you just gotta be prepared for that, especially if you’ve got a really tight distillation schedule. If you’re try using something like this, you might wanna consider.

Like we talked about earlier, some co-inoculation to allow the flavor yeast to do its thing, but allow your house strain to still keep those kinetics going. That’s a big thing with it.

And again, if that’s something you’re not necessarily comfortable, we can always help make recommendations as to, yeah, what sort of split you would want to do and where you can kind of look to with that. 50-50 is usually a good starting point. Again, if you want more flavor, you can go higher on the flavor. If you need better kinetics, you can go higher on your house drain. And yeah, so that’s probably a big one. Again, these are these.

If you think about yeast and where it of came from, these ones were not ones that were necessarily coming out of the alcohol beverage industry. They’re ones that have some unique characteristics. so while house strains are optimized for efficiency and yield and those sorts of things, these ones are gonna do more carbon conversion towards flavor and that. So while you might not be getting as…

full of yield as expected. These are more meant for bringing out flavor and bringing out those kind of characteristics. So it’s just something to keep in mind, understanding that the yeast is going to be a little bit different than probably what you’ve worked with before.

and just keeping some of those kind of considerations, making sure you’ve got a good healthy sugar source, you’ve got all your starch conversion done if you’re doing malt or bourbon or anything like that. And yeah, you’ve got decent nutrition and for the most part the yeast will do its thing but… ⁓

Brittany Drennan (1:06:06)
Thanks.

Kevin Kawa (1:06:24)
If you’re worried about, again, timing or things like that, like an MG Plus or a Pinnacle AW can really help make sure you’re still getting those kinetics that you need.

Brittany Drennan (1:06:34)
next.

Heather Jerred (1:06:36)
Is there an easy way for people to of experiment to get to taste the different flavors?

Kevin Kawa (1:06:42)
⁓ yeah, I mean, so, yeah, easy. I mean, the, the nice thing is coming off the, the still, you’re going to know kind of what, what the flavors are, are producing. so you can try doing small batch distillations that that can be a bit of a challenge. we, we try to, make it out to, the like ADI, show. And we were, we were just at the.

Heather Jerred (1:06:44)
me easy.

Kevin Kawa (1:07:06)
Jim Beam Conference. I’m gonna be walking the ACSA, but we’re not gonna have a booth there, unfortunately. But we’ve got samples that we can pour, so if you really need an idea of something like that you’re really interested, try and find us at one of those. Otherwise, I mean, people can’t reach out to me. can oftentimes try and get some spirit samples to people. I don’t have a lot of it, but I’ve got some. Yeah. So. ⁓

Heather Jerred (1:07:29)
I have some. I do.

Kevin Kawa (1:07:32)
So yeah, it’s, it’s just something we’re willing to help and we want to help. So if you’re interested in it you’re just like, I’m just not ready to fully commit, I want something reach out to us and we can we can try and make something work and, and see if we can get you a spirit sample to at least give you an idea or, again, try and try and work with you to help because

Yeah, this is something that’s new. It’s not something that is got that tried and true. So we want to be able to provide that support to distillers who are willing to take the plunge and try something a bit unique and different. And we think cool and fun.

Heather Jerred (1:08:05)
Yeah.

It is really cool.

Brittany Drennan (1:08:08)
It’s like, I feel like there’s a lot of tradition in the distilling world and that experimenting obviously has been going on for years. But yeah, it’s cool to see that kind of arena open up. Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Kawa (1:08:12)
Absolutely.

Heather Jerred (1:08:20)
really stepping out of the box. Yeah.

Kevin Kawa (1:08:24)
That’s the thing. mean, innovation, think, is what’s going to continue to push spirits forward. I think you can only rely on tradition for so long on things. yeah, people like having a historical drink and all that kind of stuff. innovation is what’s going to move things forward.

Brittany Drennan (1:08:41)
Yeah, in that vein, where do you see kind of yeast innovation going in the next few years regarding spirits?

Kevin Kawa (1:08:48)
Yeah, I think there’s a few different paths that that yeast are going to go. think obviously flavors one because everyone’s everyone’s looking to how do they differentiate? How do they make kind of the new cool ⁓ cool thing?

I kind of briefly teased earlier. think non sack yeast are also going to start to play ⁓ a bit more of a role in things just innovation wise and what ⁓ some of yeast, guess, or saccharomyces yeast family and distant cousins can do to bring out some really cool unique flavors and those sorts of things. also, I think there might be some in terms of like efficiencies and those sorts of

of like yields and efficiencies because the bio ethanol industry has been doing all sorts of things to try and push the boundaries to be able to really maximize yields and efficiencies. And I think distilled spirits will probably take some of that as well. It just is is is kind of the nature of the beast. We still need to be able to meet the bottom line. It’s not as fun and sexy to talk about as flavor and tradition and like innovation, all that kind of stuff. But

I do think that is that is going to be ⁓ important is ⁓ is making sure that we’re still making money on it and we’re still able to meet those those those efficiencies and and be able to put out a spirit that is of good quality but is also being able to yeah hit hit the the yields that we were looking for. So I think there’s a lot of things I think. ⁓

Yeah, again, especially on the non sack and on some of the maybe even genetically modified kind of range. I think there’ll be a lot of innovation that’s coming off and it will be interesting to see what the distillers adopt and what.

what they don’t. yeah, it’ll be I think keeping an eye on this space. There’s going to be a lot of a lot of things that are shaking up. And I’m looking forward to seeing how people ⁓ differentiate and just keep things cool and exciting.

Heather Jerred (1:10:41)
Yeah.

Yeah, we’re never mad if we have to try different whiskeys or anything. So, well.

Kevin Kawa (1:10:59)
Exactly, exactly. I love trying

the new and the fun and the funky like it’s it’s it’s it’s awesome and it takes time and that’s the thing. It’s like yeah all these all these distillers are like well we’ll know in three years minimum before before so ⁓ yeah now’s the time if you if you want to do something cool and funky get get on it now because it takes time you can’t move as quickly as ⁓

Heather Jerred (1:11:12)
Yeah.

Kevin Kawa (1:11:22)
maybe brewers or to an extent winemakers can in that aspect of things.

Brittany Drennan (1:11:27)
your story.

Heather Jerred (1:11:27)
That’s amazing.

True story. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Kevin. We really, really appreciate it. You are a wealth of knowledge on this topic and we’ll maybe reconvene here in like a year or so and everything’s changed again. Yeah.

Kevin Kawa (1:11:35)
See?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. No,

I really appreciate you guys having me on. Thank you so much. There were great questions and obviously if you couldn’t tell I love talking about this kind of stuff. please.

Heather Jerred (1:11:50)
We love

having you to talk about it too. So if everybody is coming to ACSA, we do have a booth at ACSA. So I will make Kevin hang out with us as well.

Brittany Drennan (1:11:57)
Will you be at

Kevin Kawa (1:11:57)
Yeah.

Brittany Drennan (1:11:58)
CBC?

Kevin Kawa (1:11:59)
⁓ I unfortunately am not going to make it to CBC this year, but we will have plenty of people from ABBiotek there supporting me. So I will try and be there in spirit, pun intended. Yeah, not quite. So anyway, but yeah, no, really again, thank you so much. And yeah, feel free to reach out to me. I’m happy to nerd out and geek out and talk again.

Heather Jerred (1:12:10)
Well, they’re not making you fly from California to Philly. It’s just me. It’s just me.

Brittany Drennan (1:12:10)
you

Heather Jerred (1:12:16)
Awesome.

Kevin Kawa (1:12:25)
just everything fermentation and yeast and all the little fun guys that we know and love and make us delicious

Heather Jerred (1:12:32)
And that is a wrap on another episode of the BrewDeck Podcast. Thank you everybody for listening.

Brittany Drennan (1:12:39)
Be sure to like, subscribe, smash that subscribe and like button to the BrewDeck Podcast so you never miss an episode.

Heather Jerred (1:12:45)
Hahaha

The next recordings are going

to be our Live at CBC recordings. So make sure if you’re not at CBC, you tune into those because we’ll get you a little insider info from the floor of the