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#021 Froth Tech : New Zealand's First Commercial Yeast Farmers
669 Plays4 years ago
Froth technologies are supplying vibrant liquid yeast cultures to New Zealand's craft beer industry. Ryan and Simon hang out to talk about yeast, cross over between beer and spirits and the industry in general. Froth's Website: https://www.frothtech.co.nz/
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorships
00:00:00
Speaker
How's it going chases? I hope you're having a kickass week. This podcast is brought to you by Gladfields. Thank you Gladfields. I thoroughly appreciate the support and if you're out there, especially in New Zealand and you haven't tried this stuff, you need to get your hands on it and give it a nudge because it is excellent.
00:00:17
Speaker
Excellent malted barley. The South Island peat is especially interesting for those of you that are into whisky. Make sure you give it a go guys. This podcast is also brought to you by Adventures in Home Brewing, a brick and mortar but also online store for the home brewer, home winemaker, cider maker and yes even distiller over in America.
00:00:40
Speaker
You can go to homebrewing.org.ctc to visit their specials page, browse wherever you like throughout the website from there. Anything you buy after that won't cost you anything extra than normal, but it will give me a little cut back over here, which is great. Thank you to Adventures in Home Brewing for helping us out with that. And thank you to everyone out there for supporting them.
00:01:01
Speaker
Today's
Meet the Guests: Simon and Ryan from Froth Technologies
00:01:02
Speaker
guests are a couple of people that I've been really hoping to talk to for a long time. I'm excited about this one guys. We actually started talking about the possibility of a podcast back before COVID and things kind of went south for obvious reasons, but we finally got it in. These are the first professional, they like to call themselves yeast farmers, which I think is awesome, in New Zealand. So the first
00:01:29
Speaker
professional yeast propagators in New Zealand froth technologies that's what they do they make liquid yeast for craft breweries mostly at the moment and are looking over time to expand into other niches like
00:01:43
Speaker
Distilling, of course. I got to hang out with Simon and Ryan for a whole day to shoot a video that'll be coming out on the channel, on the Stiller channel in a little bit, probably at the end of this week. And then I got to go back, have a few beers with them, sit down and just talk for an hour and a half for this podcast, which is absolutely exceptional.
00:02:01
Speaker
I love seeing capable, local people that are above anything else, passionate about what they do. That really gets me excited and I am so freaking happy to see these guys succeed in the market here in New Zealand. Without further ado, Simon and Ryan from FrothTech.
Unique Brews and Local Yeast
00:02:19
Speaker
Lads, thank you so much for doing this. We've got Simon and Ryan from FrothTech and you've just poured me a beer.
00:02:27
Speaker
What is this? The can looks amazing. Yeah, we've got Dunkins from Kapati Paraparumu. This is a strawberry and mango ripple. So they do a series of ripples. This isn't an Imperial ice cream sour, 8.2%. So
00:02:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's a dessert-y ice cream sour, strawberry mango and vanilla, and then finished off with lactose to give a bit of sweetness, creaminess. That legitimately tastes like confectionery. Yeah, yeah. Pretty different beers. Yeah, that is some pretty awesome stuff just really pushing the boundary of like what beer can be, you know, which is awesome to see. And they just kind of
00:03:14
Speaker
had a crack at that and I think the first one was like raspberry ripple and they're quite popular, I know they're hugely popular in Aussie as well but export market for them. Half their batch will go there, half locally and yeah just with the beautiful can art to go with it.
00:03:33
Speaker
People can't get enough of them. It's a bit of a niche for them and they do it well. That's so good. That slight lacto finish. Creamy sweetness. Yeah, delicious. Alright guys, the huge question. The elephant in the room. What on earth is froth tech?
00:03:57
Speaker
We're definitely frothers from way back. So, Froth Technologies is Aotearoa's first commercial yeast lab for servicing the brewing industry and beyond. So, we're growing pure liquid yeast cultures for brewers to get hold of locally for the first time. That's very, very cool. It kind of begs the question,
00:04:19
Speaker
Why has no one else done this? It's a good question. We do get asked that one a lot as well. Yeah, right. Especially, I think there's a sense of pride amongst Kiwis and stuff that's made here. Especially with beer, right? Yeah. We didn't think it would be much of a topic people would care too much about, but they do. They're like, why has no yeast been made here yet? Why has it come from overseas? And there's a few reasons for that.
00:04:47
Speaker
you know the craft beer market it's fairly new you know five ten years ago things look pretty different it was just emerging and there was only a handful of breweries at that point now fast forward to today we've got about 230 craft brewing brands so all of a sudden there's
00:05:06
Speaker
a lot more breweries out there using yeast and more likely to explore different yeast strains and different styles outside the mainstream. So it's almost like more recently there's demand and also the fact that like
00:05:26
Speaker
You can figure out how to make beer at home or distill at home, and then it's a case of figuring out how to upscale that. So if you want to go commercial, rustle up some cash and get it going. A yeast brewery, on the other hand, while home brewers, home distillers will have
00:05:48
Speaker
used and played with yeast at home there's not really a kind of instruction manual on how to grow yeast industrial scale so you know it's not rocket science but it is science and so it's it's fairly technical we've had to
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, do a lot of deep diving and figure out a lot of stuff along the way and Yeah, I think that's yeah certainly a barrier to just you starting a brewery making beer, but um yeah, there was something we thought about doing early on giving out given our experience, but we we just really did a lot of market research and wanted to do something really serves the industry something that's needed and
00:06:33
Speaker
That's how we sort of pivoted and went down this crazy old yeast rabbit hole. Yeah, it's a good point, right? There's so many breweries out there now and there's breweries all over the world. There's breweries all through New Zealand.
Challenges and Sustainability in Brewing
00:06:45
Speaker
Don't get me wrong, it's a huge leap of faith to start a brewery. For sure. Like, a big-ass thing. But it's a fairly well-paved road, right? I mean, there's people that service the industry that you can get in touch with. You can get in touch with the people that will say the equipment and ask all sorts of questions of them. I mean, I'm sure there's a, even in New Zealand, there's literally consulting services I have to imagine that you just call out and say, yo, I want to start a brewery.
00:07:13
Speaker
I'll pay you money because I can't be asked to work without myself. Or I want my beer to be award-winning from the get-go. Right. Yeah, right. That does exist. But who does that for use? Manufacturers, propagators, what's even the right word for it? Yeah, well, I guess both. We propagate use, but manufacturing, I guess, is another term. We like to think of it as kind of farming. We're just, our paddocks are just tanks.
00:07:42
Speaker
with trillions of microbes in them all working away so we're the we're the shepherds of the yeast in a way. I love it yeah because it's grown you know it's an organic bio form that is is growing and we're tending to it giving it what it needs and it grows rather than you know taking an organic
00:08:00
Speaker
things in manufacturing a product that is that urban farming piece. I love it. So, I mean, how did you, like, what brought you to this, like, did you start going down that road of thinking about a brewery and then you decided to change? I mean, how did you land here?
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, so Simon and I, we've been mates since high school and both sort of started home brewing at uni and then kind of got more involved in the brewing industry. Simon had a contract brewing company where he was designing recipes, doing branding and sales and distribution and stuff and then getting a physical brewery to brew that beer for him. At that time I was working at a physical brewery brewing beer and that was the brewery making Simon's beers. So it was sort of working together
00:08:47
Speaker
kind of with one step removed. And so the natural progression there was, well, cool, let's go about it on our own. Started looking down that pathway of opening a brewery and yeah, just recognize that the market is very competitive.
00:09:02
Speaker
There's a lot of breweries out there now doing amazing stuff. Like this. Like what we're drinking, exactly. And yeah, I guess the other part was we've always been really passionate about doing business that's good for people in the planet as well as profit. So we started looking down, you know, the ways to do a sustainable brewery. One of the big pieces there is around local ingredients.
00:09:26
Speaker
And that was when we kind of had that Eureka moment of like, cool, malt, grown in Canterbury, malted there. That's really well-renowned. Our hops are sort of around the world. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. Our water is, you know, famous for being clean and pure. But yeah, yeast just wasn't a thing that was made here.
00:09:45
Speaker
Which is hilarious when there's so few ingredients. It's not like you're looking at 1,160 ingredients. Whoa, that one's missing. It's like a quarter of the piece. It's not. And it really is. I mean, I was talking to you guys once again off camera and you're saying, if you're buying liquid use from overseas, you're paying as much.
00:10:08
Speaker
in shipping to get the stuff here alive. Yeah, it can be as much as that. It's certainly a significant portion of bringing it over here because it has to come on refrigerated air freight because of its perishable nature. And so the cost is a big factor there. The other, I guess, issue around that is if things get held up at customs and for whatever reason, it's not kept refrigerated, it can really impact the health of the yeast before it arrives to the brewery and you might not be aware of that.
00:10:39
Speaker
You know, if it gets too warm while sitting waiting to be processed in customs, the sales can start cannibalizing themselves, the viability can drop. And so, yeah, it's just having a local supply just kind of removes all those potential pain points. Yeah, right. And I have to imagine that it creates
00:11:01
Speaker
The kinds of relationships that just thrive in the... I hate the craft beer world, the craft world. It's like it's such an overused term, I guess, but it's true, right? Like people in that...
00:11:15
Speaker
world just enjoy the business of hanging out with other people and you know like it makes me so happy to see people like you doing this in New Zealand and then you know pull out a garage project can or something and it's your yeast it's just more than the sum of its parts yeah yeah and the fact that your local means that that
00:11:39
Speaker
There's something possible, right? Like you're gonna have a personal relationship with these breweries that are doing awesome things. Not just being a, you know, a bank account that you send money to. Yeah, exactly. And that's been a huge benefit to our business starting out as...
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose there's a number of different angles we could have come in with this. We could have been microbiologists and trying to enter the craft beer industry and do yeast. We could have just been strictly entrepreneurs, seeing an opportunity for some money to be made. But we're number three there. We've been in the industry
00:12:16
Speaker
from anywhere from pulling pints, we're in the t-shirt and volunteering at the beer festivals, delivering kegs, throwing beer in and out of breweries. We've done a lot of service to an industry that we love, and so once we started talking to brewers and saying, hey, what do you think about this yeast thing? What would you be into?
00:12:40
Speaker
Well, I'm buying some yeast made in New Zealand if we were to do that. And the answers kept being like, oh, hell yeah. Yeah, definitely. That was just starting to plant a seed, you know, conversations that now we can sort of
00:12:56
Speaker
Yeah, rely on those relationships. We've got trust there, we're mates. And so now it's just a case of us delivering on what we said we were going to do and helping them out with what they said they needed help with. So, you know, it's a, yeah, the relationship piece is big.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, a real big part of that, something that I've, so for those of you at home, we're recording the podcast down. The podcast is going to come out first for what you guys at home will see. But I've had the pleasure of hanging out with these guys for pretty much a whole day prior to the shooting the video that's going to come out soon. So make sure you catch that. And now I forget where I was going with that. But I actually, one of the relationship parts is
Tasting and Collaborations
00:13:38
Speaker
that
00:13:39
Speaker
Generally when commercial distilleries, breweries, whatever, using yeast, they kind of figure out the size of the batch they're making, the gravity they're making, they use an online calculator or just whatever it is that they've got internally to figure out how many cells they need. They take a stab in the dark at the cell density of a viable cell density of the yeast they've got. And that's about right. And they pitch it. And I know that, I mean, I make it sound like they don't really care. They really do care, but
00:14:09
Speaker
The big issue is they don't actually know how many cells are in a liter of liquid yeast or per gram of dry yeast, right? Yeah. The way you guys go about it and the way breweries buy a few is a little bit different. So do you want to explain that? Because I think that's a huge part. Like it blows my mind actually at how cool that is for the brewery in terms of having someone local to buy yeast stuff. So you want to run us through how you roll there.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So I mean, I guess the big piece there is that yeast is one of the really key features of not only making alcohol and carbon dioxide and beer, which a lot of us know, but the flavour compounds as well. More than half of the flavour compounds in beer are directly attributable to fermentation and more than half of the off flavours as well. So it's a real key factor in the difference between great beer, good beer and shit beer.
00:15:00
Speaker
So, yeah, like you said, a lot of breweries understand that, but they don't necessarily have the tools or the maybe knowledge, I guess, on how to perform cell counts. You know, it takes a bit more resource, takes a bit more equipment. So a lot of them use, yeah, educated guesswork, which they've developed.
00:15:19
Speaker
time and time after you know trial and error. With us we can we ask the brewers for the size of their brew the amount of sugars in it so that's starting gravity and we will recommend them a pitch based on our recommended pitch rate so that it's the perfect amount of yeast to have a strong and healthy fermentation and they know that they're getting that exact amount of yeast that they can put straight into the tank and that means that their first
00:15:46
Speaker
The first brew they do with their yeast is going to be great and the subsequent generations of re-harvesting and re-pitching are also going to be strong. So it just takes that whole guesswork, the pain of having to go through the calculation themselves of I just pulled it, you know, like whatever a cone from X amount.
00:16:05
Speaker
Every time they order again, they can hit the reset button and they know what they're going to get and what's going to happen. Which is pretty cool. And I'm not crafting breweries that don't do that because a lot of work goes into trying to get that consistent, right? Yeah, totally. But unless you've got the means to do a full use counter, you're rolling a dice or something. Yeah, for sure.
00:16:29
Speaker
Alright lads, this is a New Zealand whisky made up in Auckland. It's a story called 1919 and it is a kitty kitty roar. Okay. So it's on your Instagram. Oh, did you? Yeah, cool. And I don't know how much spirits you guys drink, but I wanted to pour this for you because I used to totally reach out to Soaring.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, see if you can get some some collaboration going on between you. But it's also it's also pretty approachable. It's more bourbon like anything and that's some of the other stuff that's there if you guys want to try later on.
00:17:14
Speaker
All that dry fruit in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Big corn, lots of cherry orchard sort of stuff. While you guys are getting to know that, I see something in the corner over there that I kind of want to steal. Just because it looks good or because you know what it can do. Because the geek boner is... Do you mind if I grab that? Can we talk about that?
Innovation: The Brew Monitor in Brewing
00:17:47
Speaker
All right, so for those of you that are at home and not watching this on YouTube, I just put a strange looking black box on the table with shit coming out from every direction. Oh, you're right mate, you can't do that. What on earth is this and why is it so exciting? Because I promise you it is.
00:18:09
Speaker
So this is the first device in the country from a company called Precision Fermentation, who we stumbled upon in our endless search for just cutting edge tech. Yep, yep, totally. You know, the technologies, the raw technologies.
00:18:29
Speaker
And so this device is called the brew monitor It's about the size of a shoebox It's a black box and we've got a tube coming out the top two tubes and so this is a
00:18:45
Speaker
sensor unit for tracking fermentation live throughout the fermentation process. So typically in a brewery or at home you're going to monitor how your fermentation is going by pulling a sample, checking the gravity and in breweries you'll check a bit more than that, check the pH.
00:19:06
Speaker
But this actually, this box is monitoring seven data points constantly. So in a brewery you might pull a sample and check it every 12 or 24 hours and put that data point on your chart and draw a line between the previous one, straight line. And so in this case, this is connected to Wi-Fi.
00:19:30
Speaker
There's a re-pump in there which these two tubes on the top of the box connect in through the wall of your tank and it's that pump runs intermittently pulling the fermenting beer into the box and through a little manifold which has those sensors plugged into it. So as it passes by we're getting pH.
00:19:54
Speaker
gravity, dissolved oxygen, temperature inside the tank, temperature outside the tank, conductivity and pressure.
00:20:06
Speaker
conductivity yeah that's a new one that's a little bit of an odd one to me what's the deal with that i mean we we yeah it's a new one for us too we don't feel like you have to drink that guys feel free to to dump bucket oh no i'm into it yeah pretty much anyway sorry conductivity um so it's just it's just another measure of the um
00:20:26
Speaker
Fermentation tracking. So all the data points that come from here are sent to a cloud platform. So you log on, you actually like activate the box from the dashboard and you can actually overlay those different graphs onto each other. So conductivity is, yeah, like for one, it's a good way to see if when you're adding yeast nutrient,
00:20:51
Speaker
you'll see like at the start of your fermentation you'll see that raise the conductivity up to a certain point and so it's a good way to check that
00:21:01
Speaker
your nutrient is at the same point it was your previous batch it's where you want it to be and then yeah that should drop down and then sort of stabilize in the early stages of fermentation so it's not like a really critical data point but it's another one that you can overlay in like troubleshoot and
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah. So we're literally talking like electric current conductivity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Yeah. So the amount of.
00:21:32
Speaker
Oh, my word, back to chemistry. Ions on the liquid, I've got to assume. It's something like that. Chemistry, something, something. We don't know. Yeah, it's a pretty exciting piece of kit. I mean, yeah, so it takes samples for six of those seven parameters every 10 minutes and then for gravity every 30. So you're getting like a massive, massive increase on the amount of data that you're gathering throughout the entire stage of the fermentation.
00:22:01
Speaker
The other beautiful thing about it is that, you know, once you've done a few batches and you can see through those data points what the general performance trends are or what you're like, say you nailed a batch of beer and you want to sort of replicate that as much as possible. You can set that ideal data point and set of words.
00:22:23
Speaker
for if it falls outside of those and send a text message to your phone and go, hey, your brew's up like 0.5 for the degree above where you want it to. Do you want to go in and check to make sure that your glycol system's working? And it's going to work the other way too, right? You're going to have
00:22:40
Speaker
happy accidents every now and again where you, I don't know, your glycol does shit itself and holy crap that tastes amazing or you way overdose your yeast nutrient but now you've got data to say that oh that's probably what it was and this is how it changed let's try it again or that was horrible let's never do that again. Yeah I've had many situations like that in the brewery where we've gone
00:23:02
Speaker
That batch was just amazing, but we don't really know why. Like all the ingredient inputs were pretty much the same. Something in the process led to that being fantastic. So having that information in front of you is just gives you so much more power to really understand. Yeah. Yeah. Like you were saying too, right? Like it used to be a 24 hour
00:23:26
Speaker
straight line between the two, where it may have peaked horribly in between all troughs and you don't know. And what's actually interesting looking at the definition of these charts is like, yeah, we're used to saying dot, dot, dot, dot.
00:23:42
Speaker
along in lines in between but you've actually got a much more organic thing going on like same with gravity it'll sort of like hover up and down and really stuff like that yeah it's like is it yeah it's a lot more noisy there's a lot more texture to it yeah you can sort of see the organic journey
00:24:01
Speaker
how long it's taking to get from your target to your final is really important. I suppose brewers normally look at it a bit like, here's where it starts, here's where it needs to finish. So more of like a line down, but when you start to look at it in this more organic way and overlay it with your other data points, how long it takes to get to that finishing gravity is actually
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah and pH drop is a key part as well. If you're trying to replicate that beer that was a winner, it can be same ingredients, it can be same starting, finishing gravity but things like how long it takes to get beer allows.
00:24:45
Speaker
development of flavor profile and the right amount of time to clean up and stuff. So we're going not just up and down, but sideways as well. Really looking at that. You're adding a whole other dimension to it. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just a straight line. How far down do we go? Yeah. It's how long do we take to get there and how much tubulence there is. For something like heat, right? Yep.
00:25:06
Speaker
and something that these guys are really big on making a point of is like this isn't about like automating breweries you know this this is still the brewer is still brewing the beer they've just got a lot more eyes on what's going on and the things are not going quite right it's not till
00:25:28
Speaker
the end where they realise and it's like, oh well, what can we do now? You can actually tweak it and adjust it and really nurse that via through as a brewer because you know a bit more about what's going on. And also that like brewers are constantly recording these data points as they're something but
00:25:49
Speaker
you know, that kind of goes in a folder typically and it's not so easy to bring it up in the future and to compare it with future batches. This like dashboard lets you just overlay previous ones, set that benchmark. And so it empowers the data to be really, really useful. So you can literally take like a model
00:26:10
Speaker
This was our best batch of the last 15. We put that in and then you can set tolerances above and below it. You can choose how high that tolerance is. So this is the temperature profile of that beer, that specific brew, and we want to keep it within one degree of that the whole way through.
00:26:32
Speaker
You can also overlay each of those individual data point representations, so your graph for pH, your graph for gravity, and overlay those on top of each other to see how those interactions correlate to each other. So your pH skyrockets affect your gravity.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah right. So that's again really just useful tools to be able to better understand what's happening inside the you know sealed walls of the tank. Yeah and I mean it literally was magic right? Like historically. Totally. We can control the ingredients, we know what we're putting in there, we'll kind of fuck with that in ways that are going to alter the output of the beer.
00:27:14
Speaker
And then magic happens and beer. Yep, you know. Leave it out at a night and... The German purity law that Einheitsge bought from 1516 initially didn't have yeast as an ingredient in there. Right, yep. Because like you say, we didn't know as much as what was going on in there. And so with the modern age in science and microbiology and the ability to see at a microscopic scale, we realized it wasn't just
00:27:43
Speaker
magic or magical slop at the bottom of the tank. There's these little guys in there that are doing the work. And so, I don't know, I suppose this is like another layer deeper where it's like you're going into a deeper understanding of what's happening in the tank. That's something that tracks me for both beer and distilling. And I think in some ways beer is better a hit of it than distilling.
00:28:08
Speaker
But I'm of the opinion anyway that there is a good scientific reason for every outcome that you ever get in beer or distilling. It's just that our understanding of what's going on is incomplete. We don't even have information.
00:28:23
Speaker
we don't make you know there's some weird chemical interaction between two different precursors like whatever you know and we just don't know what that is and and that's why this sort of stuff excites me so much because it like you said right it's just it's another peek into something that is not how do you put it it's it's not something that is
00:28:42
Speaker
obviously intuitive for a human, right? Like we can't look at a tank and know what the gravity is. So like just from a get-go we're not built, we don't have the understanding to know what's happening in there. It's science that lets us do that. Yeah, it's kind of like I sort of think of it as it's sort of informing like
00:29:04
Speaker
You know, as a brewer, you get to sort of form a bit of intuition and a bit of understanding about, you know, how your fermentations go and you sort of get tuned into that. But I guess this is informing that intuition and giving you actual data points rather. So kind of silencing up the art of brewing a little bit more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty cool man. So I mean, I talked to you guys on Wednesday, it's now Friday. And on Wednesday you guys were excited because your new toy was coming. And now your new toy is here. So you haven't even got to plug this thing in yet. It's obviously never been used in New Zealand. So if there's people excited in New Zealand to get their hands on one, why are your horses just a little bit? But further down the track,
00:29:48
Speaker
tell me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding of people like you want to test this, you want to make sure it does everything it does, that it says that it does on the box basically. And then in the future, you're hoping to be able to kind of be an intermediary into the country. So people are interested, they should get in touch with you guys. Totally. Yeah. I mean, these guys have been working on this for five years. The founder is a data analyst and you can really tell that when you're using this platform, it's just beautiful how polished it is.
00:30:17
Speaker
They're really similar kind of startup to us and we sort of inspire each other. Okay. Similar values and attitudes. We're all passionate about the craft beer industry. They've also got brewers on their team. And so, yeah, they've they've trialed us in North America with a bunch of awesome breweries and I think a yeast label too. They are
00:30:42
Speaker
I mean, COVID is kind of shitting on the states a bit because the orange dude didn't do much about it. So... Our flute with politics from the podcast. And we're done.
00:30:57
Speaker
And yeah, so I think their plans to expand global got hurried up a bit. And they've sent this to a few places around the world, Peru, there is one in Australia. I think we just got in touch with them at the right time where they were like,
00:31:14
Speaker
New Zealand. Great. Yup. You're next. Here it is. A week later, we've got it. So yeah, we're going to be certainly, yeah, doing some rigorous testing in-house with what we're doing. Cause yeah, precision fermentation is something. It's kind of your bread and butter, right? Yep. And I mean, we're already just so wow about it and its potential. Just the concept of it. Yeah. And we know,
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah, we've mentioned it to a few breweries, already commercial breweries, so like Hall Dam. Yep, I think I need one of those in my life. So once we've figured out how it works quite intimately, we'll be doing some trials for demoing it to some breweries and expanding from there. I know they're certainly
00:32:04
Speaker
wanting to set up in New Zealand and we'll be able to offer some support around that and understanding. And yeah, I think it will be a real game changer for the industry. I hope so, man. Like on paper, it's just epic. It's very, very cool.
00:32:21
Speaker
So I've just poured you another, well you can pour your own. This is a whisky from Texas, this is Belconus. And the reason I poured this for you is, remember we were talking the other day about yeast for distilling. These are one of the guys that co-pitch 04 and M1.
00:32:44
Speaker
And also too, I just love spreading the good word of Texas whiskey because they're doing pretty awesome stuff. Cool. I just realised I'm wearing my shirt. I see you looking at my chest and I'm assuming you're not checking your neck out.
00:33:02
Speaker
I mean Texas just does all sorts of crazy stuff too. Like this is... I don't actually know for this but I wouldn't be surprised if this is like two years old. As opposed to you know like eight, ten. The climate's just so crazy. These guys have the problem of having to pull... trying to figure out how to keep the whiskey in the barrel longer to get more age rather than just like teabagging oak flavour out of the wood. So it is pretty crazy but...
00:33:32
Speaker
I don't know. I do. There's something in there that's familiar to me when it comes to 04, like that kind of fruity sort of thing. Anyway, I thought professionally you guys might be interested to try it. And like I said, I love spreading the good word, but
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting, eh? Huge wood flavor on it. But I know I'm going to get in so much trouble if I don't pick your guys' brains on yeast when it comes to distilling.
Yeast's Role in Beer and Distilling
00:34:02
Speaker
And I know that we've got a bit of a mismatch here where I'm no yeast expert and I know you guys are much more in the beer world, if that makes sense. But I thought we could have a bit of a yarn about it and see what we can get to here. And the idea of having a New Zealand
00:34:19
Speaker
Just whiskey? Strain or something? How cool would that be? It'd be very cool. Go after...
00:34:30
Speaker
I think in some ways it's kind of scary for bear brewers. Like the idea of a wash souring spontaneously is like these guys, actually, I don't want to talk out of tune. I'm not sure if that kind of stuff, but I know a lot of distillers will literally just let whatever funky crap is in the grain after the, after the saccharomyces has done its job.
00:34:52
Speaker
I'll leave it for another couple of days, let it take off and run for the pH to start to change. Lacto, I'm guessing it's mostly lacto. And I know that's kind of scary. I'm saying that though, we just have a salvia, right? Yeah. I mean, it's definitely, you know, those other microbes outside of Saccharomyces are certainly seeing a lot more attention in the brewing world these days as well. A lot of people playing with
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah, botanomyces, yeah, lactobacillus, paedococcus, all kinds of different anomalous weird microbes that are doing. Yeah, crazy stuff. There's recently discovered an acid producing yeast. So traditionally for like souring, souring beers and such you're relying on.
00:35:39
Speaker
Lacto or PDA. Bacteria. Yeah, bacteria. But this is an acid-producing yeast. There's just a massive range of these microbes out there that aren't saccharomyces cerevisiae that can be used to achieve a whole raft of different results. And certainly seeing a lot more incorporation into commercial brewing I think these days. And actually, some of the research has come out on that.
00:36:05
Speaker
I mean, there's a handful of different acid producing yeasts that are being found and certainly validated as well as being not just contaminated with bacteria. Like these are souring beers up to like 70, 80 IBUs. And normally like above 10, you won't see bacteria souring beer. Yeah, so does, yeah, Wicca haemamices is one and Schizosaccharomyces.
00:36:33
Speaker
These are some of the research I've read about has said that like sort of checking the microbes that will be in wild fermented or spontaneous fermented beers that they're often found in there so it's not even necessarily like they're
00:36:49
Speaker
haven't been discovered before. It's just, I suppose they've been assumed that that sourness is exclusively coming from bacteria. So it's just more of like the understanding that they exist and they're definitely not bacteria. Right. Yeah, it's more understood now. That's very interesting. Is this, is this big news in the yeast world?
00:37:12
Speaker
Is that quite, like are people excited about it? Like how do we use this? What do we do with it? Yeast foods are definitely... Yeah, I mean we'd love to see and be part of sort of promoting non-sac yeasts out there. We've got a wild project to borrow and we were looking for them mostly for sac but
00:37:35
Speaker
no doubt there'll be some non-sac in there as well. Like on the one hand, some breweries might be fearful of using bacteria because of those souring, well more so that like the bacteria if you're not practicing really good hygiene can jump into your clean beers and so that's the fear around it but there's certainly breweries out there who are who are using it and are just
00:37:59
Speaker
making sure they're damn clean and having no trouble there. Because you see that even in the homebrew world, right? There's people that are like, that is my sour setup. Yeah, like everything. Same in breweries. Poses, brew buckets. Everything, all of that. Yeah, completely separate. Same in commercial breweries. Yeah. And then there's others that just like, fuck it, that's what. Yeah. Yeah, we bet.
00:38:21
Speaker
But I mean, yeah, acid producing yeast doesn't roll out that situation anyway. Does it always make it closer? If the fear is sourness in beers that shouldn't be sour,
00:38:38
Speaker
As in producing yeast and getting into the wrong tank at the wrong time is going to cause the same trouble. The same hygiene practices need to be used. From what I've read so far,
00:38:55
Speaker
There's, I suppose, the sour and potential bacteria can be a little bit one-dimensional. Like it's sort of just, you know, you get that acid coming through. When with a yeast, it has a bit more of a profile to it. They can be a bit weaker and like low attenuating. So they're typically in the experiments I've looked at have co-pitched. So you can use like a standard sack to kind of knock out the sugars and blow up the booze.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen a number of different reaction ratios as well as like 1 to 10 and still getting that souring coming through so you can get that good attenuation and then some interesting profile from the non-sec acid producing strain and real cool. And is that producing like literally producing lots of different types of acid?
00:39:46
Speaker
Or is it more it's producing like the actual sourness is coming from a certain acid that it's producing but then it's throwing out other weird esters and stuff around that rather than that's where the profile's coming from? It's more the latter.
00:40:03
Speaker
And what sort of, do you know what sort of timeframes that works on? Like how long do you have to leave it to start souring past the, or the primary fermentation, I guess we can call it. Well, so it depends on, yeah, it depends on the microbe you're using. Oh, I mean with the yeast. Well, with the sour. I'm not sure on timeframe on that. I can't recall somewhere here, but yeah, it's certainly not slow motion. Like this isn't like aging, part of an aging program. This is like part of your,
00:40:32
Speaker
typical production. Because that's what I'm driving at right? Like once again going back to these guys that I've talked to that they do no boil mashers and then they let what's on the grain take over but they're still talking about like, I don't know, maybe like...
00:40:48
Speaker
seven to eight days from pitching through to we're now distilling. And you wouldn't want to have to wait another two weeks to sell. But the idea of using something different, like even just from a story point of view, right? Like it's fun. Like when you're talking to whiskey nerds or whiskey geeks to be able to say, ah, this is south, but that's fun.
00:41:09
Speaker
Or from a, I mean, one of the things that a lot of the geeks will throw around in the circles is, okay, that's cool. It's producing something nice, but you've got no controller grip. So repeatability, all those sort of things. So the idea of being able to mash, boil, sanitize, and then purchase specific.
00:41:29
Speaker
culture that you know is going to give you... I mean, this is what you guys do, right? That's the reason we have pitchable yeast for beer. That's really interesting to me, right? So, yeah, if it can be on that same sort of production timeline, that could be something really cool to play with. Is it something that people can...
00:41:50
Speaker
actually get their hands on right now or is it literally just stuff coming out of labs at the moment? It's out there, I'm not sure about any in the country but yeah it's emerging and I mean the states have always been a little bit ahead of us in the craft beer scene so we certainly keep an eye on what's happening over there pretty closely.
00:42:11
Speaker
and yeah I think even with our wild project we were sort of initially looking exclusively for hopefully for a Saccharomyces cerevisiae but yeah hearing more about how
00:42:26
Speaker
these acid producing non-sex strains are out there. It certainly opens our scope a little bit more. Say what? With Schizosaccharomyces is one. Okay. Wiccahemomyces. Ooooh. What is it? Lecanacea. Say what?
00:42:44
Speaker
We've got two! We've got to win! Head to Milk the Funk Wiki and you'll find that all of this research has been published in there as it's coming up and there's even a great Milk the Funk podcast about it which goes fully into that topic.
00:43:03
Speaker
Awesome. For those of you on YouTube, I will find that and I will link it. If I doubt it's on YouTube, I think they just do audio, don't they? Yeah. I'll whack a link down below because I want to listen to that as well. That'd be really cool. Yeah. All right. So we kind of skirted the topic here about yeast and distilling and we never quite got to it.
00:43:21
Speaker
I've got some here, something here that I've distilled using Hornondale. Distilling is weird because you never know what flavour it's going to carry over. The more you distill, the more you can
00:43:36
Speaker
take an educated guesstimation about what flavors you're going to be able to keep, what you're going to lose, what you're going to amplify. But you just never really know if that makes sense. So I found this quite interesting because I haven't tried it for quite a while, like literally since I made it. And a lot of the fresh, almost like mandarini, more tropical flavors have died off.
00:44:03
Speaker
But that fruit leather thing is still lingering quite heavily. Yeah, that's something that's really interesting. And my point being is that that literally came from the yeast, right? And to be fair, Hornondale is kind of a fucking sledgehammer. But isn't that what you need for... That's my point, right?
00:44:26
Speaker
There's a huge, huge opportunity for people to geek out about yeast selection for distilleries. And traditionally even, you know, like when people think about the best distillers in the world, like who it's scotch, right? Like that's kind of what people think about when they think of the top notch, the top shelf in our day and age.
00:44:46
Speaker
and you go into a tour that I haven't done yet, but I've talked to a lot of other professional distillers that have, or people that are in the industry, monsters, for example, and they just don't give a shit about ingredients. It's like they care about it, but it's what gives us the most yield as the biolingual. And if we can generate a little bit of flavor out of it that's different to something else at the same time. And it's changing now, don't get me wrong, but remember this is an industry where
00:45:15
Speaker
But if a change happens now in Scotland, you'll start to see that in 15 years. You're really coming out, you know, by the time it becomes mainstream and then it makes onto shelves. Oh, sorry guys. Yeah, these are all like 60 odd percent.
00:45:30
Speaker
And this has not had any wood either. That's super interesting. It's so fruity. I'm not crazy, there is an interesting preserved fruit. It's kind of like that dried stone fruit.
00:45:51
Speaker
What would one of your, um, whiskey's, um, I mean, so, sorry, what was the, what went into the wash for the sun? Oh, my word, you've put me on the spot now, my boom. But, crying. Um, I did this as part of a control and I literally did an AB with
00:46:09
Speaker
I can't remember the other yeast I did it next to, but I think from memory it was Gladefield distillismalt. It might have been, I may have been out of distillismalt at that point of time and it was something like Gladefield's ale malt. Nothing else, nothing crazy, real standard distillation.
00:46:32
Speaker
I think I may have tried, like what do you call a whiskey that hasn't been on wood? White whiskey. White whiskey, yeah. Wind shine, white lightning, depends where you're from. Cool. So like, yeah, I haven't tried many white whiskeys. Okay. So how would this compare to...
00:46:53
Speaker
something normally a whiskey before it's gone, what? Heaps more flavor. Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, think about it next to that Balconas, right? Like that Balconas is big and pretty bold as tennis flavor comes, right? Yeah. And I love that whiskey, but a lot of the flavor that's coming through, I mean, you guys know, you guys know grain, right? You can pick the grain flavor, grainy flavors out. Oh, I didn't bring you guys the, the, the APA. Oh.
00:47:21
Speaker
Sorry man, I totally forgot. I guess I'll have to come back sometime. The grain flavours are like familiar enough for you to know where they are, like you can pick them out in there. So you quite often get those coming through in whiskies, but there's so many things that happen in a barrel that aren't just putting wood flavour into it, that just morph everything and change everything at a time. So there's a little bit hard to say what this would be like.
00:47:49
Speaker
In a couple of years time, you know, like so there was mandarin and, um, pawpaw, like fresh pawpaw when it first came off the still. Uh, and now it's sort of hitting. Yeah, I don't, there's almost like a sweetie fruit flavor in there. Like, like, um, kind of halfway between almost like fruit and like leaf litter kind of. Gotcha.
00:48:18
Speaker
Like tropical forest, I guess. Yeah, it's very much tropical. A lot of that. But not fresh tropical fruit. So I wonder if that pawpaw's kind of changed into that. But anyway, my point being is that...
00:48:29
Speaker
I wanted to fuck with it just to see if this idea of yeast selection can be just another lever in the arsenal of the distiller, right? Even with craft brews, buying these from us isn't going to solve their problems and it's not going to just give them what they're looking for. They have to use it really well to get what they're looking for out of it.
00:48:55
Speaker
like you've done here and with distilling if you want to pull some unique flavours thanks to a unique yeast and get it in the glass you're going to have to be smart about how you use it as well.
00:49:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a magic bullet. There's so many other things that go into it. I find beer and whiskey and a lot of products like this, like cheese and all sorts of stuff, there's no magic bullet for it, right? There's no one thing that makes it good.
00:49:28
Speaker
There's a hundred things that if you fucked one of them up a little bit, you almost wouldn't even notice. Yeah, it's the sum of many parts. I think the interesting thing with that is like, fight yeast is probably one of the few sort of types of
00:49:44
Speaker
standard brewer's yeast that would really be able to be used in distillation? Would that be true? Like if you put like a standard American ale yeast in, the alcohol tolerance is only like nine percent. Oh yeah. So that's a pretty like standard misconception. Like most, like all through Scotland are this fermenting to eight, 10%. Really? Okay. So my go-to when I don't want to think about yeast is O5.
00:50:08
Speaker
or something you know like something really like a clean american if uh how do i put it if i want to take yeast off the table yep and i want to like explore something else yeah like i wanted to taste putting a little bit of chocolate malt into something and see what it did i do one
00:50:26
Speaker
without chocolate malt, one with chocolate malt, and I'd probably use something like O5. Okay. My main yeast. Yeah. There's all of the like the daddy and the turbo and all that sort of crazy stuff. They'll get you through to 20%. Yeah. Probably pushing it a little bit even for them. You guys probably know better than me. I've never used it. But there is.
00:50:47
Speaker
I don't know, I think there's something to be said for a good fermentation with a nice yeast, even if, it's like, should we have another beer actually, guys? I see all these delicious beers sitting on the table. Yeah. I feel like I've been throwing whiskey at you guys. Should we try the, um, try the Day of the Deed? Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. It's a chili chocolate. Yeah.
00:51:06
Speaker
But you know what I mean? Even if you want a beer that doesn't showcase yeast, you want a good yeast to get the fuck out of the way. Yeah, exactly. A clean yeast that's pitched at the right amounts and has a strong fermentation. And this could entirely be. I was a homebrewer for years before I even considered distilling. So it could be my
00:51:32
Speaker
bias that's been brought through into it. But the more people I talk to that are new to the stilling thus are heading this way as well. And it is, it does go, oh thanks man. Like I said, once again, that's deep stewed. I don't want to taste. And so like, I mean, yeast's role in brewing, I mean, it's a bit of a buzz word but it comes up as balance. And so your yeast is trying to
00:52:02
Speaker
Be in the glass in terms of its profile alongside your hops and your malt, sometimes at different levels, but a balanced profile.
00:52:11
Speaker
What kind of role does yeast play in making a whisky? The way I kind of see it is like passing through a still compared to just fermenting in a tank. That's a more gentle process to try to guy all those delicate things through. Passing through a still is almost like passing through... How? How? And only the gnarliest flavor compounds come through and then they're concentrated.
00:52:41
Speaker
what do you like say for this with this kavik strain you know like if it's if it's clean and you're looking for yeast profile you're not going to get it but are you trying to like get the yeast to throw up quite aggressively like a lot of gnarly. So when I pitched that I pitched it first of all I opened the pack up and I won't mention that the
00:53:04
Speaker
The Homebrew store I bought it from, because I blame Covid, but I opened it up and went, oh shit. It just smelled like dead yeast at a horrible time. And I thought, oh fuck it. And I just pitched it anyway. And I'd read heaps about underpitching, like especially Warnerdahl, pitching it really freaking hot to crank the Fruity Esters out.
00:53:28
Speaker
And I, well, just like we were talking about before, right? I had no idea what was in there. I didn't know if it was completely viable, but it just, that's what could like smell like. I didn't know if it was a hundred percent dead and it was like two living cells in the entire pitch. It's like, fuck it. I'll just double the pitch of what was recommended, which was still.
00:53:43
Speaker
disturbingly low compared to any other yeast I've ever purged, you know. And it took off, like, took off. Like, man. So yeah, at 40 degrees Celsius. Bonkers. Yeah, it's nuts. Yeah. And so what was your, how much, what was your ABV after that? Ah, man. I, I seldomly go over 10%. Yeah. Like, my, my zone is kind of like,
00:54:06
Speaker
9, 10%, it's kind of where I'm comfortable. Normally when I do stuff, at least I'm trying to push something. But yeah, in terms of the off-flavours that get thrown through, this is a greatest illustration of just never knowing what's going to come through, right? Like I thought from my beer days, you're boiling yeast, you're going to get autolysis.
00:54:25
Speaker
But then I did a GRAPPA co-lab with a winemaker a while ago and I literally poured slurry into the tank that's like probably thicker than the stuff that you're sending out the door and distilled that with grape skins and enough water just to keep it moving in the tank. No crazy yeast flavors at all. It's all like tropical flavors and like grape skins and berries and tastes like Ravina.
00:54:53
Speaker
Yeah, so it's just, you just don't, I mean, obviously if you've been distilling for 50 years, I think you're probably going to be better at it. But at the same time, if you've been distilling for 50 years, you're in the industry and how often do you get to, if you're a whiskey distiller, you've probably never made grappler, right? So it's, I don't know, man, it's a tricky thing to pick. And I think in some ways,
00:55:16
Speaker
Like if you go back and think about craft beer, right? Like how craft beer grew up. Everyone was just trying to just make something better than the big beer companies that you can buy at the supermarket, right? That was goal number one. And it was like, holy shit, we can do that. What if we make something that's eight percent? What if we push the three malts of that? And then before you know it, you've got triple crush Imperial Stout. Or Imperial Ice Cream Stout. Exactly. And I think
00:55:46
Speaker
And I kind of feel like craft beer went way off the Richter scale in terms of just doing weird ass shit, especially. Oh, yeah, totally. Now it's sort of come back to the word you just used before, balance. And I feel like distilling is going to start doing that too. So back to what you're saying, I think for me at least, I want to make yeast do something crazy to really test it.
Yeast Strains and Flavor Profiles
00:56:08
Speaker
Because if you had that Hornondale, but only at like 5% of what it did, you'd be
00:56:14
Speaker
It'd almost be like it's in your head. Like, can I taste it? Can I not taste it? I don't know. Did it do something? A bit too subtle. You want to bring it, bring you more to the forefront and see what you can pull out of it. And then it's easy to dial it back. And then it's like totally legit. Like this is probably...
00:56:29
Speaker
I don't know, 60, 70, 200 different barrels that have all been mixed together. And I've been to that distillery and I've tasted the barrels that come out of it. The same spirit into two barrels right next to each other on the same day, same oak from the same freaking tree in the same part of the warehouse. And they taste like two completely different spirits. So blending is just part of the industry. So you can make a sledgehammer.
00:56:53
Speaker
like the Hornondale, and then blend it back with something else. So when I was working at the World Workshop at Garage Project, we did a lot of blending with our spontaneously fermented beer, right? So we had a cool ship upstairs, which is basically a shallow bathtub, we'd pump 80 degree wort up into that, we'd leave it sit overnight with the windows open, and whatever yeast and microbes are in the atmosphere would inoculate that, then it would go into barrels for like one, two or three years.
00:57:21
Speaker
And when it came to blending time with those, it was really interesting because you'd have like the barrels which tasting like, you know, fantastic, you know, cool, we want to blend those ones together to get the best out of it. You do that, it's kind of like something's missing. And then you add like some of the barrel that's tasting not so great. And suddenly when that mixes with the great ones, it's like, shit, that's what was missing. It's like that depth and complexity and yes, and blending is just a, yeah, I love that.
00:57:48
Speaker
So that's good advice. I suppose if you're doing barrel stuff, like we visited a brewery a while back and you're like, yes. Like we tasted a few barrels that are partway through the aging. And it was like, Oh yeah, there was one in there that was a bit gnarly, but you're like, don't, don't ditch that one. Like that's your, that could be your little nuggets. Makes it pop off, you know? This is, um,
00:58:16
Speaker
Damn tasting. Damn tasting. Yes. And you, you said it was a chili stout, right? Yeah. A chili, chili chocolate. Is it a dark lager? I think. Lager. Yes. You're right. Yeah. I thought that's a stout. Yeah. So this is a perfect example of balance, right? Like if you just poured this for me, okay, this is a really nice beer. What is that? You know, like it's not. Yeah. Kind of figure out the flavors from there. Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:42
Speaker
Um, yum. So anyway, I don't know, man. I feel like there is this huge opportunity for craft distillers that have this, that are in a size where they can pivot and stuff like this. Yeah. To fuck with stuff, man. What? Put that on a couple of runs or something crazy. Yeah. What about like, um,
00:59:01
Speaker
You know, like a German heffa-fuzzing yeast that puts out massively banana flavor compound when it's pitched correctly. Like how would that, what kind of result would that, what spirit would that end up as? I mean, because spirits are a few ingredients too, right? I mean, it's even less. So it's the same shit. So it would be rude not to...
00:59:21
Speaker
Have a tweak on that one too, bro. So let's circle back around to what you guys do. Do you want us? No, we're talking yeast and distilling. Do you want us to tell us the strains that you're using or creating at the moment? Sure. Excuse me. Chili lager. Which is quite nice. Tell us what you've got and what the
00:59:50
Speaker
I guess the profiles that they create are? Yep. And what they use for a beer? And if you think that there could be some interesting crossover into spurts? Sure thing. Put you on the spot man. A couple of beers and whiskey. Yeah, so we've got
01:00:10
Speaker
eight different strains that we're currently propagating. So the first one is what we call Buddy, and that's an American ale strain. It's got your classic go-to performer, like your best bud in the brewery. Really clean, really robust, great for beers like pale ales, IPAs, double IPAs.
01:00:35
Speaker
It's a USO5 type workhorse. What we were talking about before, right? That you use when you want the yeast to get out of the way and make a hopstine and all that. Yeah. Sits in that supporting role. Almost like pseudo-lager kind of stuff too. Put a wick for that. It does. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. This is kind of hybrid styles.
01:00:53
Speaker
Where he's doing that, kilsners and underpale lagers without buggies. So that is Buddy. Buddy, yep. We've also got our most popular strain based on the big trends in the brewing market at the moment is our hazy strain which we call Vape.
01:01:16
Speaker
We had a good time dating the strains. So that's just your classic performer for hazy IPAs. Really works well with those. Can produce good esters if pitched at lower rates or be really clean if pitched at higher rates and just works to produce a real nice juicy New England IPA.
01:01:37
Speaker
When we talked the other day I fucked up I've been able to be crafty work for like since before hazy was a big thing, right? And I assumed that some of the haze and hazy IPAs was coming from
01:01:52
Speaker
Oh, it can do. It's not. It shouldn't be where it comes from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sometimes can, you know, you can end up with cans of hazy's that have a bit of yeast sitting at the bottom. It's not really what you want. Yes, it's generally wants to come from the protein. So things like oat additions, melted oats, raw oats. Yeah. And that really thanks to that haze character also in the yeast. So what sort of esters
01:02:22
Speaker
So was it the fake, was it? What's the essence of this fake throw if you do... I'm assuming it's the same old thing, right? Like, for me it's slightly hot, underpitch it, all those things we just have at it a little bit. Yeah, it's got a bit of a tendency.
01:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think Kiwi's had much of a palate for esters it seems. No, that's why I'm pushing you because for distillers it's kind of like if you don't have some sort of flavour to bring to the table, why don't we just use Buddy, right? Yeah, sure. No, there's a strain that it's got English or
01:03:01
Speaker
origin type in the Boddingtons Brewery. So yeah, you can certainly get the amount of flecks and throw out esters. It's just not something we typically see much. The hazies brewed by our customers here, they sort of typically looking for clean and let the hops throw the fruit in there.
01:03:21
Speaker
Yeah I'm not sure what that is but certainly you could, yeah that's one that'll throw that up with better encouragement. And so that would be more along the more traditional English sort of estuary sort of things, something similar to 04, kind of that soft or chewy fruity stuff. Stone fruit sort of stuff, yep for sure. All right what else you got man? We have our
01:03:47
Speaker
We have two English strings. The first one is called Biscuit and so that's a pretty all-rounder English ale strain, kind of like the ESO4. But yeah, it also has the potential for ester production. It's high flocculating as English strings.
01:04:08
Speaker
certainly can be, drops out nicely and you can actually co-ferment it with other strains and that won't sort of grab onto their spot turning strains and bring them down. Was this the stuff that we saw coming down? Yeah and the team yesterday. That was bananas dude. It was literally like sand. It was just like
01:04:29
Speaker
It gets so clumpy. It's so crazy. I've never seen yeast like that before. Like to me, yeast, even when it's super flocculate or super, super flocculent, it goes like a really dense cream. Like cream, yeah. That's a perfect way to describe it, right? Yeah. This was like...
01:04:44
Speaker
I don't know, there's, I feel like there's a kid's cheese, like silly putty or what's that? Yeah, it's, it's got like, he's underwater. Yeah, the Kinetics. Yeah, when it comes out the bottom of the tank, when we're like harvesting it for packaging, it like will hold the tube shape as it comes out. You know, it's got its own real like Newtonian kind of physics. What have we done?
01:05:11
Speaker
Yep. Nice. It's a super flocker. That's cool. So that could be interesting for something kind of like the Balcona sort of profile like stone fruit, kind of pear, a little bit of apple, borderline peach, all that sort of kind of stuff. Fun, all right? For sure. Yeah. And like, I mean, being a good flocculator, you'll have a nice clear wash.
01:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, so if you're looking for clarity going into, I mean you've just told us about tipping slurry in and being all good, but... That is an equipment-based thing though, right? So I'm lucky enough to have an oil jacketed stilt, which is basically a big old bay meringue. I've got a big-ass stearate in the middle of it. That's one of my stills, and basically all I use that for now is
01:06:01
Speaker
throw the porridge into that when I've got something that's bulging. Yeah but the other stills I have are just literally a bare element like a homebrew HLT or whatever right there's just like literally an electric element sticking out. Yeah so you don't want to put something that's really used to your ears.
01:06:21
Speaker
Exactly. So if you're in that sort of camp, depending on, I mean, I think there's things coming out in New Zealand now where exposed elements aren't going to be allowed in stills. Maybe not. But so that it's not that just because I did that a couple of times, you know, like something more like Scotch production.
01:06:44
Speaker
single-watt production, those sort of things they do lean more towards a clear-ish work. And once again for production, right? Like if it does its job and then drops out, yep. Yeah, great for that. Yeah, so that's Biscuit and then we've got another English string called Rude Boy. So that's more of a London ESB string. Full of the sort of style profile or? Yeah, four full of the ESB profile, yep.
01:07:16
Speaker
And what do we know about that one? It's less attenuative than the biscuit strain. Certainly slightly more residual sugars in there. Again, very highly flocculent. And yeah, reasonably similar. I think the main difference between those two strains is the attenuation. Pretty similar flavor profiles.
01:07:35
Speaker
Yeah. I have to ask. But then we've got some customers who like swear by one. Oh really? Yeah. So subtle differences. They're like, well, we've got rude boy in stock. No, no, I want biscuit and vice versa. So I was like, okay, you know, it's working well for you. So sweet. Fair enough man. I got to ask, I'm seeing tunnels and stretches, um, seeing some of the chill vibe and there's a use called rude boy, punk, scar,
01:08:05
Speaker
Oh, origins here somewhere? Is this where it's coming from? That is the origin of your name. We did a crowdfunding campaign last year and one of the rewards that people could pledge for was to name a yeast strain. Oh. And so the person who named Rude Boy did so because of their love of scar and that person was in the middle. Yeah, they got a certificate so halfway there. We probably shout them out.
01:08:32
Speaker
It's Dale Gold. He was there, he used to brew at Whistling Sisters in town. Oh, nice. There's a big-scale fan. Good man. Bit of a legend in the industry. Yeah. Yeah. So, shout out to Dale. Yeah.
01:08:49
Speaker
Alright, so what else have you got? What else have we got? We've got a strain called Unicorn, which is a Belgian wit strain. So that's highly phenolic producing. It's origins back to the Hoe Garden brewery. So great for Belgian style wits, white IPAs. Yeah, just produce a lot of phenolic character, pepper and like caramelised banana and all kinds of awesome stuff there.
01:09:14
Speaker
That could be really fun. You can really stress that one under the chair. How hot do you reckon you could push it? 21 to 23.
01:09:27
Speaker
Oh, you can probably go to war if you want to experience it. I think you're thinking like a brewer. You can go like, you're like, oh, it'll be history. Bruiser still is like 35. Yeah, I mean, I think you'd be looking at sort of like the 27, right? Would you kind of be the upper limits?
01:09:45
Speaker
Like honestly, I think more often than not, like the guy, like M1 and 04, they'll let it free rise up to 35. Fuck it, just have at it. Do your job or die. Do your job and get the fuck out of it. The ones that can't handle it will probably die. There'll be some cells that are a bit like, ah. But then the strong ones will just be like, yeah, we're doing this. And it is, I mean,
01:10:13
Speaker
But the advantage we have is that we don't end up drinking the...
01:10:19
Speaker
the medium that the yeast was in, right? Like, there's very little yeast in most of these beers, but I mean, would you agree that you could probably, if you really wanted to, like most of these beers, you'd be able to get something out of it that would be like a life you could propagate from, don't you think? Yeah, I'd say most of these ones, yeah, not pasteurised, they'd be filtered, but not sterile filtered, so there'd be some residual. Yeah.
01:10:44
Speaker
and distilling it's just, it's gone. You just don't have any of it. So you really can push it. I mean, I still use baker's yeast. True. A life of vodka and stuff. And this is like, I'm going to strip it out to Azetrope and I just want to crank it through. And it does a really good job, man.
01:11:03
Speaker
Nice. Yeah, so it is a shift and it took me a long time to change. I was the same thing. I was like, no, 18 degrees. So nice. To maybe 20. I'm not sure what that must be. Oh no, that's Fresh November. Fresh November? Yeah. Cool. So that's the latest in a series of fresh hazy IPAs that Garage Project make. We do a different one every month, different hops.
01:11:30
Speaker
so on but they're always big juicy hazy so that one's got our fake piece in it. Nice. And it's naked because we get samples back from our very customers and sometimes it's like straight off the canning line it's like dry there. It's awesome. So everything that you brought out today is
01:11:49
Speaker
You're used to it. Pretty confident the day the deed will be. Definitely fish november. Probably. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's cool. Which is good. It's a fun part of the job. It's great to see... I mean, like I said, I've been out of the game for a while, but for me, like, Garage Project is, you know, it's a pretty heavy hitter in the craft scene in New Zealand. So seeing...
01:12:17
Speaker
You know, you, you're getting buy-in from people like that is super exciting. That makes me really happy, man. Yeah, totally. It makes us really happy too. It's awesome. It's a, it's a juicy banger. Is it? Yeah. That's punchy. That's definitely hoppy. It just smells like fresh hot wine. Yeah. So this is protein. So for the distillers out there, if you've never brewed beer,
01:12:44
Speaker
Honestly, my fondest memory of the entire process, including drinking the shit, is opening a fresh packet of hops and just jamming your face in it. Oh man. And that's what this is. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah, it's awesome man. There was a conference here in Wellington last year, the happy, the moldy name for hop.
01:13:05
Speaker
Harpy Symposium, brewers from the States and all over the world came and sort of congregated here for the hop harvest. And yeah, one of my favorite memories of that is that there was some fresh varietals of hops coming out and some brewers were going up front to sample them and the way that they were doing that was loading them into a
01:13:23
Speaker
herb grinders. Oh no way! Grinding up these hot pallets. Yeah. I was like, I'm getting coconut. Super dirty, but great fun. We're just hilarious cousins. Yeah. Yeah. Cousins not legal here in New Zealand. That's right. Anyway, we missed that boat lads. Yeah. Um, stick with hops. Yeah. I guess so. I guess so. All right.
New Zealand's Unique Yeast Exploration
01:13:48
Speaker
You guys are proud Kiwis, so there's two things that I've got to pore for you because they're both Gladfield products. And I know you've got some of these as, you know, for basically beer, jugs, I guess. Yeah, for sure, yep. Probably need some tips. Okay, I'll grab another. I'll steal another one of your glasses. Yeah, get a dump jar. Yeah, man.
01:14:15
Speaker
So does that say Pete? Does it? This is the glad field. Is this the New Zealand Pete? South on Pete. South on Pete. We heard about this when we were, cause there are good mates down there and we went and visited them.
01:14:32
Speaker
This is December last year. And they were telling us about how they'd fetched this from a peat swamp in the South Island. It's pretty dope, right? They were smoking it there while we were there. Oh, were they? Yeah, we actually nibbled on some of the grain and it was like, ooh, that is swampy. Like it's not as clean. Yep. And it's certainly got some West Coast, South Island. I haven't tried anything.
01:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, any spirit that it's ended up in. It's definitely different to the Manuka smoke, like the Manuka's really sweet and like... The funny thing is though that it... So if you compare something like... Like most other smokes that you smell around the world. Yep. And especially if you think of like burning heather, burning like scrub, burning scraggly sort of shit, like all the stuff that you have in Scotland, it's going to end up in a bog and turn into pee. Yep. And then you compare it to burning Manuka.
01:15:28
Speaker
It's almost like there's some sort of analogy between the two. Right. Like, and I don't know whether that's just purely because this is such a cool thing conceptually for me, right? Like I love Isla whiskey. Yeah. Smoky Scotch is my, my jam. Yep. So being able to dig it out of the ground in New Zealand, smoke it in New Zealand, stick it on New Zealand while like, but it's been molded in New Zealand. It's really, really cool.
01:15:54
Speaker
But then, and then I don't know if it's my biased, because I think that's so cool that makes me think that it kind of tastes like New Zealand native plant matter. It is hard to separate yourself from the biased. But there is something there, right? Like it's got that, it's got that sweet like...
01:16:14
Speaker
unctuous punchiness of like marooka smoke. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that, that kind of, um, sweet rot. That's a good, that's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like caramel sweetness. No, no, no, no. It's like a more delicate kind of almost like, um, like, like when you,
01:16:44
Speaker
Uh, uh, what do you call it? A compost bin. Yes. That's like in a really... Yeah, like grass clippings that are fermenting almost. Yeah, there's some of that to it. And then you compare to something like the food, which is the smoke's real ashy. And like... Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's more like mineral.
01:17:02
Speaker
It's got a almost coppery mineralness to it. Interesting. Yeah, so I... Oh, Jurassic Park, sort of. Yeah, it kind of makes me think of like fresh rainfall on Ligoniero in the bush. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like petrichor kind of. Yeah. And when I got to nibble that malt, it was straight away just like, that's different. Like, yes, no.
01:17:31
Speaker
It wasn't like I was trying to figure out how, you know, I didn't have to really pick at that. It was like, oh, that is grunty. Like, yeah. And there's something undeniably New Zealand. Yeah. And I don't quite know how to say it. And once again, that could just be a conceptual. Yeah. New Zealand. I don't know. Yeah.
01:17:52
Speaker
It's super cool. And in us hunting for wild yeasts, which is still an ongoing project for us, sometimes folks will ask like, oh, so what does New Zealand taste like? And I was like, we don't know. It's the world even in New Zealand, how New Zealand wants to express itself, you know? And so, like, Gladfield hasn't necessarily, you know, got the South Island peak to taste this way. They've gone and dug it up. Yeah.
01:18:22
Speaker
you know carried it through in the smoking process and in beautiful molds that they've grown to showcase it but what's coming in there is is that's probably why it tastes like a bit like New Zealanders because it's literally some of that expression coming through and so that's what we're looking for defining in
01:18:42
Speaker
and some New Zealand yeasts as well. We won't ever clue what kind of profile or performance they're going to have. So we'll just see what they've got to offer. How far off having like a minimal viable product are you on? Something like that? So we're waiting to push the button on the next stage or we're waiting for our research and development partners to have some sort of free time to
01:19:10
Speaker
undertake that next stage of work. So currently we've got the isolates that we've isolated from our initial samples. We've got them banked in a cryogenic freezer. The next stage involves sort of whittling down that library to, based on kind of bare performance criteria. So will they make the bare? And the ones that pass through that next filter will then go through to a sensory evaluation.
01:19:36
Speaker
Do they smell and taste good? And from there we'll look at getting them genetically DNA characterised to identify what they are. And yeah, that will be, from that point we'll be where they'll be commercialised. It's probably looking like a six months to a year kind of thing I would say.
01:19:54
Speaker
mid-term goals like I was thinking years down the track. We're pretty keen to push the button and keep this thing rolling. Yeah, so. Because it was last summer that we went out deep in the bush. We went to three really remote locations in different parts of New Zealand, West Coast, Hawke's Bay and Northland.
01:20:17
Speaker
And yeah, foraged a bunch of different samples, native botanicals, non-native, flowers, berries, tree bark, leaf litter, dirt. That's so cool. B5. Oh dope, yeah, yeah. And so yeah, we've got a whole bunch of isolates which are believed to be yeast off of those samples there in the cryobank. Now,
01:20:43
Speaker
Then we sort of launched this business and we're like, oh crap, this is real. That project is like, yeah, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. It's expensive. But we're just chasing that magic for the sake of what it could mean for the industry. It's just really cool. So we kind of put that on hold so that we could focus on getting things going here. And yeah, things are just on hold a little bit longer because
Yeast Projects and Future Plans
01:21:11
Speaker
COVID, the scientists are pretty busy at the moment, responding to the global pandemic, so beer isn't quite as high. Yeah, it's a close second.
01:21:24
Speaker
So yeah, January or something, I think that's going to kick off again. And nah, that'll be real cool. We're hoping to include some local brewers in that sensory process as well, because viewers may or may not know that for commercial brewers, when the hot harvest happens in March,
01:21:45
Speaker
they'll sort of go down there and even brewers in the past have come from the states and they'll like lay out little piles on papers of it could be the same varietal of hot but it's grown in like different farms or different blocks and you're getting that terroir coming through based on those conditions same things happen happens with grapes and so they'll like
01:22:12
Speaker
sniff the little piles of hops and sort of place contract orders for the ones they want. Yeah, we'd like to see the same happen for some of these yeast strains and be like, oh yeah, because these strains aren't going to have any style allocation yet. You know, there might be funk or there might be acidity or
01:22:36
Speaker
and so our brewer is able to smell a little more ingredient and start to have ideas and go, oh that'd be great in a, you know, XPA or a pilsner with, and they start to imagine how it could be used. You just even know what's going to trigger someone's creative flair. Absolutely. And even things that, I mean, my flavor
01:23:03
Speaker
Preference in whisky is pretty far left field, like I didn't bring you anything too funky because I didn't want to ski. And I should have told you too, sorry guys, those are both 100% South Island peat, like the Grist is 100% peat and 100% Manuka. Sick and cool. So they're a bit like, once again, they're the sledgehammers right now. You're actually, you're going to try X-Rex, man. Is what?
01:23:26
Speaker
Just off camera earlier, we were mentioning that beer called XRX by Easty Boys. That is a 100% heavily petered distilling malt beer. It's a gold nail. So we fuck with...
01:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've got stuff that straight up tastes like sweaty gym socks and blue teas and stuff. And to me, it's interesting. I mean, next time we'll... Say our beers, we use this horse blanket. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:24:09
Speaker
I think my goal for the two is to find a blend between them. And what I actually wanted from the South Island peak was to keep some of the
01:24:25
Speaker
and age it on manuka wood and make it like a fully New Zealand whisky. Yeah, yeah. Now I've just realized that I kind of like a fully New Zealand whisky when I'm pitching fucking 04 or something into it. That's right. We can help you out. Yeah, I might have to talk to you guys in a year or so. Yeah. So where do you see like, what's the big goal for froth tech?
Expanding Yeast Applications Beyond Beer
01:24:50
Speaker
Like in 10 years time, where do you want to be? Like, are you looking at exporting? Are you,
01:24:56
Speaker
Yeah, we're looking at exporting. We've had inquiries already from quite a few breweries in Australia. So that's another big market for us. I guess while we're looking on that horizon, we also want to make sure that we're really looking after our customers here. You know, I guess it's that balance between growing but not growing too fast that you sort of make sacrifices in regards to quality of the product. So we're really, really focused on ensuring our
01:25:25
Speaker
Standards and meet with our with our product. But yeah, I mean looking to export I guess it's just trying to Reach out as far as we can in the New Zealand market Hopefully, you know keep undertaking these sort of innovative Experiments and investigations into wild yeast the New Zealand yeast project is a really exciting piece for us Yeah Also like non beer stuff. Oh, right. Yeah, of course. Yeah, like we're
01:25:55
Speaker
Beer is what we know. It's where you came from. Yeah, where we came from. So it's certainly a good place for us to start and to connect with industry and collaborate as we develop our process and our string library. We certainly do have interest from non-beer
01:26:17
Speaker
craft purveyors, wine, cider, seltzer, distillation, kombucha, you know there's a real world of fermented drinks out there and they're really cool and I think yeast can really flex
01:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, especially in cases where the yeast that's been used is just like a brick of off the shelf, like dry yeast. It's a commodity product, you know? Or it's just the same kombucha scoby. It's like, oh, we can spike that with something else and have some diversity there on the shelves. But yeah, like there's a whole world of opportunity out there of what yeast can do.
01:27:05
Speaker
It's already starting to emerge in ways where it can transform the food industry and yeasts have been modified to make medicines and food additives. They use microbes to grow insulin now, vanilla essence.
01:27:24
Speaker
which is just a lot more efficient when you don't need um yeah you can do it inside a tank and the cell density is is so dense in there animal proteins is another one there's yeah companies in the states that are
01:27:39
Speaker
growing cow milk proteins using yeast and then making ice cream that tastes exactly like vanilla ice cream. According to the FDA is ice cream because it's like genetically at a molecular level it is the same so it's classed the same it just
01:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean the cells in a cow are responsible for making milk is 0.1% of the cells. So that's a big beast and a big farm. Was it a moo? It was a sage knowing moo. And so, you know, like the milk that goes with the flat whites and stuff is actually, you know, such a small percentage of what's made.
01:28:29
Speaker
A lot of the milk from New Zealand is made into milk powder and protein powders and stuff. So it'll be cool to just take some of the load off there because it is a bit of a heavy load, you know, on the environment in some cases where it's quite intensive. So I don't know. The 10 year piece is more just like transforming food and beverages, especially in a way that like helps people and planet.
01:28:57
Speaker
That's freaking exciting. I have to come back and see you guys in like one year increments. All right guys, we got a few questions from the Patreons to answer afterwards, but we'll do that once we're offline. I just want to say a huge freaking thank you. This has been amazing. If you guys out there in internet land are in New Zealand and you're brewing beer, you're making distilled spirits or whatever, reach out and get in touch with these guys.
Future Product Releases and Updates
01:29:23
Speaker
There is one question that I have to ask though before we go.
01:29:27
Speaker
Homebrewers, home distillers.
01:29:29
Speaker
Are they going to be able to get their hands on froth? Is that a thing? Yeah, we're working hard on that at the moment. So we're looking at aiming to get something out there next year. Just currently there's a few different things that need to happen for us to be able to package it effectively and to maintain our standards. So it's not just quite as simple as putting it into a smaller package. So we're working on that at the moment and aiming to have something out on the market next year because we know that y'all are hungry. Yeah. All right. Where do people find you guys?
01:29:59
Speaker
We've got a website, it's frothtech.co.nz. We've got a newsletter sign up there, we chuck out a bit of interesting news every couple of months and that's the best way to keep on top of what we're doing and that'll be the first place we'll make a lot of noise about things like Homebrew yeast coming out or the wild yeast project coming to a surface and where you can try
01:30:24
Speaker
beer is made with these, yes. So yeah, it's good stuff. Awesome. Oh, thanks Lance. It's a perfect place to leave it. We're going to do things a little bit differently today because there's a little bit of gold that you guys haven't heard yet. Essentially what happens is whenever I'm going to record a podcast with someone, as long as I know in advance, I throw it up over on Patreon with the person I'm going to be talking to or a link to their website, their company, whatever it happens to be, and let the Patreons
01:30:53
Speaker
Throw up some questions on that post. For me to ask, once we settle down at the end of the podcast, the true podcast has been wrapped up. Now, two reasons. One, people have been asking how this works and what the deal is. So I wanted to show you the sort of things that Patreons get. But also some of this information was just so good that
01:31:14
Speaker
I wanted to let other people hear it as well. So what we're doing today is we're going to let the first few Q&A questions with the froth tech go out after this. After, I think, the people that I need to thank for making this podcast happen. Number one, froth tech. Thank you guys. Obviously, it couldn't have happened without you. I am so very, very proud to see a company like this kick an arse in New Zealand. So thank you guys for taking the time to talk to me.
01:31:38
Speaker
and thank you to adventures and home brewing, homebrewing.org slash ctc check it out over there and of course glad fields get your hands on some glad fields all right guys i'm going to leave you with a couple of questions that the froth tech guys answered from the patreons see ya
01:31:54
Speaker
All right, quick flow around guys for the Patreon, thank you Patrons, I appreciate it. Guybrush Threepwood, that is hilarious. Did you change it name dude? I haven't seen that before. Advantages and disadvantages of liquid yeast versus dry yeast. I think we kind of covered this in the video we're going to put out, but if you want to bang that one out quickly as a
01:32:15
Speaker
There's a quick fire thing. Sure thing. So harvesting and re-pitching. Liquid yeast is a lot more suited to that. So you get better health and better result of fermentations out of that. You get higher ester production from liquid yeast. Dry yeast, you'll get more chances of things like acetaldehyde and phenolic showing up. Liquid yeast, a bit of lateral assist viability. You got any others?
01:32:42
Speaker
Um, I just sort of see it as like, like, fresh, healthy yeast. It's gonna gift good flavor, flavor profile. They're already ready to rock. Damaged, um, sad. It's gonna throw off flavors, so we like to think we're sitting in the fresh, healthy area, and yeah, trying and then re-hydrating and pitching yeasts.
01:33:12
Speaker
It's not as in good shape after that first ferment as well so the whole like harvesting, re-pitching, 5-10 generations, that's good value for breweries if you're in a position to do that. And on the flip side of the ledger I have to imagine just shelf stability. Yeah that's the main bonus for dried yeast. And because of that I guess economy in terms of, because the other thing is too like a lot of these guys are
01:33:38
Speaker
can usually brew right but they may not brew for three weeks so having a packet of dry yeast that you can just keep in the fridge like i i get it totally hey i've used dry yeast in the past and yeah yeah um best practices for oh dear god one armed monkey this is uh we're gonna have to not go into this in depth dude because this could be an entire freaking podcast by itself which we should probably do sometime but our best practices for home brewers in terms of propagating washing storing yeast at home
01:34:09
Speaker
I mean, I know you guys could literally talk about this for hours. Is that a propagating washing story? Yeah, yep. And when he says washing, I'm assuming he's really saying rinsing. I doubt very much he's using them because technically washing is acid, isn't it? Yeah, acid washing. I mean, yeah, I think that's a term that's used in home brewers for sterile water washing and things like that.
01:34:32
Speaker
Yeah. So I guess, yeah, the main tip would be hygiene and sanitation. As anytime you're working with microbes, you want to be as sure as you can be that there is no unwanteds in there. So yeah, I'd say getting, investing in a flask.
01:34:49
Speaker
like an Earl Myles style flask, something that you can, has temperature tempered glass that you can heat it and cool it and it might be damaged through that. Making sure that you are boiling up your propagation liquid for at least 15 minutes.
01:35:06
Speaker
Maintaining temperature control to the specified sort of rates within your specific strain of yeast. Another key thing for propagation is aeration and shaking. To really enhance the yield that you're going to get out of each stage of your starter. If you can have it constantly agitated, that is ideal. Or stirred. If you can't achieve that, shaking it intermittently, as frequently as you can.
01:35:34
Speaker
Yeah, the more or two basically in those small size propagations, the better. Is there a kind of a trusted resource where you would direct people to go where you know the information is good? Yeah, there's... I was going to say using some of the yeast calculators online. There is one that I can
01:35:57
Speaker
give you the link for where it just gives you a bit more clarity on what you're doing so rather than just being like I've got some fresh yeast I'm just having a flask worth of work you can
01:36:13
Speaker
work out. You can actually punch in the date of manufacture on the pouch so it's kind of guesstimate how much is the size of the interior. Yeah, stuff like that. Those are really tough for. And then you can work out how much it needs to go, how much wood it needs to go into. Maybe if you need to do one stage propagation or step it up again so you can also punch in your
01:36:37
Speaker
what you're going to be fermenting and what volume. So it'll tell you if you're going to get to the required cell mass in one propagation or if you need to go a bit further. Yeah, I mean, yeah, hygiene, big one. If you meet your hands on a pressure cooker, that's a step further. I mean, you'll probably be just fine boiling. Yeah, in terms of washing,
01:37:05
Speaker
That usually refers to collecting your yeast slurry that has dropped to the bottom of your vessel. Whether you're scooping it out with a clean spoon or whether you're able to harvest it out of a conical depending on what you're using. But it's mostly about getting your liquid yeast slurry off of hot material. Who's your micron, bro?
01:37:39
Speaker
In terms of yeast washing that in the homebrew sense usually refers to separating a yeast slurry from hot material because they've all dropped out together in the tank. So actually just to interrupt you
01:37:51
Speaker
We don't have hops if it's just like literally grain particular kind of stuff. Do you even see an advantage in washing? I guess it would be for if you were going to process it in some way for long-term storage. Okay. There would probably be. So if you're doing slant plates. Yeah. If you're just going to whack it in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Would you just... A couple of weeks should be all right. Yeah, it's just...
01:38:15
Speaker
over time those grains are going to start to break down and so it's just as pure culture as you can get in there they're all just going to bunch up together and chill but yeah that organic material in there is going to start to degrade and yeah it could be detrimental to your yeast health.
01:38:38
Speaker
What are your thoughts on the, cause I've heard both ways, right? Like from, from the beer days of, yeah, wash it, give it as pure as you can versus, yeah, but you're not really in the laboratory setting and every time you fuck with something, you're like flirting with getting a contamination in there. Do you know what I mean? I would lean more towards the, I'm more risk averse for contamination. That would be my thing, especially at the homebrew level. I think that,
01:39:07
Speaker
Maintaining that hygiene is the most important aspect in regards to yeast handling. And then, especially if you're going to do another propagation, if you're going to do like a starter. Yeah, if that's going to happen, you're going to wake it up again, you're going to revitalize it again anyway. The other thing for like kind of yeast storage is consideration of oxygen. Once your yeast is in a dormant state, so it's kind of absorbed any O2 that was additionally in your propagation,
01:39:35
Speaker
That's when it's yeah, if you reintroduce oxygen to it after that, you're gonna wake it back up So you want to keep your yeast in that dormant state so in an anaerobic environment Okay, that's the kind of yeah ideal for long term storage. Yeah, but I get what you're saying in terms of like
01:39:50
Speaker
Another jar, another tube, every time it's like, yeah, I cleaned it, but is it clean enough? Every time it touches something, another spoon, it's another element of risk, compared to just, don't try to not touch it. But I mean, you can wash yeast with like...
01:40:06
Speaker
some you know just like mineral water or distilled water from the supermarket you know that's definitely used their oil in there and so that wouldn't be too hard to like maybe sanitize the outside of the bottle and then
01:40:20
Speaker
be able to wash your yeast that way if you need to. So if we kind of said like rule of thumb if you're harvesting a yeast cake that's like not full-on been fermented on the if you ferment on the grain you pretty much fucked up yeah like are you gonna wash that yeah I think you'd be I don't know you could like you'd have to take a sample out of it and then basically regrow it and yeah you couldn't just take a picture out of it I would imagine like I mean don't get me wrong like a lot of this like especially a lot of home distilling recipes will be
01:40:49
Speaker
you take it all off and you leave a big-ass cake and then that day you put another brew in on top of it. I've done that before, it works great. But in terms of taking that and putting it in the fridge, I feel a little bit sketchy about that. So with that aside, if you're fermenting a clean wort two weeks or less in the fridge, you'd probably just go with
01:41:15
Speaker
take the yeast cake out of the conical if you can, with really clean stuff if you can't, and just leave it. But if you're wanting to store, like if you, I don't have horn and dial very often, if I wanted to just keep horn and dial around, that's when I'd start thinking about washing and processing it further. Cool. Yeast counts at home.
01:41:39
Speaker
And they specifically ask about telling between live and dead cells. And I had no idea about this until I gave it to you guys.
01:41:50
Speaker
Tell the people what you told me. Yeah, I want to know how to do it at home. Yeah, is that viable? Well, you need to get viable. It's a good word. Yeah. You would need a microscope. Yeah. So if you could get access and there are some kind of cheaper like microscopes out there these days. Some of those little electric coming up to your phone job. He's like, I actually not shit anymore, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's some, some great like.
01:42:13
Speaker
So you just have to do a bit of research. You need a microscope with 100x magnification or a 10x on the lens and 10x on the lens.
01:42:23
Speaker
on the microscope piece, so 100 times or 400 times in order to do it. In regards to viability checks, so first generally when you're counting yeast you will get your slurry, you will dilute it with sterile water, usually anywhere from 1 to 10 or 1 to 100, so 1 part yeast, 9 parts water, then you can take another 1 part of that to another 9 parts of water.
01:42:48
Speaker
cereal dilutions, then you need to get hold of some some salistain. So there's a few different options there. Methylene blue or tri-pan blue are commonly used ones. Methylene blue has been demonstrated to be less reliable, particularly in slurries where the yeast health is below 80%.
01:43:10
Speaker
Ooh, we're getting them all to you guys. I like this. So I would recommend Tri-Pan Blue, it's pretty readily available. It's also methylene violet, or there is another stain available called erythrosin B. And that is a much less toxic product to the environment, but still has really effective and accurate staining. So you need to get your hands on a cell stain. It's purely a matter of mixing your stain with your diluted yeast.
01:43:38
Speaker
That will be another dilution stage as well, so you'd consider that in your calculations. And you would need a hemocytometer, which is a what? A hemocytometer. So it's basically a microscope slide that is gridded to, so the hemo meaning blood, so it's used for counting blood. These cells and blood cells are very similar in size. So you'd need to get your hands on one of those and a microscope. There's a bit of investment required
01:44:05
Speaker
It's not too crazy if you get some of this stuff reasonably cheap on AliExpress for example. You don't need the super high quality stuff for homebrew level. And yeah, then it's a matter of you can look up on a lot of resources online for actually undertaking those counts and then making the associated calculations to figure out your cell density. Do you think at a homebrew, home distilling level, that is
01:44:31
Speaker
Like, there's two ways to look at this, right? Like, some people just like it for the geekery. They're like, I don't want to give a fuck if it makes my beer or my spirits taste better. I want the toys. And I don't want to fuck around with a calculator and, you know, like, have at it, guys. Do you think that that's really at a home brew, home distilling level?
01:44:49
Speaker
I think that can be like, does it have an advantage? Yeah. Yeah, I think particularly if you're like trying to have a bit of a yeast library, yeast bank, and you're free and you're wanting to monitor the health of that, or you're just wanting to geek out on it, it's not unachievable. You can pick up a second-hand microscope for a hundred bucks. We've done it. You can grab a hemocytometer for like 30, 40 bucks for a basic one.
01:45:19
Speaker
self stain is fairly cheap to get your hands on and so yeah once you've got that on hand like
01:45:27
Speaker
Those steps that Ryan just described don't need to be a septic technique. You're not trying to preserve the cleanliness of it. If you're pulling a sample from your jar that you worked so hard to keep clean, you want to protect the jar. You want to make sure maybe you do that under a Bunsen or an alcohol amp so that when you open it, you're not
01:45:52
Speaker
puking a bunch of wild microbes in there. But yeah, you just need to pull a little sample with a pipette. It doesn't even need to be like a laboratory.
01:46:00
Speaker
single-channel pipette, it can be like, you know, the eye dropper style ones. Close enough to do your serial dilutions, add your stains so you know which ones are dead and which are living because the dead one's staying. And then, yeah, it's pretty damn cool going from looking at this creamy slurry into that micro universe and seeing little buddies in there.
01:46:26
Speaker
And yeah, this has to be like, cause we've been talking to that it's crazy that, you know, the most brewers and distillers just don't have the ability to fuck all this stuff right. They don't have the time of the day. They don't have the equipment. If they did exactly the same as what advice just to get started.
01:46:43
Speaker
Yeah, same advice to a brewery. Yeah, so I mean, I give that advice to breweries. I think for me, on a homebrew level, I never messed around with viability or cell counts and stuff. My main indication was if my starter was frothy and active. And I think for a lot of homebrew provided that you are using maybe one of those online use calculators,
01:47:03
Speaker
I think that gets you most of the way there. Is it really going to improve? I mean, it would improve. It would improve. It would be a great step for helping you hone in on recipe and recipe development. And repeatability. However, you can get pretty damn close to that with doing a yeast starter and just making sure it's nice and effective.