And so it begins... from maguey to mescal

[Uncle Jesse]

[Stonecutter]

Hell yes! Bookmarked
The HD unicorn, happy hunting Uncle.

[NZChris]

Nice score.

Temperatures, times, numbers from conversion etc. will all be appreciated if you collect them.

[Stilljoy McFlavour]

Awesome, would love to get my hands on one of those!

Enjoy the project

[kennstminet]

Uncle Jesse
I was wondering how agave can convert starch to sugars under the influence of heat.
Here is a document calling out "fructans" as the effective ingredient. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3354743/
Do you know more about the process?

[MarkChap]

I suppose, If you know, you know

But I have no idea what this is about
Well I guess I have some idea, you are trying ta make some booze out of something, a tree stump ??

[bilgriss]

https://www.therecipehunters.com/maguey

Who do we have to know to get ourselves one or two?

[Uncle Jesse]

Ok folks, time for some details.

My friend owns a farm nearby and happens to have three or four maguey growing. He pulled the small one and gave me the piña. If I can make this work, I will be able to get the other, larger ones to make more mescal.

I'm working off of this thread by Junkyard Dawg for starters viewtopic.php?t=31790

We wore gloves and cut this thing into several pieces. I'm new to using a barrel smoker so I only put the smaller pieces in at first. Since I want to taste the flavors of the maguey to get a better idea what I'm working with, I am going for a limited amount of smoke. My friend is helping me out. He isn't a distiller but mescal is his drink and he is friends with a mescalito which I think is the right word for someone who actually makes mescal in Mexico. So, I have his advice to lean on.

His favorite mescal is Amarás Cupreata https://www.sfwtc.com/spirit/7777-amara ... 24420-750/ and I had to admit I like it far more than any tequila I've had. It's very complex when taken neat and adding water brings out a strong sugar taste. It has a very light smokey flavor which is what I'm aiming for.

So, that's a long-winded way to say we wrapped the pieces in saran wrap (my friend insists it's good to 350F so if it isn't, I will blame him), then we wrapped each piece with plenty of tin foil.

Right now as I said I'm smoking the smaller pieces and I am comfortable enough now with this smoker using oak charcoal that tomorrow I will smoke the rest of it. I am new to smokers, so I used some hickory charcoal for the first half day and was not happy with how fast it burned or how much ash it produces. This oak is lasting far longer and burning more reliably and it's closer to what is used to make mescal in Mexico. I'm running the smoker at 220F-240F, though now I'm just letting it cool overnight and tomorrow I will pull out the pieces I've smoked and see whether or not they are ready. They should be.

When all of it is smoked, I'll clean it up and cut it into small chunks and find a way to macerate it as well as I can before I mash it. This may mean rubber mallet. If I don't get the SG I want, I have a lot of organic blue agave nectar to bump it up.

I'll keep updating as I go, and I welcome any comments and/or cirticism from people who have done this before.

[NZChris]

I wouldn't take his word on the saran wrap without checking. I suspect 350F is way over its useful maximum.

[Uncle Jesse]

I wouldn't take his word on the saran wrap without checking. I suspect 350F is way over its useful maximum.

He hasn't steered me wrong... yet. Tomorrow I find out, and I only used a bit of the maguey so far so it isn't a huge loss if it's a failure.

[Steve Broady]

I don’t know about 350F, but I have boiled food in Saran Wrap before with no issues, so 250F isn’t that far out of my experience. I know it’s good for a lot more heat than most people feel comfortable giving it.

[Yummyrum]

Hey Uncle , this looks like a cool project . LOL
, I was in the same camp as Markchap and had to google maguey just to make sure .

I know SFA about all this but I believe there are literally Dozens of Agave varieties and some are better than others for the purpose .

Do you know the Variety that you have acquired ?
Nothing to add , just interested.

Also from seeing others that have a go at this , they mention the sap is quite nasty and can burn your skin . Did you notice this ?

Regarding the plastic , yeah I’d be a bit sus on it much above 250f too . But maybe the layers of Tin foil … I guess thats Al foil might protect it .

BTW , I edited you OP and flipped your pics the right way ……,hope you don’t mind .
LOL that was about as much real use as I could be.

[jonnys_spirit]

This looks like an awesome project!

Did you happen to weigh the Piña? Just wondering what the potential product output might be for one of those.

Cheers,
j

[kennstminet]

I'm very interested in this topic and cross fingers for Uncle Jesse.
Here is some information what happens during the cooking process of the agave hearts.
Agaves have fructans rather than starch. In order to gain fermentable sugar, the fructans must be hydrolised in a cooking process.
The PDF describes what happens behind the scenes.
Hydrolysis of fructans from Agave tequilana Weber var. azul during the cooking step in a traditional tequila elaboration process

Waleckxetal.08-HydrolysisoffructansfromA.tequilanaWeberduringthecookingstepinatraditionaltequilaelaborationprocess.pdf

(729.43 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

[Tōtōchtin]

Keep an eye out on the back of fores. Last week I went up into the mts to make Raicilla with a friend of mine. He offered me a taste from the very beginning of the run. Coats your mouth with such a rich tastes of agave. I was surprised as this should have been the beginning of heads.
Tōtō
There are farmers here shipping blue agave piñas to the states.

[Uncle Jesse]

OK I had five or six smaller packets and two definitely felt soft this morning. Keep in mind I have no idea what I'm looking for at this point so I figure if they are pliable, they have been heated long enough. Honestly I'm not even sure I should taste it, we had to wear gloves to harvest it after reading Junkyard Dawg's post about calcium oxalate crystals. Then again, I know people eat cooked maguey so maybe the crystals disappear or are neutralized during the heating.

As for Saran Wrap, it worked just fine. Now, please don't take this as an endorsement for people to go buck wild using it. All I can say is that it didn't melt and my temps never got above 240F. It held in the moisture very well. Then again, I may have created a cancer cluster which will be the subject of a five part Netflix series in a few years.

I didn't weigh it. I'd say it was 40-50 lbs or so. Next time I'll be more exact.

Here's a few pics. I hope they are in the correct orientation. I'm using a new Macbook and I am not yet good with the image editing stuff.

Yummyrum thanks for editing the photos!

[Uncle Jesse]

Smoked these for a few days between 220F and 240F. Opened up one of the big ones today and it's ready. I was told to shoot for the color of flan and I judging by before and after I think it's good.

Tomorrow I will cut these things into cubes and macerate them and then attempt to do a mash. Anyone have any guesses how many pounds I should use for a 10 gallon mash? I have no idea, completely making this up as I go.

Here's a photo of the big chunk I opened today. It's nice and moist and ready to be cut up.

[Tōtōchtin]

Hola Tio
This was the color of the agave from a run about ten days ago. It's hard to get a clear shot from a video. 1st time I've tried. Maybe it will help maybe not...
Suerte
Tōtō

[NZChris]

If you have a Brix refractometer, a reading from a squeezed drop would be interesting.

[Uncle Jesse]

If you have a Brix refractometer, a reading from a squeezed drop would be interesting.

near the fibrous outer part of it I squeezed a few drops and got almost exactly 13 brix.

[Setsumi]

Brix to sg... Google, no verification