Malolactic acid/Malolactic culture and distilling

[distiller_dresden]

Hey all! So I recently picked up a couple tubes of malolactic culture. I know what it's traditionally used for. My question is in distilling, does anyone know or have a well-educated hypothesis as to what using malolactic culture in a ferment wash that will be distilled will result in? I.E. how it will be different, say, from a given fruit wash. Or does it have alternative applications (not fruit washes) for following with distillation?

For theory sake let's say a pear wash to be a pear brandy. I have experience making one. What effects will the malolactic culture have on the distilled product vs a traditional brandy from a wash without anything added?

I'm curious if this is another way to get butter notes and improved mouth feel. Has anybody ever distilled chardonnay (because it's treated malolactically)??

[ElCubanazo]

Interested in the results of this, just tuning in!

[jonnys_spirit]

MAlolactic bacteria turns malic acid (tart granny smith) to lactic acid. It’s sensitive to pH and alcohol.

Cheers!
-jonny

[Single Malt Yinzer]

https://www.whitelabs.com/wine/malolactic-bacteria" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Malolactic fermentation usually takes 4-6 weeks to finish (30ppm malic acid).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6222884/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The synthesis and hydrolysis of esters during the malolactic fermentation of wines has been described by many research groups, but there is a disagreement concerning the influence of this secondary fermentation action on the final concentration of esters. Most authors indicate that there is a significant enhancement in the ester content of wines that have undergone MLF [8,10,11,12,14,15,16,17,18,19], but other researchers have presented a decreasing trend [20,21,22]. Malolactic bacteria strain selection has also been described as an important factor that determines the final concentrations of esters [12,14,16,17].

More info:
http://www.lallemandwine.com/wp-content ... -style.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://www.acenologia.com/cienciaytecno ... 11_eng.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 0601161615" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

It would be interesting to try, but the fermentation length of time is why I haven't experimented yet.

[distiller_dresden]

So I have two tubes of ML culture sitting in my fridge, here's what I'm going to do-
I have a cherry-date brandy wash getting cooked this weekend, and my all natural cherry vanilla rum wash to cook next weekend. I'm going to use the 2 fermenters to pitch an identical molasses/panela wash, and use the same yeast, same temps, same across the board. Then the one I pitch this weekend with the freed up fermenter will be taken off the lees/yeast bed, and I'll pitch ML 10 days post initial yeast pitch. I'll let it rest and do it's ML thing for 3 weeks (because I have no idea/tool to test for malic or lactic acids) and cook it. The other will be cooked as a usual wash, then I'll compare the two results. Hoping for more 'berry/stone fruit' flavors and aroma in my rum, as well as strong diacetyl/butterscotch in the ML treated wash. As molasses (and I assume panela) has malic acid in it naturally, this is ripe for testing.

I will of course update results as received.

[jonnys_spirit]

You may want to adjust pH so it’s in the range. Temp and alcohol too if possible. Read the data sheet for your MLB. VP41 is a good finisher. When MLF’ing wine it can be finnicky and it’s very sensitive. Stir it up regularly and some sediment or trub is also good for the mlb. You can purchase paper chromatography kit to test for progress and completion. You should do an initial test to get a base amount of malic acid and lactic acid. Further tests show progress and eventually completion.

Cheers and good luck this sounds cool!
-jonny

[Odin]

It will add to the backend, more tails oriented flavors and funk things up.

Odin.