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So this rabbit hole runs deep.



The guys are discussion the Cousins process vs the Aroyo process.

Essentially they are discussion how the Aroyo process uses fission yeast and higher pH to reduce fussel oils and increase rum oils. They go into how rum oils are essentially comprised of damascones, which is a compound that doesn't have any extraordinary aroma or flavors itself, but rather exponentially enhances esters when it is present. Allegedly, low pH rum production techniques rely on bacteria such as lactobacillus to create their rum oils, whereas the Aroyo high pH process gets its rum oils straight from the fission yeast, while simultaneously minimizing fussed oil production.

I might be misinterpreting some of this, I want to listen to this podcast a couple more times.

This makes me wonder....
Ate these "rum oils" the same ones talked about in Pugirum?
Also, why don't we discuss fission yeast vs. budding yeast more? Where would one source some fission yeast?

Hillbilly Popstar wrote: ↑Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:54 pm I might be misinterpreting some of this, I want to listen to this podcast a couple more times.

F me sideways. I need to listen to this several times too.
Not only has this guy done his homework....he's done it for the whole class.

juana_b wrote: ↑Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:48 pm

Hillbilly Popstar wrote: ↑Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:54 pm I might be misinterpreting some of this, I want to listen to this podcast a couple more times.

F me sideways. I need to listen to this several times too.
Not only has this guy done his homework....he's done it for the whole class.

According to him, many distillers aren't even on this level.

Dude talks about unfulfilled prophecy, as in a rum of such high quality that we've yet to see the likes of it.

I mean, it's probably a bunch if hogwash, but it kinda gets you pumped. What if Aroyo was on to some science that has yet to be realized?

Just got to the mention of jackfruit. this guy is blowing my mind.
Thanks for posting this

Wow, that guy is serious about rum. Very cool stuff

juana_b wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 12:29 pm https://www.carolina.com/fungi/schizosa ... /156282.pr

Nice find! I'm about to order some.

Like I said, I need to listen to the Podcast again. But I find it curious that the arroyo process involves high PH and fision yeasts, yet the fission yeast is also beneficial because it has a much lower ph tolerance. Makes me wonder if I was misunderstanding something.

https://www.atcc.org/products/24843
This link states that I would need an import permit from Hawaii.

juana_b wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 1:07 pm https://www.atcc.org/products/24843
This link states that I would need an import permit from Hawaii.

Ffs... They make it sound like that's the stuff from Resident Evil.

Was the source Umbrella Corp by any chance?

My order went through on that Carolina website. I hope the yeast doesn't ferment my entire body into some kinda Cronenburg monster.

Bonus points if you caught the reference

Sorry, never got into rick and morty.
Please let us know how it cultures.
Even the Carolina site states "for educational purposes only".

juana_b wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 1:42 pm Sorry, never got into rick and morty.
Please let us know how it cultures.
Even the Carolina site states "for educational purposes only".

Oh... I ordered it for educational purposes alright.

First I gotta culture it and get enough to experiment with.

Then I wanna make a low pH and high pH ferment side by side and compare the two.

I'll be watching

I really can't believe there aren't more HD regulars nerding out on this.

I guess the old adage about old dogs and new tricks applies here.

Looks like you're going to have to be the "Messiah, anointed with holy rum oils, to fulfill the prophecy"

Nice! I couldn't track any pombe yeast down. I'll be interested in any results....

A bit of clarification is needed. Damascones and Damascenone absolutely have a scent and flavor of their own. They are praised for how that aroma enhances others, but you can order pure compounds and see for yourself or just read here:
https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p- ... enich.aspx
https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p- ... -beta.aspx
https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p- ... gamma.aspx
https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p- ... alpha.aspx

Also, a note on Schizosaccharomyces pombe, it is 10,000x more famous for studying DNA, genetic engineering and the like than it is for fermenting rum. So the sample from Carolina or any lab supplier is not likely to be especially desirable. On the brightside protocols for mutation and screening are well developed. I just want to tamper expectations that all Schizosaccharomyces pombe is amazing. The sample I got from my local university was not interesting at all on first pass.

I suspected the pombe may need some nurturing. Seems like the ferment is slower and more nutrient intensive, too.
His site mentions strains from different parts of the world. Those links were the only places I could find where it could be purchased.

juana_b wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 11:14 am I suspected the pombe may need some nurturing. Seems like the ferment is slower and more nutrient intensive, too.
His site mentions strains from different parts of the world. Those links were the only places I could find where it could be purchased.

You might be able to get a culture started from grapes.

Lincoln University in NZ might have some.

So where would one look to find this protocol for evolving a more desirable yeast for rum?

I found this on ADI forums re: gin through a birectifier. I need to do a lot more reading, but it seems there may be someone here that may know more and has not chimed in:


bostonapothecary
bostonapothecaryActive Contributor
Vendor
74
Posted July 10, 2018
The birectifier, which I've resurrected, was the renowned laboratory analysis still of Rafael Arroyo. He died young and the design was lost for the last 60 years so it was never applied to gin production. My pet project within my other birectifier work is successfully applying it to gin development. I also have the lost Seagram botanical assay protocols for precisely standardizing a botanical charge which are quite pragmatic and I think are from the 1930's. I am hoping to fuse the two ideas.

The birectifier is typically operated with a charge scaled to 100 ml of absolute alcohol and 8 fractions of 25 ml are collected every 15 minutes. So this is slow incredibly high reflux micro distillation. When collected carefully and faithfully, comparisons can be made, fraction to fraction, across multiple distillations. What is special is how very different all the fractions are from each other. This was well understood with typical spirits from fermented products, but what would happen with gin?

Gin surprisingly ended up with well differentiated fractions that we can learn a lot from. A role model gin was carefully analyzed here (there is lots of other great stuff in the post beyond my quote here).

Quote


For organoleptic tasting, the modified German protocol was used taking only 5 ml of each fraction to allow for future work. The dilution was 3x for the first four fractions and 2x for the last four fractions.

Fraction 1. No notes of fermenation character which indicates a very clean neutral spirit base. Angular notes, but nothing especially gin-like. Only a slice of a complete juniper experience. Ever so slightly cloudy in its undiluted form.

Fraction 2. Similar to fraction 1. Angular notes and no distinct notes of roundness.

Fraction 3. Growing citrusy character. More significant differentiation between fractions 1 and 2.

Fraction 4. Ever growing citrusy character, possibly from the coriander.

Fraction 5. Unique botanical character. A lot of stuff lives here like the personality fraction of spirits from distinct fermented products. Far more intensity than the other fractions. Palatable unlike some rum oil fraction 5’s. This fraction is very low alcohol, but something else contributes to a unique viscosity and mouthfeel, likely the essential oils. I would not be surprised to find a unique surface tension measurement.

Fraction 6. Subtle staleness. I suspect everything is baseline laissez-faire here, but this contains a character I’ve noticed in some past prime botanicals. No sensation of acidity.

Fraction 7. Similar to fraction 6.

Fraction 8. Similar to fraction 6 and 7.

The last three fractions seem to contain no sensory information about the juniper.



Expand
A lot of this complements and adds weight to Odin's teachings, but can be used to refine things and create in depth first hand experience. The process can be used to follow along with role models and organoleptically evaluate the quality and consistency of botanicals before graduating to the Seagram protocols. It is easy to create an actionable path to making a new production fit the shape and outline of role model.

Incredibly, all the auxiliary botanicals seem to get pushed into fraction 5 which tell us a lot. For starters, we can test funky botancial choices for their potential with the birectifier by where their aroma ends up. If it is in fraction 5, it is on the money. The birectifier is like a scalpel meets magnifying glass so we are cutting away noise and magnifying things. This helps investigate complexity achieved by a botanical formulation. The tool may help elaborate and refine choices so that each batch progressively improves.

Eventually, the distilling decisions will be paint by numbers and we'll be able to shift our involvement to the quality of the botanicals themselves and our create linkage concepts. I'm going to keep diving into this and hopefully I can produce some really useful protocols for people.

zapata wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 10:59 am A bit of clarification is needed. Damascones and Damascenone absolutely have a scent and flavor of their own. They are praised for how that aroma enhances others, but you can order pure compounds and see for yourself or just read here:
https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p- ... enich.aspx
https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p- ... -beta.aspx
https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p- ... gamma.aspx
https://shop.perfumersapprentice.com/p- ... alpha.aspx

Also, a note on Schizosaccharomyces pombe, it is 10,000x more famous for studying DNA, genetic engineering and the like than it is for fermenting rum. So the sample from Carolina or any lab supplier is not likely to be especially desirable. On the brightside protocols for mutation and screening are well developed. I just want to tamper expectations that all Schizosaccharomyces pombe is amazing. The sample I got from my local university was not interesting at all on first pass.

That would be TEMPER expectations?

Geoff

NZChris wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 12:34 pm

juana_b wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 11:14 am I suspected the pombe may need some nurturing. Seems like the ferment is slower and more nutrient intensive, too.
His site mentions strains from different parts of the world. Those links were the only places I could find where it could be purchased.

You might be able to get a culture started from grapes.

Lincoln University in NZ might have some.

Thanks, NZChris, I'll look into that.
With the "import permit required?", at this moment, I'm leaning toward not having DLNR agents meet me at the mailbox.... So I'll be looking at other angles.

I'm willing to bet we find this stuff in more places than we know, as of yet.(sourdough, lambic may be a place to start looking) I mean, I struggle to think of a creature that has been more influential to life as we know it as these guys have been. They have to be everywhere.

zapata wrote: ↑Thu Jan 04, 2018 2:52 am
I've long had the notion of making a "rhum grand arome", a flavor bomb so strong it is only used in blending. I'm excited by the notion of targeting the esters not just by acids, but by specific alcohols too.
E.g., supplement with leucine, have acetic acid present and end up with bananas or pears (isoamyl acetate). And/or with butyric acid present you get apricot or mango (isoamyl butyrate).

Thanks, zapata, I appreciate your input greatly, I see you've been down this road before.

Y'know, what,
For a few weeks, I was in a comfortable nook in the rabbit hole, and then Hillbilly, NZChris, and zapata have just dug it out from under me, again...

NZ Chris said, 'You might be able to get a culture started from grapes.'

Of course if you mash up some grapes and keep it warm you will have your grape yeast culture started.

Geoff

So we do know for a fact that the naturally occurring yeast on grape skins is a fission yeast?

Can one draw the conclusion that most wild yeast is also fission yeast?

Boston Apothecary has a whole blog post on culturing pombe to develop a suitable strain for rum production, if anyone hasn't seen it yet...

Oatmeal wrote: ↑Wed Mar 16, 2022 5:12 am Boston Apothecary has a whole blog post on culturing pombe to develop a suitable strain for rum production, if anyone hasn't seen it yet...

I haven't seen it yet for 2 reasons: 1. I'm island hopping for the next couple days or so for work, and 2. every time I go to the site I start reading other stuff like IRS papers on plywood aging barrels. wtf
I did stumble on a list of strains here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/B ... gi?id=4896

https://www.cshlpress.com/pdf/sample/20 ... tChap2.pdf

Hers a bunch of info on S.Pombre.
Hope this helps !