The Maillard Reaction

[Jimbo]

... but taste might well be too intense.

Odin.

YUM. Im a nut on taste, love a gobsmack of flavor. My friends love my beers but they also say the IPA is a tongue scraper and the stout is a meal. LOL. Im so glad I read your comments on fermenting on the grain to get more flavor. And now this for even more Life is good.

Strange that I was a Jack Daniels drinker for so many years. Its disappointing when I taste it now against other bourbons or ours here I wonder if they filter that through heaps of carbon just so they can go wider on the cuts? Whatever reason, it sucks all the flavors out of the hooch.

[frozenthunderbolt]

Anyone here has a slow cooker or oven that can heat as low as 90 degrees C?
Odin.

Yep i've got 3!

I'm Thinking i'll be going back to UJSSM malardised styles! I'll cook the corn in water and some calcium carbonate for 24 hours or so. Heat up some crazy year old aged 3?4? gen back set and use it to disolve the sugar - crazy flavour bomb here I come! 100l wash i think should be enough to strip and do 1-2 1.5x runs to combine.

Just gotta strip and spirit run my deathwatchers recipie first!

[Lupus]

Odin,
You have noted that an alkaline environment would accentuate the Maillard reaction. Any suggestions you can suggest how alkaline?

[Odin]

From what I understand "slightly alcalyne". That's why tap water with ph 7.5 to 8.0 will do fine. You might want to use some Calcium Carbonate to maybe get it to 9. But this is pretty much unexplored teritory, so if you have insights in what ph will produce best flavors ... or are willing to do some experiments ...

"My" rye bread recipe uses a rye bread baked for 14 hours with tap water. Taste is awesome. Since tap water is only slightly alcalyne, maybe that's where the sweet spot is, but who knows for sure?

Odin.

[skow69]

Fantastic post, Odin. I have often thought that chemistry offers much to our hobby that we don't take advantage of, and lamented the amount of screwing off that I did in high school chemistry class.

Here is a link to another pretty extensive discussion of the MR in relation to food. http://blog.khymos.org/2012/06/04/maxim ... -reaction/

I started experimenting with AG just a few months ago. I have been making bourbon with a grain bill of
4# cracked corn
1.5# rolled rye
1.5# 2-row malt
The flavor is good, but it is not that full, rich, satisfying, sipping whiskey taste that I wanted. I believe it lacks complexity.

I now have 3 lbs. of corn in the slow cooker at 195F for the next batch. I haven't yet decided whether to MR the rye or not. I figure I will taste the corn at 12 hours or so, either call it finished or leave it going, maybe add a pinch of baking soda. I don't need to be in a hurry. I'm out of malt and won't make it to the brew shop for a couple of days anyway.

Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Otherwise I will let you know how it goes.

[Odin]

I think your approach is fine. Temps okay. Grain you want to MR is corn and you are after bourbon style whiskey, I guess. You could also MR the rye ... but I wouldn't do that.

For two reasons. First of all, I am curious to find out what MR does to corn. If there is one "grain" out there that looks different, it is corn, so I am curious. Rye, wheat, barley look (and probably behave?) much more the same. Not sure, just curious. I expect corn to benefit less from MR. Dunno why. Maybe because the corn over here is pretty tasteless in itsself. Let's find out! Second reason: MR rye is so overpowering that I needed to dilute it with 2/3rds of UJ's with much less taste to make it drinkable. In a bourbon you want rye as an adjunct. I think if you MR it, it might pretty much dominate the grain bill.

After reading your excerpt, I would want to add some baking powder or Calcium Carbonate to the water used to MR the corn. If my understanding is correct, it is temperature of the MR that mostly influences taste (higher temps = more bitterness), where a higher PH will just speed up the process. So maybe you need only like 3 to 4 hours of baking instead of 6 as in my first suggestions.

Odin.

[Jimbo]

The flavor is good, but it is not that full, rich, satisfying, sipping whiskey taste that I wanted. I believe it lacks complexity.

All those qualities come with age. If you only made it a few months ago keep it on oak and stay patient.

[skow69]

If there is one "grain" out there that looks different, it is corn,

Yeah, Odin, you said that right. That's the first thing I learned about mashing, is how special corn is.

My 3 lbs. has been in the cooker for about 12 hrs. now, between 180 and 190F. The pH started at 7.0. I raised it to 7.9. I certainly don't want to go any higher than that since I'll have to bring it back down for mashing. Did some more reading, and got to thinking that corn prolly has plenty of protein for the reactions, but it's pretty low on the reducing sugar, so I dissolved a little sugar and added that. I don't see any browning going on, and all I can taste is a little sugar and baking soda.

Do you ever roast corn cobs on the bbq? That's what I had in mind. It's a way different flavor from boiled or steamed corn. Maybe that's caramelized. Or maybe it's because that is sweet corn with way more sugars than this field corn raised for animal feed.

On the upside that pot o' corn won't need any more cooking for today's mash. It is gelatinized beautifully. In fact, I'll just leave it in the cooker for the day while I get some more malt and mash it tonight. So if anybody has anymore ideas I would love to try them, but I think we just learned that maize is not a good candidate for the Maillard Reaction.

I will continue to watch this thread with interest. I aspire to ryes and single malts in the future, so keep up the good work. I still think you've got your finger on a bonanza of flavor.

[skow69]

The flavor is good, but it is not that full, rich, satisfying, sipping whiskey taste that I wanted. I believe it lacks complexity.

All those qualities come with age. If you only made it a few months ago keep it on oak and stay patient.

Thanks, jim. Intellectually I know you're right. But emotionally patience is a bitch, now isn't it?

Actually, I am gaining on it. I have several liters in little Barbie-size oak barrels that are two and three weeks old now. My problem [well, one of them] is that I'm lousy at saying NO. When my friends come around and tell me how much they like it, I just get all silly and break out the next barrel.

On the other hand, Isn't this an awesome hobby when that is my biggest problem?

[Odin]

Maybe with corn ... the problem is it won't give upt its starches easily. If I look into Dutch distilling, and if I interpret what my friend Big R does (as well as others) ... it seems like corn really needs a boil to sorta break, give up its starches. Without a boil, you won't free the starches. Red wheat (to a lesser extend) has the same problem. Needs to boil first. Barley and rye need much less heat. Malted grains even less so.

So ... don't give up just yet, Skow! I think the idea of adding sugar is great. But ... just thinking this along as we go ahead ... maybe you should first crack the corn, then boil it for a few minutes and THEN give it the MR treatment with that addition of sugar. Not saying it works, but I would go that way and hope you want to join in.

Posting at the same time as Skow ...

Odin.

[Jimbo]

The flavor is good, but it is not that full, rich, satisfying, sipping whiskey taste that I wanted. I believe it lacks complexity.

All those qualities come with age. If you only made it a few months ago keep it on oak and stay patient.

Thanks, jim. Intellectually I know you're right. But emotionally patience is a bitch, now isn't it?

Actually, I am gaining on it. I have several liters in little Barbie-size oak barrels that are two and three weeks old now. My problem [well, one of them] is that I'm lousy at saying NO. When my friends come around and tell me how much they like it, I just get all silly and break out the next barrel.

On the other hand, Isn't this an awesome hobby when that is my biggest problem?

BAHAHA, Yes it is, I have several assorted things aging gracefully, I however am less graceful as I keep stealing shots of this and that before its time. Patience sucks.

[skow69]

So ... don't give up just yet, Skow! I think the idea of adding sugar is great. But ... just thinking this along as we go ahead ... maybe you should first crack the corn, then boil it for a few minutes and THEN give it the MR treatment with that addition of sugar. Not saying it works, but I would go that way and hope you want to join in.

I'll give that a shot next time around.

You're right about the giving up the starch. The thing is that the grain has to absorb enough water to soften or weaken the cell walls to let the starch out. They call it gelatinization. And corn has a much higher gelatinization temperature than other grains. That's why it needs the boil, and that's why it is so temperamental. Oh well, if it was easy it wouldn't be as much fun, right?

I keep thinking that maybe it would work better after the mash when the natural sugars are available. But that would open a whole new set of complications. Your suggestion is much more straight forward. We should probably think about it some more. On the next mash I'll try that or some combination or something, and we'll see what happens.

[danmiz]

great post odin. gets me excited about doing this tomorrow and trying it out. im going to do sweetfeed in a six gallon fermenter. how many pounds of sweetfeed do i need to use? ive donne sf many of times but you say we can use less grain.

[Odin]

Just to get a good comparison, I would first use the same amount of grain, only MR like 50%.

Odin.

[frozenthunderbolt]

ooOOhh what about soaking raw oak dominoes/ sticks in a alcaline solution overnight before toasting them...

[1bottler]

I am playing , don't really have a clue as to what will turn out....
so far, yesterday I put
350 gm fresh sweet corn
1.5kg pearl barley in a bowl and covered it with boiling water.
let it cool slowly overnight
today I put the stodge in a baking tray with more boiling water, covered and baked at 85-90*c for 3 hrs,
stirred and added more hot water baked for another 3 hours.
tonight I am going to add 1.5kg sugar
juice of a lemon
2 tbsp bread yeast
make up to 10 ltrs and 5 ltrs backset from cornflake brew, see what happens.
I also have available various beer brewing grains including 6 row, if necessary.
Any suggestions welcome before I stuff it up completely

[danmiz]

Just to get a good comparison, I would first use the same amount of grain, only MR like 50%.

Odin.

Thanks. Will do it this weekend.

[rumbuff]

Wow, awesome thread! Has anybody tried this on molasses? I plan on trying to do this to my oats and barley on my next whiskey run, but do you think it would benefit the rum?

[Dnderhead]

that wont work,part of the sugars are caramelized in molasses.thats why it does not ferment to 1.sg.

[Odin]

Just sipped on some I oaked a bit. MR-ed rye bread that is. Almost burns the lips of your face. This needs to be done in moderation. Like part of the grain bill being Maillardized only. And I think due to the abundance of taste/oils/esters there, a long rest for ageing is needed.

Distilled gen III today. Spirit run that is. This time I threw in some 1/3rd of MR-ed red wheat. So much taste there. Put it on Hungarian oak bullets and that's where it will stay for the next couple of months.

To summarize my findings so far:
- The Maillard Reaction gives an increadible "waterfall" of tastes to the whiskey;
- So much that it needs to either be diluted / blended with other non-Maillardized grains;
- And it probably benefits from a prolongued period of ageing, just to sorta "settle out".

The taste has a raw, roughness to it that is amazing. As a whiskey, it is almost like I drink a genever with too much liquorice in there. Long aftermath. Burning sensation to gum & lips. Almost unbelievable that this is a drink without any herbs added.

You know what? I will force age the crap out of what I have right now. Just to see where this is going. I will put it in my ultrasonic cleaner and boost da shit out of it.

Odin.

[Jimbo]

haha, thanks for the laugh!

taking notes here, havent got around to my MR'd run yet, and the toasted blond pale ale I made (with oven toasted 6 row) is still in secondary so havent tried that yet either. Got 32 lbs of panela from sugar daddy to turn into hooch today Then Ill stare at my piles of grains and decide what/how I'l a MR whirl to.

[southern traditions]

Hey Odin,
I racked my first ferment of a UJSSM using the MR method. One thing I noticed is the spent grain (corn) on the top of the fermenter is alot darker then the spent corn on my regular UJSSM. The racked wash is also a different color than my regular UJSSM. If all goes well this weekend I'll be running both washes, a 20L using the MR method and a 40L wash of my regular UJSSM wash both run thru my pot still w/thumper.. I'll let you know how the run turns out.


Martin

[Odin]

Martin, the beers I make for distilling, using the Maillard Reaction, are the brownest/blackest in color so far.

Interested to learn how it turns out for ya!

Odin.

[laughing waters]

This is a great thread, very interesting stuff here. Does anyone have any more to add?

[Odin]

I think it is up to you guys now. Go make it. Ask for details if needed. Share insights whenever they appear. Let's make this recipe start of. I have tried it and know it is worth it.

Odin.

[Jimbo]

Cheers gang. Drinking my mailardized pale ale (Toasted Blond) while doing a neutral strip.

This beer has 2 lbs of slow toasted in the oven 6 row added. Its delicious. Definitely a nice toasty flavor. it will make the keeper list of recipes.

Cheers,

[Angel_Kefka]

I've been slowly making my way through the UJSSM thread and found this one and thought of something. Someone mentioned on here not wanting to use too alkaline a solution to do this because of needing to balance out back out to ferment. With late generation UJSSM the alkaline result from this process would help balance the wash as it becomes overly acidic.

[favnesbane]

Thanks for very interesting inspirational posts on the maillard reaction.

Found this article from a reasearch of the maillard reactions influence on fermentation. The research is done because MR can happen when meszcal mash is heated, and then it has been suspected to make fermetation go bad.

Shortly the article concludes that MR can seriously reduce alcohol prodution during the fermentation, but negative effects of MR may be avoided if Ph in the mash is put down to between 5 and 4.

See:
http://www.aseanbiotechnology.info/abst ... 022799.pdf

[Odin]

Interesting read! Thanks for sharing.

In for instance my Rye Bread Whiskey, I use the Maillard reaction to create a very powerful whiskey taste. I do not want a MR while fermenting, but will MR the grains (or part of them) prior to adding them to a fermentation.

I am not sure I used the correct words, but MR is best triggered with PH 7.5 or higher. So if you want to MR your rye or wheat yourself ... put it with some water, up the PH, warm below boiling temps for prolonged periods of time.

Odin.

[Ridgerunnr]

Hoping this results in something drinkable.
2# flaked Rye...brought 1/2 gal of water to boil , dumped in the flaked rye.
Stirred it up put a lid on and let it sit overnight. Today I spread it out on baking pans
And cooked in oven at 190f for 6 hours. Put into fermenter with 2# corn and 4# sugar dissolved in hot water added enough water to make 6gal and pitched using bakers