High ester yeast for whiskey

All styles of whiskey. This is for all-grain mashes.

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Single Malt Yinzer
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Re: High ester yeast for whiskey

Post by Single Malt Yinzer »

Beerswimmer wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 6:51 pmBelle Saison, in making sour beers... I would love to hear results that people had using yeasts like Belgians and hefewisse yeasts.
I just used a Belle Saison for a high rye mash. My next rum will be a Kveik.

Jr-dist wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 4:52 pmHave any of you used wine yeasts in your ferments. Many read like they produce various esters plus i have read that many distilleries have multiple yeast strains?
EC-1118 is a very common one but it's more of a neutral profile. I have a friend that's just starting to try different wine yeasts for brandies. Yeast strain selection is a wildcard for the commercial types. Most craft people if they are not super geeks will stick to one strain per product type (one for whiskey, one for rum, etc). A number will only use baker's yeast for everything. And some will use a wide variety to develop different flavor profiles for blending later.
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Re: High ester yeast for whiskey

Post by cayars »

Have a quick read on their website what Four Roses does:
https://fourrosesbourbon.com/our-recipes/
https://fourrosesbourbon.com/our-process/

2 Mashbills
5 Different Yeasts Strains
10 uniquely different Bourbon recipes

Distilled using a whiskey column and a doubler (pot like still)
They oak at 120 proof
Different year aging of barrels
Bottle at least 4 different proofs

Just think what could be done at the home level if you also oaked at 100, 105, 110, 115, 120. 125 to bring out different flavors from the oak or even just 100 and 125. Mixed with different ages and you have the ability to develop some very complex flavors from 2 similar but different mash bills.
Programmer specializing in process control for ExxonMobil (ethanol refinery control), WT, Omron, Bosch, Honeywell & Boeing.
More than a decade working for NASA & FAA Tech with computer code used on Space Shuttles and some airline flight recorders.
tombombadil
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Re: High ester yeast for whiskey

Post by tombombadil »

Windsor has always produced some nice estery beers for me. I use it for all my English ales now. Bitter, brown ale, barleywine, old ale...

It may not be a good choice for whiskey though.

It does not ferment dextrins at all so mash low and/or use glucoamylase.

It does not ferment real fast like distillers yeast.

The alcohol tolerance is listed at only 8%, but I regularly get 10% out of it.

Im definitely going to try it out soon purely because of the ester production, but it probably is not ideal for something that's going to be distilled. Maybe pitch it and let it go for a couple days to get some esters going before tossing in something stronger to get a faster and more complete fermentation.

Edit: it does not ferment multotriose. Which is one of the sugars produced during a normal beer mash. Mashing at lower temp reduces multotriose, so when I've mashed at like 140 I've been able to still get a pretty dry beer (under 1.015). However, multotriose may not be produced from a corn mash?
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Re: High ester yeast for whiskey

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Single Malt Yinzer wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 5:26 pm
I just used a Belle Saison for a high rye mash. My next rum will be a Kveik.
How was the rye? Please post your results with the rum, I'm thinking about using Voss for my next rum barrel.
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Re: High ester yeast for whiskey

Post by vagabondmountainman »

I haven't used Saison yeast for rye yet, but have had amazing results using it for bourbon, so I'm guessing it would be similar. I've tried white labs french saison, saison 2, and trappist high gravity yeasts for different bourbon runs and they have all been very good. I repitch the yeast after using it to make a batch of Belgian beer, and the notes it provides to beer really carry over in the distilled whiskey as well. Compared to the same grainbill fermented with my other go to Bourbon yeast (007 English Ale) the Belgian yeast bourbon has a subtle but very noticeable floral nose and taste to it. It adds a whole layer of complexity. Highly recommend it. Of the 3 Belgian yeasts I mentioned, the French Saison ferments the dryest, and is the most floral, with the Saison 2 being in the middle. The high gravity has really unique esters as well but not quite as over the top floral. All 3 benifit from a higher than usualy fermentation temp--like starting around 70-72 F or higher and letting it run. With the Saison yeast fermenting up in the 80s makes a supper floral, high ester whiskey.
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