Pretreatment step for Madhuca longifolia (Mahua Flowers) for fermentation

[theprofoundgeek]

Hello good folks,

This may be something new for you all, a flower exists which is good for distillation. I don't think there would be any other flower which could be standalone distilled. It's called Madhuca longifolia a.k.a mahua flower.

The crude method followed to distilled is taking dried and aged flowers, dumping them in clay pots with 1:1 water ratio, cover the top and wait till fermentation is finished. Yield is about 8% ABV of the total fermented matter (Should I call it a wash?!). Low flame distillation yields about 20% ABV likker which is sweet and smells of the flower. The water used is ground water, nearly neutral PH.

I believe that with proper approach, a better yield could be collected from this and hence this thread. Before I dive into the questions some quick facts about the mahua flowers.

1) They grow pale white in color and are fleshy. They are sun-dried which makes them browish and almost raisin size, 1/5th of the orginal. They are aged as they bloom only for couple of months (the season just ended), these aged flowers which usually turn into a cake is used for distillation, which I guess is because of better yeast colonies in the aged flower cakes.

Fresh foraged flowers.

Sun dried flowers.

Aged. More darker.

2) Nutrient and other composition of these flowers.

As we can see above these flower are rich is sugars, hence I deduced that it's either the yeast strain that's limiting the full conversion to ethanol or it could be lack of enzymes amylase and glucoamylase which would hamper getting the full potential from the flowers.

I am going to ferment a few batches with Wine Yeast with 12% ethanol tolerance and Turbo Yeast with 22 % ethanol tolerance.

My questions are:

1) To let the yeast work in peace, should I add more water for fermentation?
2) Add water, dump the flowers, add activated yeast and pray to lord for ethanol, or prepare a kind of mash with flowers by semi cooking them in boiling water, mash them up in a slurry and then add yeast.
3) Should I use the amylase and glucoamylase enzymes in the slurry, before yeast for a better outcome, and call it Saccharification?
4) With the content above, will this mash need yeast nutrients for better outcome?

Any other ideas are welcomed! I am game for trial and error.

[Ben]

If I am reading that table correctly you only have a tiny amount of starch available for saccharification, I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze.

Can you give better details on how you are getting to 8%, you say 1:1 flowers to water, is this by weight, volume, witchcraft?

What is your final gravity after ferment? You might be able to get somewhere with other techniques, different yeast selection etc.

[contrahead]

I have no direct, knowledgable answers for your questions. But a solution or two might come from selecting the right enzymes. And while you did mention amylase and glucoamylase, realize that these are generally used upon the starches in grains / not fruit or flowers. Realize that there are several other enzymes with which to chose from.

Source: https://www.creative-enzymes.com/resour ... ng_66.html

---------------------------------

I'd seen than name “Longifolia” before but could not put my finger on it. Bugged me. Hours later, and just a few minutes ago, I found what I had in mind. Another tree, from the same corner of the world, but completely unrelated- the Eurycoma longifolia.

Eurycoma longifolia is a small flowering tree with a longstanding reputation in Indonesia and Malaysia as being an effective aphrodisiac. The plant has been used for anti-ulcer, anti-tumor, anti-bacterial, and anti-malarial purposes and is being examined in breast cancer research as well.
Longifolia supposedly increases testosterone in the blood and increases muscle mass, endurance and strength in humans. Three esoteric sounding alkaloids and some glycosides have been isolated from the plant but their mechanism of action is not well understood. It could be mentioned that laboratory studies have shown Eurycoma longifolia to increase middle-aged male rat libido and sexual motivation in sexually naive male rats. The plant’s roots are dried and ground into a powder or boiled into a concoction that looks like coffee. The slow growing plant is in great demand and is critically endangered as the forest of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are being stripped of it.
Wishing to 'horn in' on the erectile dysfunction market, several products falsely claimed to contain extracts from this plant; actually infringing upon Viagra's patented ingredient instead .

[diktater]

definitely do a test batch of say 1lb of flower to 1 gallon of water. id dump a gallon of boiling water on the flowers, cool, take a gravity reading. ferment with lavin 1118 and get a final gravity. you’re shootin in the dark without any real world numbers to build on

[Trapped-in-Oz]

I believe that with proper approach, a better yield could be collected

The Batak people of North Sumatra ferment ‘tuak’ from sweet palm sap by adding the bark of the ‘raru’ tree which results in incredible fast fermentation and an odd taste.

So I think that after a few thousand years the Indian tribal people would already know if there is a better way to make Mahuli. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahuli_(wine)

And if you do find a ‘better way’ it is going to add cost for the tribal people to buy the ‘right enzymes’.

After fermentation what uses do the tribal people have for the flowers ?

..

[The Baker]

Hi,

contrahead, apparently longifolia simply means long-leaved so can be part of the name of many plants.

Geoff

[NZChris]

If you do manage to get a greater yield, you might have diluted the flavor.

[contrahead]

contrahead, apparently longifolia simply means long-leaved so can be part of the name of many plants.

Madhuca longifolia
Eurycoma longifolia 
Morina longifolia 
Veronica longifolia
Asclepias longifolia 
Phlox longifolia
Stellaria longifolia
Calamovilfa longifolia 
Houstonia longifolia
Mentha longifolia 
Lomandra longifolia
Acacia longifolia 

Yep. Looks like you are right.

On a whim I typed “* longifolia” in the search bar, and was rewarded with a dozen different longifolias. All pretty boring plants, except the first two and the last one. The Acacia longifolia from Australia was deliberately introduced to California to control sand dunes. As if they didn't already have enough to gripe about, the crybabies have now put the golden wattle on the 'invasive species' list.