Help with off (yeasty) taste

[Airlift90]

Hi All,

I am looking for some help in order to
1. understand where I went wrong so I don’t do it again.
2. Understand what options I have to bring the product back from the grave.

Background:
This is my second whiskey (all grain) run. The first came out better than I could have imagined but lacked a depth of flavour.
So this run I tried to pack more flavour into it.

The recipe:
8kg base malt barley
4kg peated malt barley
1kg crystal malt
1kg flaked oats
Still spirits whiskey yeast

The process:
Fermented out in about a week, potentially I didn’t then let it settle out long enough before running the stripping runs.
The still I used is a 50L Keg, mainly copper column. I did a couple of stripping runs then a spirit run with 2 bubbles plates (which I had just bought so couldn’t resist even though I think I lost some of the flavours I wanted)

I have then put on oak for about 6 months hoping that the off flavours would diminish. 6 months on the taste of yeasty off flavours is pretty much all I can taste.

So thoughts on… is this likely from not letting it settle out enough and boiling the dead yeast?
Is there anything I can do? Re-distill?

[Twisted Brick]

Two errors made, both very common, but quite fixable.

Clear your finished ferment. Some members' palates don't detect yeast but (like mine) yours does.

Ditch the Turbo* yeast for a good ale yeast or even bakers. Avoid LHBS 'house' yeasts.

There are more threads here that discuss the negatives of turdbo's than one can count. There is also plenty of input on the benefits of clearing one's finished ferment. All good learning points (plus many more) for new folks who could have avoided the waste of time and grain costs had they been read beforehand.

*Note that Still Spirits has caught on and has dropped the word Turbo on most of their yeast packets, but do include the damning properties 'advantage of complete nutrition' and 'maximum' (15%) yield in their descriptions.

Refluxing an off-flavored batch will clean up a lot of off-flavors.

Lastly, smaller batches right out of the gate make sense.

[Airlift90]

Two errors made, both very common, but quite fixable.

Clear your finished ferment. Some members' palates don't detect yeast but (like mine) yours does.

Ditch the Turbo* yeast for a good ale yeast or even bakers. Avoid LHBS 'house' yeasts.

This is interesting as I was under the impression that I had never used Turbo yeast. I specifically purchased the yeast “ still spirits distillers whiskey yeast” believing that it was a straight yeast, not a turbo.
Funnily enough though I did use it on my first whiskey run and didn’t get the off flavours.
I suspect my biggest issue was not letting it clear. But I am glad I now know to stay clear of those yeasts. I will stick to angel yeast if I can get it going forward.

[Airlift90]

Just re-read your reply Twisted Brick. So you reckon some reflux can get rid of the off flavours. I take it it will be a balancing act to not lose any whiskey flavours in there?
And tips ?
I have a deflag, can go up to 4 bubble plates and / or a meter of copper prismatics.

[Twisted Brick]

Hey Airlift,

Excuse the delay. Several times I attempted to respond but HD was not letting me in so I gave up.

The best tool to use to really clean up off tastes is a reflux column. Your plater will clean in smaller increments, but will take more distillations to do the job of a packed column. This may be what you're looking for, but you get one or the other, not both: either a clean neutral or semi-clean flavored whiskey with some off-tastes.

Some reading should help you understand the principles involved.

HETP Explained

Distillation Vapor Chart

[Saltbush Bill]

I'm only commenting here because I've been using plated columns for a long time.
Firstly I agree with Twisted, steer well clear of any Still Spirits yeasts. A lot of their products are aimed at the home distiller who is more interested in shortcuts and and quantity over quality.
Most members here don't work that way, infact quite the opposite.
Now onto the plates, and this is only my opinion.
1 ) In my opinion you'd be better off running straight wash and 3 or 4 plates , not low wines and 2 plates.....you will get just as much or close to as much flavour.......less time involved to.
From experience and what I've been told by other plated columns owners , two plates are a pain in the butt to get running properly.
It's also going to be very easy to pull tails through using two plates if you run to fast. Just the same as it is if your running a pot still to fast.
Are you 100% sure it's yeast your tasting and not excess tails.?

[Airlift90]

I'm only commenting here because I've been using plated columns for a long time.
Firstly I agree with Twisted, steer well clear of any Still Spirits yeasts. A lot of their products are aimed at the home distiller who is more interested in shortcuts and and quantity over quality.
Most members here don't work that way, infact quite the opposite.
Now onto the plates, and this is only my opinion.
1 ) In my opinion you'd be better off running straight wash and 3 or 4 plates , not low wines and 2 plates.....you will get just as much or close to as much flavour.......less time involved to.
From experience and what I've been told by other plated columns owners , two plates are a pain in the butt to get running properly.
It's also going to be very easy to pull tails through using two plates if you run to fast. Just the same as it is if your running a pot still to fast.
Are you 100% sure it's yeast your tasting and not excess tails.?

Thanks for this!
I genuinely thought I was steering clear of turbo when I bought the stuff. Lesson learned, I will be finding an alternative.

It could be a bit of tails, it’s hard to tell because I don’t have a bench mark. My first whiskey came out so nice and clean, this is only my second one… could be tails, or it could be I didn’t let it settle???

I suppose the best thing to do is re-distil but with cleaner cuts and see if it get rid of the off taste. If it doesn’t I will take the hit and turn it into a neutral, if it does then I may have something drinkable.

So if I take this approach, considering I have already done stripping runs and a 2 plate run, should I just run it as a pot still? Or do you think it’s worth chucking some plates in?
I don’t want to lose the actual grain flavour any more than I have to.

[Saltbush Bill]

My guess would be to try pot stilling this time, that is if it is tails.
It might well be yeast though, tails was just a suggestion.
See what others think.

[NZChris]

My first attempt to get rid of a flavor I don't like from a flavored product is nearly always using a simple pot still.

Did you record if the objectionable flavor came over early or late in either of the distillation? If you did, that is a clue for which end of the next distillation to be trying to cut it from.

Don't try to cut on the fly. Run into jars and choose a blend from the jars.

'Tails' isn't actually a particular chemical that can be 'cut'. It would be nice if it was, but tails is just a name for the late distillate that we didn't choose to put into the heart cut because the some of the flavors in it were too intense for our palate.

[Airlift90]

I think this outcome has shown me quite a lot so I am glad it has happened.
My first whiskey came out nice, I took small jars and tasted later. I kept the mash simple, I just used a pot still, I recorded everything.
This one is the opposite in nearly every way. I tried to cut on the fly, I tried adding plates and I didn’t record half as much.
I don’t actually remember tasting this off taste during the run, I think if I had I would have pulled it.

I am going to run a slow pot still and see if I can clean it up. If not I will reflux and make a neutral out of it.
Then… start again and go back to basics until I have that down.

Thanks for all the helpful tips and knowledge sharing.

[zach]

From the grain bill, I assume you are trying for a single malt like whisky, used a roller mill, and fermented off the grain.

It's funny how radically different whisky styles are when a hammer mill is used, with un-malted grain, and it is fermented and distilled on the grain. Boiling the yeast is not an off taste in this style, and can produce vanilla and caramel flavors. A freshly charred barrel and hot rickhouse tame the spirit which is much more bold.

Not that one style is better than the other, just different.