Taste compares : Standard Mash versus YLAY

[Dougmatt]

Sitting here contemplating this…. The oak while coming from the same batch, and being toasted at the same time, could be a reason for at least some of the variance. . I think I may wash and switch the oak sticks between the glasses…..

Thoughts?

[Pure Old Possum Piss]

There are lots of people who cannot smell or taste Boar Taint. There is a gene responsible for whether or not you can taste it. If you can, it's inedible! It smells and tastes like hog urine and feces. Only about 25% of people can detect it.
I'm wondering if there is some gene that makes YLAY taste so bad that a few of us can't stand even a couple of sips.
My neighbor had been making liquor also since the late 50s. But about 5 years ago he had a bad heart attack and he couldn't manage to make it anymore. I started making extra for him when I made mine. Anyhow, I wound up trying a brick of YLAY in a 50 gal batch. It took about a month (cold method) instead of a week but it ate the hell out of that corn. When I went to squeeze it, it looked like a bunch of toenail clippings and a bit of muck.
I ran it and I damn near threw up when I tasted it. But Joe loved it!
He bought about 10 Bricks and had me mashing it for him every month. I tried cold water method. Took shit a month and a half. I tried cooking the corn for 90 mins@180° and it got the time down to about 2 weeks. I tried it a bunch of different ways, add DADY, add Lactos but I could never stomach it. But Joe loved it.
Who knows? There may be one in 5 people that have a gene that allows them to taste the YLAY taint just like people who detect boar taint.
I wish I couldn't taste it, it's a lot cheaper, faster and easier than traditional all grain mashing.

[NormandieStill]

Normandie, with the lower grain-to-water ratio, did you experience any issues with liquification and getting the beer our after ferment?

Sorry, didn't see this post earlier.

Since I got my steam setup working, I've been steam stripping my beers. But without doing anything clever, I get ~60% of the total volume as clear beer. From my previous experience, I suspect that if I were to squeeze the remaining slurry and let the resulting liquid settle, I could recover at least 60% of that as well. As it is, I just chuck the lot into the boiler and steam the hell the out of it. I get a lot of flavour carry-over this way. A lot more oils too.

[Homebrewer11777]

@Dougmatt could you share a brief description of the still and distillation process you used for this experiment?

[G0DAX3]

- something funky (kind moldy, but very, very light)

is the smell look like bread starting to mold?

as its rhizopus stolonifer who cause bread to rot, same family as the rhizopus oryzae from the YLAY.


btw really thanksfull for the side by side comparaison, find it realy usefull

[Yummyrum]

There are lots of people who cannot smell or taste Boar Taint. There is a gene responsible for whether or not you can taste it. If you can, it's inedible! It smells and tastes like hog urine and feces. Only about 25% of people can detect it.
I'm wondering if there is some gene that makes YLAY taste so bad that a few of us can't stand even a couple of sips.
My neighbor had been making liquor also since the late 50s. But about 5 years ago he had a bad heart attack and he couldn't manage to make it anymore. I started making extra for him when I made mine. Anyhow, I wound up trying a brick of YLAY in a 50 gal batch. It took about a month (cold method) instead of a week but it ate the hell out of that corn. When I went to squeeze it, it looked like a bunch of toenail clippings and a bit of muck.
I ran it and I damn near threw up when I tasted it. But Joe loved it!
He bought about 10 Bricks and had me mashing it for him every month. I tried cold water method. Took shit a month and a half. I tried cooking the corn for 90 mins@180° and it got the time down to about 2 weeks. I tried it a bunch of different ways, add DADY, add Lactos but I could never stomach it. But Joe loved it.
Who knows? There may be one in 5 people that have a gene that allows them to taste the YLAY taint just like people who detect boar taint.
I wish I couldn't taste it, it's a lot cheaper, faster and easier than traditional all grain mashing.

Thats very interesting POPP . I’d never heard of Boar taint before .
That explains why I find a lot of Pork tastes like Piss . Could never put my finger in it but that’s it . Some doesn’t and it’s really enjoyable . Other Pork is horrid .

Strangely , I have never liked any YLAY made booze . It all has a weird taint to it . It’s not bad to the point where I would spit it …..it’s just not nice and every sip is a struggle to enjoy .That explains a lot .Sux to be me I guess .
But then , I don’t get head aches …. Win some loose some .

And I like Coriander

[PalCabral]

If pork tasted like piss for me it would be disaster. I love pork. Going to BBQ pork shoulder today in fact. But my son doesn't like it. Hmmm.

[Pure Old Possum Piss]

There are lots of people who cannot smell or taste Boar Taint. There is a gene responsible for whether or not you can taste it. If you can, it's inedible! It smells and tastes like hog urine and feces. Only about 25% of people can detect it.
I'm wondering if there is some gene that makes YLAY taste so bad that a few of us can't stand even a couple of sips.
My neighbor had been making liquor also since the late 50s. But about 5 years ago he had a bad heart attack and he couldn't manage to make it anymore. I started making extra for him when I made mine. Anyhow, I wound up trying a brick of YLAY in a 50 gal batch. It took about a month (cold method) instead of a week but it ate the hell out of that corn. When I went to squeeze it, it looked like a bunch of toenail clippings and a bit of muck.
I ran it and I damn near threw up when I tasted it. But Joe loved it!
He bought about 10 Bricks and had me mashing it for him every month. I tried cold water method. Took shit a month and a half. I tried cooking the corn for 90 mins@180° and it got the time down to about 2 weeks. I tried it a bunch of different ways, add DADY, add Lactos but I could never stomach it. But Joe loved it.
Who knows? There may be one in 5 people that have a gene that allows them to taste the YLAY taint just like people who detect boar taint.
I wish I couldn't taste it, it's a lot cheaper, faster and easier than traditional all grain mashing.

Thats very interesting POPP . I’d never heard of Boar taint before .
That explains why I find a lot of Pork tastes like Piss . Could never put my finger in it but that’s it . Some doesn’t and it’s really enjoyable . Other Pork is horrid .

Strangely , I have never liked any YLAY made booze . It all has a weird taint to it . It’s not bad to the point where I would spit it …..it’s just not nice and every sip is a struggle to enjoy .That explains a lot .Sux to be me I guess .
But then , I don’t get head aches …. Win some loose some .

And I like Coriander

Boar Taint is only found in Male hogs. If you castrate them young enough as soon as their nuts drop they won't develop the dreaded taint.
I love pork and eat more of it than chicken beef or fish. But I just can't stomach taint. You can usually smell when it's cooking, but now and then you dont. I'll spit it out.
I've quit buying anything but female feeder pigs because I'm too old to be castrating even little hogs.
You ought to Google Boar Taint . It's an interesting read.

[Steve Broady]

The breadth and depth of knowledge and experience on this forum never ceases to amaze me. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would go looking for conversation about liquor and learn about raising hogs. Or any of a WIDE range of other topics, for that matter.

[Rusty Ole Bucket]

Y'all are not lying about boar meat, even as young as a shoat can get nasty. It's hard to describe the taste, but I won't even try a bite if the smell is present. I can smell it when the raw meet is unwrapped, instantly. My gandma said the meat was "strong" and would make a face. As a farm kid, I was around hogs all the time, all the males got butchered before they were even weened, the females we would let get a little older. We started buying a female piglet every year for the freezer instead of raising several to maintain stock. I know I wasn't mad about it, I was the one feeding up and hogs are mean.

As far as the original post, I haven't done a side by side comparison, but some of y'all might remember my only YLAY ferment to date was the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe. It definitely had a funk, kinda pukey in fact, I finally got it all out with a third distillation. I'm planning another batch of that this fall, once it cools off, so I can do a side by side at that point with the recipe the same except for the yeast. I was thinking about trying an ale yeast this time since I haven't used one yet and they're supposed to impart some cool flavors depending on how you control the temp.

Rusty

[Dougmatt]

@Dougmatt could you share a brief description of the still and distillation process you used for this experiment?

Basic pot still.

Distillation process was 3 strips combined to make one spirit run. For the side by sides I didn’t recycle and feints. Cut points were determined by collecting in jars and then tasting each jar to find transition points.

[higgins]

The last few posts in Experiment: 4 different distilling methods with same wash we talked about setup of a blind triangle test. That was actually in reference to this topic.

Early last year I made 2 bourbons (X and Y) with the same grain bill - 70% corn, 22% rye, 8% barley malt. One was done with my standard mash process: corn meal in fermenter, top with boiling water (w 10% backset), mix, add HTLAA, insulate, set overnight. In the morning adjust temp to 150F, add rye & malt, mash at 145F 2 hours. Cool to <130F, add gluco, cool to 90f, oxygenate, pitch fermsolutions 917 whiskey yeast. The other was done by adding 115F water to the grain, oxygenate, pitch YLAY.

Both got 3 strips - 2 of clear beer, 1 steam strip of the mash slurry. Then both were run thru my 4" flute with 3 sieve plates. These were barreled in badmos (heads came from same board) in May of last year.

So my 5 bourbon buddies and I did a comparison of these today, proofed down to 94. I had each of them wrap 3 glasses with blue painter tape (to remove the influence of color) and label them 1,2,3. I had them leave the room and poured their glasses so they each received 2 of one and 1 of the other, but in different orders: XXY, YYX, YXY, XYX, YXX. I made a notation of who got what and put that in my pocket. Then I had one of them come in and fill my glasses the same way - 2 of one and 1 of the other, in any order.

When they all came in I said the goal was to sample the 3 glasses, using aroma and taste, and specify which one was different from the other 2. I was able to correctly pick the outlier, but they were so similar that 4 OF THE OTHER 5 TASTERS GOT IT WRONG!!.

So it may be a moot point to talk about the differences, but the most common comment was that the std mash bourbon was POSSIBLY a bit sweeter and corn forward, but that wasn't unanimous. They were amazingly similar given the vastly different mash process.

I'm sold on the fact that YLAY can produce a great bourbon and won't hesitate to do it again.

[G0DAX3]

thx higgins for the time and the effort spend on this comparaison.

did the yield was similard, by math how efficient was de convertion of ylal vs standard mash?

[Saltbush Bill]

Some great feedback there Higgins, thankyou.

[MooseMan]

Thanks Higgins I've been looking forward to this result.

If I'm honest I thought they would pick it out based on lots of the comments around the forum about YLAY. I guess time to mellow on wood evens things out to the point where there's very little difference.

I can't see that I'll ever stop using the YLAY process, except maybe with a different enzyme/yeast blend if the prices continue to rise.

[PalCabral]

Great work, Higgins. Thanks for sharing the results with us!

[Corn Cracker]

Well, im not regretting my purchase of ylay now. After reading this thread a while back I got some but was worried about off flavors after reading the comments. Do you attribute the succes to proper ferment temps for ylay (i understand too high and you get the off flavors)or the oaking/aging process. Now that I'm waking up and remembering, it seems the ylay had less flavor when it was fresh and white.

[Homebrewer11777]

Thanks for this. Surprised but not really.

There is that rule of thumb chart floating around that puts yeast impact on whiskey flavor at 10% vs maturation process at 50%. I am assuming this applies to aged whiskey and the further you get into maturation the more impact comes from there.

You personally may always be able to pick these out due to tasting experience over the life of the product...there may be some very minor tell that your brain recognizes that you are not even consciously aware of...something you smelled during fermentation or the stripping runs... But my guess is these will get closer and closer over time and become even harder for tasting panels to distinguish.

[higgins]

UPDATE:

Thursday we visited these two bourbons again.

This time we didn't do the double blind tasting and we did see a difference in color, but did not know which was which. They were both very good, yet still quite different.

When it came time to pick a favorite, one picked the traditional, one picked the YLAY, and the other 5 called it a draw, including me. They were definitely different, but both very good and I like both of them equally.

It was mentioned by more than one taster that one was more like a traditional bourbon (later identified as the traditional one), so apparently YLAY produces some congeners that aren't usually found in traditional bourbon.

I may visit these again next year, but the conclusion is that while YLAY makes a very good whiskey, it is a bit different from a traditional bourbon. I would not hesitate to use it again.

[PalCabral]

Very interesting, higgins. It does make sense YLAY will produce congeners that sets it apart from other yeasts. But I guess this could be true between two tradional yeasts, like M1 and USW-6, as well?

I have co-pitching YLAY with USW-6. I cant say I notice any particular differences but I am going with it. Let’s see.

[Beerswimmer]

I'm sipping on my recent first sample of 2yr old YLAY bourbon from my 30 gallon solera starter barrel and it's got nothing that I can attribute to yeast. Just grains and the barrel. I taste boar taint, I taste no difference in YLAY than other bourbons. MY personal opinion: YLAY has no flavor influence whatsoever, it's neutral and you just taste the grains . But that's just me.

[PalCabral]

I'm sipping on my recent first sample of 2yr old YLAY bourbon from my 30 gallon solera starter barrel and it's got nothing that I can attribute to yeast. Just grains and the barrel. I taste boar taint, I taste no difference in YLAY than other bourbons. MY personal opinion: YLAY has no flavor influence whatsoever, it's neutral and you just taste the grains . But that's just me.

I think the difference may come from how you cut it. I have noticed that YLAY has a bigger head fraction than my normal USW-6 yeast. So I will cut the whiskey a bit differently than if I used a classic yeast. This will influence the flavor.