Sweet Mash -vs- Sour Mash

[Paradox]

While doing a little research for making the "how bourbon is made" part of my site I came across something I honestly never heard of. Well, perhaps I did and just paid it no mind. Anyways, I did some searching around on here as well as the net and found out a bit about it. I knew with the Sour Mash method it involved leaving some culture or mash from a previous batch to be added to the next batch, similiar to making sourdough bread.

Now in the Sweet Mash process new yeast is processed quickly over a few days.

I 'think' I remember also reading somewhere that the sour mash process results in a lower Ph whereas the sweet mash process usually has a higher resulting Ph but it is loweded with the addition of an acid. Anyways, my questions is this: Do any distilleries use the sweet mash process? I've read on the internet and even on Buffalo Trace's webstie that they di indeed use this process. While reading posts on here I have read no current US distilleries use this process. Anyone have any information to share about this? I see that Chuck has previously written about this process and did make mention that no distilleries use this process. Chuck, do you know if there has been a change in practice over there or do they possibly use both practices for different products or something? Thanks for any input guys...

[OneCubeOnly]

I've read on the internet and even on Buffalo Trace's website that they do indeed use this process [sweet Mash].

Are you sure!? Their PR video thing specifically says it's a sour mash process:

"The corn is added to mashing water which has been heated to its boiling point. As the mixture cooks, rye is added. After the mixture cools, the malted barley is added and now the mixture becomes a sweet mash. When the mash temperature reaches 64°F, yeast with a small amount of previously fermented mash or sour mash are added. The sugary enzymes of the malted barely feed the yeast to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide."

[Paradox]

Yep. Says so here, though I am wondering if they just aren't clear about the whole process in general.

Like I said, the thing that made me wonder about all this is another site somewhere stated that BT was the only distillery to still use the sweet mash method. But once I saw Chuck say otherwise in a previous post from some time ago it made me wonder... I doubt he is wrong, this other site didn't sem very reliable anyways. I just want to know if I should correct my site now haha.

[bobbyc]

Thanks to Dr Crow for sour mash. What I have read states that the Sour Mash process results in a superior product. Tdelling says it is a QC issue only. The Regans say Jim Beam uses 42% backset. It seems to me they are " Wearing out the water" at that point.

The thing I want to find out is where do distilleries get the backset after a shutdown, Or is the first run sweet mash and then it goes to sour mash. Sam Cecil specifically states that at the Old TWSamuels plant they had a contract with Hueblin for spent mash after a shutdown.

All that I have read on this which may amount to " Not Much" I have seen no praise for sweet mash. It's like Brick warehouses , only the ones with them and the doers of sweetmash, claim it's better.

[Paradox]

The thing I want to find out is where do distilleries get the backset after a shutdown, Or is the first run sweet mash and then it goes to sour mash.

I believe that some actually get backset from other distilleries. Makers Mark, from what I have heard, gets theirs from Heaven Hill.

[bobbyc]

That's the obvious answer, Mark. I plan to ask around to see what they will admit to. I would think this to be a secret on the order of the yeast thing.

It would seem that there are more similiarities than differences at this point. But here we go........Bump in the road....... With only Buffalo Trace, HH , and Maker's running Wheat, do they schedule so that someone has it going all the time, I can't imagine Maker's using a backset with rye, And I can't imagine that someone is running wheat every week of the year...........Busted...... I guess they could freeze a big chunk of it

[boone]

Bobby,

I don't think you can freeze it...Like Chuck's logo says...Whiskey don't keep...Well I spect that "backset don't keep" either ...LMAO

Bettye Jo

[Paradox]

I was wondering about freezing it as well for a bit haha. I know yeast cells from a pure culture are kept under refrigeration but not about some backset.

[bobbyc]

Shouldn't the yeast be dead, after exposure to 170degree plus heat? Actually I have had conversations to the contrary.

[Gillman]

That's right Bobby. I thought the function of backset was to provide unfermented sugars to the next batch of beer, adding of course the quality of consistency through some chemical principle.

Gary

[bobbyc]

And also to lower the PH Hence the name " Sour Mash" the yeast work more efficently in a more acidic environment.

[Gillman]

This factor (the PH you mention) may be the main one. I was just reading in Byrn's book on distillation (1875) that the unfermented sugars in spent beer can't be used again, he says they are "gummy", they won't ferment and he suggests that spent beer be used as fertilizer! Interesting that he seems to show no knowledge of what James Crow pioneered 50 years before. Then too this is a Euro-centric work which seems to not take much notice of what Kentucky was doing in distillation.. Maybe a case of (to mix metaphors) .. sour grapes?

Gary

[ratcheer]

Well, I do know that the famous Czechoslovakian pilsner, Pilsner Urqell, claims to have maintained the same continuous yeast culture for over 1300 years! First, they are European and second, they have been doing it for a very long time.

Tim

[OneCubeOnly]

Well, I do know that the famous Czechoslovakian pilsner, Pilsner Urqell, claims to have maintained the same continuous yeast culture for over 1300 years! First, they are European and second, they have been doing it for a very long time.

Yes, but for beermaking it's a different process. In distillation, you actually boil the beer so the alcohol vapors climb your distillation tower. In beermaking, you can simply bottle your wort, then put fresh wort over the old yeast cake...keeping it vital.

[Gillman]

Well, yes and no. Breweries have to revive their yeast about every 5 brews else it would go haywire/sour. They do this by reference to a pure culture maintained in labs (a fairly modern innovation). That, or they get new yeast (if there is a total yeast failure for some reason) from one of their brewing neighbours, a gentlemanly practice that endures in the alcohol businesses..

Czech pilsener was invented in the 1840's as a golden bottom-fermented beer. Before that beers were generally murky dark and top-fermented at ambient (warm) temperatures. So the Urquel yeast had to be new (not the brewing tradition, but the yeast). The major beer type before its invention (and historically in German lands and still in the U.K. and Belgium until recently) was ale - dark top-fermented beer which could only be made in the autumn until the spring. Cold (bottom) fermentation was perfected in the 1800's in a number of locales in Middle and Eastern Europe including Pilsen. So, before the new era of cultured yeasts working at cold temperatures assisted by mechanical chilling, beers were much more variable in flavour than the new beers such as Pilsener Urquel (and Munich lager, Danish Carlsberg, etc.). So the PIlsen industrial bottom yeast was new and was certainly helped by scientific savvy coming onstream in the mid-1800's (e.g. Pasteur in France). Very relevant to distilling. Old time distiller's yeasts likely were exotic but variable. This is why (I think) Lincoln Henderson in the current Malt Magazine insists whiskey today is overall better than back then: there is better control, in yeast anyway, and he mentions yeast as a vital flavor contributor.

Gary

[OneCubeOnly]

Well, yes and no.

Sorry, but yes and yes. All the song and dance you posted about how beer is made doesn't change a thing about beer vs. distilled spirits. And yes, you're absolutely correct about having to correct the yeast every 5 or so batches--that's what's called mutation. You can't trust your old yeast strain after 2 or 3 batches.

The same doesn't hold for distilled spirits--the wort is BOILED before it's fractionated in a column or otherwise--you can't just decide at random to recycle the strain.

[Gillman]

Sorry, I wasn't talking about whether beer is boiled to make spirit, of course, it is and sorry my post didn't distinguish clearly what I meant.

I meant that I doubted Pilsener Urquel maintained the same yeast culture for hundreds of years.

As for beer being boiled to enter a fractionating column, before it is boiled, I would think fresh yeast can be, and is, removed from the beer to add to the next mix of backset and fresh mash. Removed before the boil, that is.

By the way my opinions are just that. I studied (as a hobby) beer for 30 years before learning about whiskey, and I am happy to learn more anytime, where I am wrong or don't know the area.

Gary

[Blackkeno]

While reading posts on here I have read no current US distilleries use this process. Anyone have any information to share about this? I see that Chuck has previously written about this process and did make mention that no distilleries use this process.

I seem to have read that no current STRAIGHT WHISKEY distilleries use a sweet mash process. I have heard that some other US (e.g. single malt or grain neutral spirit) whiskey producers may use a sweet mash process. I don't think I've seen this in writing though, so I can't say which ones might do so.

[OneCubeOnly]

I seem to have read that no current STRAIGHT WHISKEY distilleries use a sweet mash process.

That's pretty much what started this whole controversy---Mark seems to think that BT uses a sweet mash process. Their public-relations video says it's a sour mash process, although he's 100% correct that their website cites a sweet-mash process.

[Paradox]

I'm beginning to think more and more that they do use the sour mash process and their site just is not very clear on it after hearing others opinions on the matter. I am going to write someone over at Buffalo Trace I know and see what they say for clarification. I'll be sure to post back, probably sometime tomorrow, with the final verdict straight from their mouth haha.

[Paradox]

Ok guys, and the final answer is:

" <font color="green"> Yes. All Bourbon (including ours) is made using the sour mash process.

Our Rain vodka is made using a sweet mash process and it maybe that we refer to our bourbon making process as sweet mash until the point where we add sour mash.

Hope that clears the mystery up.

</font>

I guess that makes sense to call it such until the time the backset is added, but it made for a confusing read on different websites haha.

[bourbonv]

I have a copy from 1818 of a pair of recipes from a woman distiller in Kentucky. On one side is a recipe for sweet mash distiller's beer, the other, a recipe for sour mash. In this recipe sour mash was a process more similar to sourdough bread. In modern times the process has changed. By the time the mash has been distilled the yeast is dead and the spent beer is used only to recreate the best environment for the yeast strain to grow in by helping to match the ph of the mash. I suspect that on a start up situation most distillers will use some other acid in their mash to get the proper ph thus making it a "sour mash". I know Chris Morris stated at L&G that that is what they do for the whiskey they are distilling for Woodford Reserve.

Mike Veach

[Bob]

I am glad they clarified that for us. Their comments on the web site which started all of this should be better explained. They should know some of us REALLY read these things!

[Gillman]

Mike, that is very interesting. Can you elaborate on the woman distiller's concept of sour mash? Do you mean she collected yeast from the ferment and added it to the next mash to ferment the next batch of beer before it was distilled?

If that is correct that is different from the modern understanding as you said.

I looked again in Byrn's Practical Distilling text of 1875. (This book in its reprint form was mentioned on this board about a year ago, it can be purchased from Glenn Raudins, the reprinter, at www.raudins.com). The book is mainly concerned with distilling proper. But Byrn does discuss mashing, and fermentation in a number of passages. Twice when talking about French methods, he says spent wash is taken from the still and mixed (always, he says) with water. Then it is added to a mash to "cool and dilute" it. He says this is done because there are unconverted starches which still can be converted and even some sugars that (despite his statement elsewhere in the book that these are unfermentable) can be fermented to make more alcohol. He says also this process can only be used 3 -5 times successively because the spent wash becomes too acid, he actually says, "sour", and fermentation will not occur after such number of applications. This suggests he meant the distiller must ferment completely anew (no backset) after about 5 sourmashes.

A separate point he does not address is whether yeast is collected from the fermented mix of backset and mashed grain to add to the next ferment. I assume (but don't know for sure) that yeast must today be collected in this manner, as in straight brewing, to add to the next mash (whether it has backset or no and one thing is sure, that backset will have no live yeast in it).

Can a brand new yeast be prepared from a pure culture for each mash? Is that feasible given the amount of yeast needed in large scale mashing? I don't know the answer to that one but have always assumed the distillers would collect yeast from a previous mash, store it and use it for the next one until they need to refresh it for reasons earlier discussed.

Gary

[bourbonv]

Gary,

Yeast is always added to the mash. Some use bag yeast, other raise their own from a culture, but they always add yeast. The spent beer is used only to create the best conditions for that yeast to grow. The yeast in the spent beer is dead by the time it is added to the mash. This means that if yeast was not added, you would be depending upon wild yeast from the air for your fermentation and there is no telling what type of product you would end up with in your beer.

I would also find it hard to believe that one distiller would use spent beer from another distillery to sour their mash because of the different yeast strains and more importantly different grains or amount of grains could change the flavor of the product. Someone mentioned Maker's Mark using Heavan Hill spent beer for their start up, yet until recently, Heaven Hill did not have a wheated bourbon, so rye would be in that spent beer. What would that do to their flavor? I don't know, but I am willing to bet Maker's Mark does not want to find out the hard way if it was bad for their flavor profile.

Mike Veach