The Formula (4): pH, Temperature, and Time Map to the Holy Trinity

Flavor profiling tells you what you made. This formula claims to tell you how to build it. The power move is connecting fermentation controls to what you taste in the Holy Trinity framework.

Link each control to a flavor direction: pH toward tails depth, temperature toward fruity head character, and time toward the middle/substrate. Then challenge yourself to apply the model to any spirit category.

Quick summary

Context: this is a control model

The Holy Trinity helps you taste heads/hearts/tails effects. This formula claims you can intentionally create more of the molecules that later show up as those effects.

There's one little level that I want to add to it that really is going to shake you up and I hope give you the tools to create amazing whiskeys and rums and brandies and vodkas. Heads, hearts, tails, fruity flavors, substrate flavors, rooty, nutty and earthy flavors at the back that you can detect, front of mouth, middle of mouth, back of mouth, towards your throat. The amazing thing is that this model correlates directly with the Holy Trinity of distillation.

Lower pH: more tails-associated depth

A comparison example is given: same substrate, same yeast, but one fermentation stays around pH 5.5 and another around pH 4. The claim is that lower pH results in more esters related to tails association: more rooty, nutty, earthy back-end character.

You basically have three influencers, pH, temperature and time. What do you think happens if we lower pH? But the great thing is that if we lower pH, For example, we do two runs, two fermentations, same substrate, same grain or molasses, one goes at 5.5, the other goes at 4 for the whole fermentation, the lower pH will actually result in more esters that are related to tails association, to tail smearing, more rooty, nutty and earthy flavors.

Higher temperature: more fruity head character

Higher temperature is linked to increasing fruity flavors. In this model, that maps to head-associated character, so warmer ferments create more fruitiness.

So by influencing your fermentation towards a lower pH, we boost the tails associated third dimension flavors, back of mouth. If we look at temperature, what we see is that the higher the temperature is, given a certain yeast strain, again, the other video will be about that, the higher the temperature is, the more of those fruity flavors, front of mouth flavors will be developed. And in a way, that makes perfect sense, I mean, look at a fruit brandy, that is, take Europe, this is a product from the southern part of Europe, where it's warmer.

More time: stronger middle/substrate

Time is linked to strengthening the middle. Longer fermentation can increase esters that enhance substrate notes, often the hardest part to highlight compared with fruity heads and heavy tails.

Whiskies are from the northern part of Europe, where the climate is much cooler and much colder. For whiskies, you use grains and For example, we use grapes or fruits, fruits for fruit brandy. You can see how the warmer climate that is made, that is around in fruit brandy country, leads to more fruity characters in your fruit brandy, which makes total sense.

So basically, instead of just handing you a toolkit to create more or less flavor, the formula is even much better than that, because it allows you to influence what do you want to highlight. Imagine you go for a full-bodied three-dimensional whiskey, you better bring that pH down towards four. You don't stay at 5.5 or 6, you want it down, because you need to highlight that third dimension.

Apply the formula to any product

Challenge yourself to reason through any category: vodka, whiskey, tequila, mezcal. Decide what profile you want on the grid, then ask what you would change in fermentation (organics, pH, temperature, time) to move the profile.

Continue with Yeast Management: Yeast Control Objectives to build directly on this foundation.

Flavor at the beginning, a lot at the middle and a lot at the back. By making a very late cut during distillation, to allow for a lot of the tails associated flavors to come over in the new make spirit. But we first need to make those flavor molecules, otherwise we can't bring them over.

Where we make them is fermentation, and we can make more of them by dropping the pH of your fermentation. For example, we want a very fruity whiskey, because you remember that I spoke about whiskey, and especially how old whiskey, because the hats faction in aging, the fruity flavors in aging, sort of oxidize and diminish over time. Very often, whiskeys have a problem that they go down here, and that first dimension sort of starts to to run away from us.

Key Takeaways