Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, guys, I think you'll be fired up about this one. We keep this Master Distiller series going on with Oscar Vasquez, and today he's going to talk about cooking. He's going to go in and talk about the methods using a stone oven versus an autoclave versus high pressure versus a diffuser, and talk about a little bit of how those things go into making tequila. It's a pretty cool video. Due to some technical difficulties, though, I did lose the last 12 minutes of this video.
We got cut off due to some Internet issues, and we just could not get it back on to fix that. Last 12 minutes. Some of that was just wrapping up, saying thanks and goodbye.
So I hope you enjoyed the piece that we had. The next one we're going to do is going to be on fermentation, which will be really awesome as well. So stick around and check out this video.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: It's tasting tequila with bread.
All right, I'm excited to be here with the main man, the guy making fantastic tequila. Master Distiller, Oscar Vasquez. How you doing tonight, Oscar?
[00:01:06] Speaker C: Hey, amigo. Pretty good. Thanks so much. Thanks. So thanks again for having me for the invitation that you are making. You are making a very, very good videos and information and everything. So thanks. Thanks so much for. For. Let me be part of that for sure.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Well, it's. It's you. It's people like you and brands like the brands you work with that let me do this and bring this information. So I appreciate you taking your time tonight. So first thing I'm going to do, though, is I'm going to pour a little bit of the Chapter One manuscript. I got to be drinking something while we're talking. Okay, you got some of that. What are you drinking? You got something that you're drinking tonight?
[00:01:46] Speaker C: Actually, I'm drinking just water, to be honest.
[00:01:50] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: He's. And I need to be drinking tequila all day today.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. So I have the greatest opportunity in this life to drinking because. Because it's my job. You know what I mean?
So I.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Absolutely. I would. I don't know that I could have your job.
[00:02:06] Speaker D: I.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: My liver would probably be toast if I did that because I drink too much.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Let me tell you this. It's very complicated, but somebody had to do so.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Okay, so tonight, what I'd like to talk about is the cooking methods of making tequila and how those different methods of affect the taste of tequila. So let's start with. What is your favorite method of cooking?
[00:02:29] Speaker C: It's. It's a good question, actually. So talking about some scientific information, as far as you know, in the. As an industry, we have three ways in order to cook the agave, right? Let me try to explain you a little bit that ways and maybe at the end I can give you my honest opinion about what I do prefer. So in my experience or the industry, we are using a brick ovens or stone ovens or concrete ovens or so ovens, like in that way, mostly common as. As an. A brick oven. Also we are using a lot of the autoclaves, right? Those beads, big stainless steel, steel like pots, something like that, in order to give it. Agave is not so common. Well, it's very common for the massive production of all the big brands that the diffuser, right. Every single one of the methods has his own particularities, has his own good ways or bad ways for saying, for say, for say something because it's not good or bad. This perspection is what are you looking for in your tequila, right, in your. In your final profile? So make this sense for you?
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Yes, very much so.
[00:03:41] Speaker C: So in my personal career, in my personal profile, professional job, I am familiar with the brick ovens and with the autoclaves. To be honest, I never work with another fusion. So the diffuser is the most industrial. When we are using an diffuser in the industry, we can extract as much as possible, almost all the sugars from the agave, right? Because we are making. We are getting the sugars due on a chemical extraction. So at the end of the day, if we are looking for some numbers, for example, and the diffuser is very, very.
Right, because just with amount of kilos, we can produce some tequila. So since the point of view about the efficiency, it's very, very efficient, right? We can use, I don't know, three kilos, four kilos of agave in order to produce one liter of tequila. The flavor, the quality. Quality is just a word, okay. It's for sure very, very different instead that the tequila that I produce it in autoclaves or in ovens. But again, when you are looking for the efficiency, fusion is a good.
Sadly, the diffuser has not that good reputation in the industry. Because at least for me, and this is again my. My personal opinion, the diffuser, it's a very, very good tool when we are looking for some specific alcohol or efficiency. Again, right, because the way that the diffuser is extracting all the sugars from the agave and for example, if we are selling ethanol or some kind of a fuel coming from the alcohols, then the diffuser is A very good option because it's highly efficient. Makes sense this for you, right? It's true. And it's. Yeah, it is. Is not just for me. So it's not a secret that the tequilas making in a diffusers. Sometimes. I not say that always. But sometimes that tequilas are not very good to drink or it's not in the preference of the most of the consumers.
[00:05:38] Speaker D: Right.
[00:05:39] Speaker C: Because it's kind of easy to get some tequilas in the cheap way, very fast tequilas. Just the alcohol and you know what I am trying to say, right? Yeah.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: So the deficiency is not only making more sugars out of the agave, but stripping away some of the flavors that we get by properly cooking the agave and probably putting a little bit more of those alcohols there that cause people to wake up the next morning going, no, I can't do that ever again because they're having a lot more of those negative alcohols in there. The diffuser is probably better to just go make agave syrup with it and not really make tequila with.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: Exactly. Yes. So that's. That's a good thing in order to understand bit more the industry.
[00:06:19] Speaker D: Right.
[00:06:20] Speaker C: So at the end of the day, not everything is bad. Not everything is good. It's. What are you looking for with your own profile with your tequila, with your tasting? Actually, that's the. Yeah, you are right. When we are cooking on, when we are extracting the sugar from the agave for the diffuser method, it's kind of easy to understand that we are just obtaining just one kind of sugar. Is not all the complexity of sugars that we can obtain or we can get from the cooking process.
[00:06:47] Speaker D: Right.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: So at the end of the day, the fermentation process is really, really different comparing with the outer case or with the ovens. And at the end of the day, we are looking for the complexity in the fermentation process in order to get a very complex tequila. That's my opinion.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: I think that's a good opinion. I agree with you. So when. So let's. Let's roll to a stone oven, a masonry oven.
[00:07:08] Speaker D: Right.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: When you're cooking in that masonry oven low and slow and they don't cook evenly. Right. The steam's coming in from usually the bottom and you're cooking those agaves at the bottom more than those ones at the top, and it all kind of pushes down as it's cooking. What are the different chemicals and alcohols that are being created during that cooking process in a low and slow masonry oven?
[00:07:32] Speaker C: Yeah, Right now we Are talking about the ovens, for example, the good things and the bad things. And again, good or bad is just a word. So. So it's very common. It's very common when the. When we are producing some tequila using the. The oven. Yes, you're right. So the people say no, they got cooking in a oven. It's the best because we can get a lot of flavors, more minerality, more sugars, more something, right? In my opinion, yes, it's true. We can get a very complex flavors using an.
An oven.
But also we need to understand a little bit how is the way that we are putting the steam inside into the oven. And try to understand a little bit how the heat or the steam it's trying to cover all the system, all the oven. It's really common that the other industries has just the steam in the bottom, right.
If you can understand a little bit or imagine that you are the agave and you are just in front of the steam outside or something like that. So it's kind of probable that agave it's cooking a little bit faster than they're around, right. Because the steam is just in front.
[00:08:49] Speaker D: Right.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: So another thing, if we can analyze, if we can check very precisely the temperatures inside into an oven, we can realize that in some parts, not in all the. The oven, the heat is not very constant. So I am just saying that for example, if we are sending steam in 97, 98 or 100 Celsius degrees. Yes, the steam has 100 Celsius degrees. Once the steam is outside of the pipes and the steam touch something a little bit colder then those 100 Celsius degrees. Right now it's 97, 98, 95. It's enough temperature in order to start to cook all the system for sure. But in my opinion, or at the end of the day, we can realize that for example, some part of the ovens it's in 94 Celsius degrees. Another one is a 93 Celsius degrees. Another one it's a 97 Celsius degrees. So all this combination, for sure, it's trying to give you a different complexity processing the tequila. But when we understand a little bit how we are turning or how we are making the hydrolysis from the sugar, we can get, for example, one compound that we call them furfural. Fur. Fural. I do believe that, that you say sorry. So that's right, the fur.
Fural. When you have the opportunity to read a little bit, it's a normal process. So it's a normal alcohol that we are producing into the cooking. It's the same. So it's normal. It's something that normal we are producing because at the. At the very, very end of the day, all the hydrolysis from the sugar is not complete. There is always, always there is some sugars that is thorning in something like born. So it's over cooked that agaves or that sugars and then the fur fural or the fur fural is when they started to. To came and. And to be present is normal. So all the industry, all the tequilas has fur fural. Actually is something that we are checking in every analysis that we are sending to the the crt. According by the Mexican law for the production the tequila, the maximum is 4.4.0mg per 100ml if I can remember. So if we are not reaching that maximum, it's okay, it's safe, it's safe. Tequila, we can say we can drink it if we are in that number above or more than four, then we need to make some blends or something different in order to get down that number. Are you following me? So the oven for one side, yes, for example, in my opinion. And an oven can give you more minerals, more flavor, more that kind of flavors because makes sense you are cooking your agave in a stones, right?
So it's very probable that at the end of the day you are getting some mineral flavors because you are cooking your agave into the stones. But at the same time, if we consider a little bit this kind of different heats inside into the oven sometimes it's kind of common that that level of food. Food for example is a little bit higher. Comparing for example, if we are using an autoclave, the stainless steel.
The stainless steel for sure is not giving to you some mineral. Because at the end of the day the stainless steel has not reaction with the. With the sugars or with the agave.
We are using the stainless steel or the autoclave just to cook.
[00:12:39] Speaker D: Right.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: But also it will understand a little bit how the heat has a distribution in all the system. In all the autoclave is more consistency that for example 96 or 97, 97 Celsius degrees in all the autoclave in all the system.
[00:12:55] Speaker D: Right.
[00:12:56] Speaker C: Because the heat has different distributions.
So in my opinion and in my experience, the levels or food for all in the autoclaves, it's very constant than that lower comparing with the. The break open. But at the same time an autoclave is not giving to you some minerals. So are you following me?
[00:13:18] Speaker D: Right?
[00:13:19] Speaker C: We have a Good one. We can found a good balance using one system or using another one.
For example, the autoclave. Also if we are looking for the efficiency the autoclaves, it's something very efficient because we can cook the agave in an autoclave in six hours, eight hours if we need to, right? It just increase the steam, just increase the pressure. And in a six hour, eight hour, the agave is already cooked in order to make some profiles, right? We are sending a good amount of steam, a good amount of temperature, but in a low pressure. So instead to cook the agave inside in autoclave for each hour, we are cooking the agave autoclave in 20 hours, 21 hours. So like an oven, because we have that ability, or the autoclave, the stainless steel has that ability in order to play a little bit. Not, not just with the time, also with the pressure, right. In an oven, for example, it's kind of complicated.
Cook your agave in a faster time if you are looking so faster or if you are looking some efficiency or something like that.
Because we need to hit all the stone and we need to hit all the system, right? So you can realize in some point we need to get to try to understand a really good balance, a really good well balance between the efficiency, the flavors, the agave. So nobody, maybe it's, it's something that nobody, not, not too much people is thinking. But how is the way that we are getting the steam from the distilleries, we are getting the theme into a boiler, right? So heating water to make some very important, make some steam. So the way that we are using the boilers, it's burning some heavy oils, for example, in order to turn the water into steam, right? Makes sense that for example, imagine one oven that you are spending, I don't know, two, three, four days cooking in two, three, four days. The boiler is, is never stop. It's permanently running, running, running. And for sure it's burning some heavy oils, right. In an autoclave, for example, if we are cooking your agave in six hour, okay. It's just six hours that the boiler eats. It's. It's working. So are you following a little bit?
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Yes, 100%. So I have a question on the. The water that's going into that boiler, that's coming from whatever that distilleries water source is. That's the same water that we use to proof down the tequila, right?
[00:16:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's very common that this, the source of water in the distillery is using for everything for the boiler, for the mineral, for the Distillation, fermentation, dilution. So yeah, it's. It's very common.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Okay, so I know that some of the minerality that we get in a stone oven is from, from the stone, of course. But wouldn't some of the minerality that we're getting also come from the minerality of the water that's being used? And therefore wouldn't you still have some minerality in the autoclave? Since you're using that same deep well water source or Springfield water source, wouldn't that still play into the autoclave like it does a stone oven?
[00:16:43] Speaker C: Maybe.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: You can say no.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: That'S some point. So everything all your question, according by my experience or my opinion, has some point. For example, talking about the minerality in the water, as we know the water has his own minerality, right?
There is some soft water, there is some hot waters. So different kind of water. For sure. The water is very, very important for the process in all industries, in all the distillers. So let me try to change a little bit your question. What happened when a distillery is just sending the water into the boiler, right?
So the water into the inside into the boiler, it's making some steam. So in some way all the minerals, all the nutrients, all the things that we have in the water, we are making a concentration because. Because we are making an evaporation, right? So actually it's really common to understand how for example, the incrustations into the pipes on and everything it's present.
[00:17:51] Speaker D: Why?
[00:17:52] Speaker C: Because the. The water has mineral. Even in your house you can see a old pipe with incrustation of minerals. So, so in this way, some distilleries, they are using some chemical products in order to make soft water, right?
Or making some treatment to the water before to the sand into the boiler or before to send to the fermentation. Because sometimes that minerality can play in our favor or in the opposite type when we are making different things. So you see how complex is your question actually, right? What we are looking for. So what is the way that we are taking the decision into. Into the distillery?
In my experience, for example, here in Arandas on this area, we have a really, really gentle water, a really good water. So it's heavy a little bit, but it's not so has enough has a very, very good amount of mineralities in order to don't use for example, some softeners or in order to use some chemical products in order to make that water more soft in order to get a good paper, good steam or good fermentations or good distillations. You know what I mean?
So your question at the end of the day is really, really deep.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: So. Okay, so let's talk about one of the things I've noticed when I'm there. So I've eaten cooked agave from a stone oven. I've eaten cooked agave from a low pressure autoclave. I haven't had high pressure autoclave while I was there. But every time I have agave from a low pressure autoclave, it is juicier and sweeter than the agave I've tasted from a stone oven. Is that because the pressure lets that water kind of stay in that agave more where it's escaping more in the stone oven?
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Yes, actually.
So for example, it's, it's. You see how you almost. You say the, the answer, by the way, when we are using an autoclaves, everything is sealed, everything is closed.
[00:20:03] Speaker D: Right?
[00:20:04] Speaker C: That's the affiliate. In order to. That's a good way in order to use for example, high pressures. Because the steam is not running. The, the steam is not escapando The. The steam is not running outside.
Yes, exactly right. So when you are sending the steam and that steam touch the agave and now that the steam is not anymore steam, now it's hot water for say something we start, we start to is rotate a little bit more the agave inside into the autoclaves. Because the liquid has not way in order to go outside or in order to disappear or something like that. It's very common that some ovens, the ovens has some liquids or has some. It's leaking, you can say. So when you're cooking your agave in into the oven, that oven, you can realize that is in the ground, right? It's is just in the, in this, in the flat area in the ground.
So for sometimes that sugar or that water, that juice try to go. Or liquid or leak leaking from some parts of the same oven.
[00:21:26] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:27] Speaker C: And sometimes you are losing in some way a little bit of that juice because the oven is not closed, is not sealed as an stainless steel.
Are you following me a little bit?
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Like when you go to 1414 and you're standing outside of the brick ovens and the doors are shut, but the steam is shooting out the sides of those doors and it, it smells so awesome. But you can see some of that liquid, you know, kind of seeping out of the sides of those doors or around the bricks. So you're losing potentially a little bit of that moisture where in the autoclave it can't go anywhere. It's in there and it's staying in those agaves, maybe making them a little bit juicier, if you will, than the ones that maybe are coming out of the stone oven. And maybe more of those around the outside or closer to the steam where they get a little hotter, are going to be a little drier and lose some of that juiciness, is what you're saying.
[00:22:26] Speaker C: Exactly right. Because so you, you have the.
For. For. It's good for me that you are present very often intra distilleries and watching different process. And yes, when you are in front of the oven, even you can see how the steam or the, the juices are liquid or are going a little bit. Because it's not on a closet system.
[00:22:52] Speaker D: Right.
[00:22:53] Speaker C: It's kind of impossible or it's very, very complicated. Try to seal in order to avoid that something is releasing or escaping or, or just going, just disappearing.
[00:23:05] Speaker D: Right.
[00:23:06] Speaker C: In an autoclave, like sitting on a closet system, it's very easy. Or say something in order to handle that loses or that steam or the liquids.
[00:23:17] Speaker D: Right.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: So for example, let me share this with you.
For most of the bottles that you have just in front of you, I am using ovens, right?
Yes. All tequila that profiles the cooking process is into the oven behind of you, I can see the bottles of tequila corrido. So tequila corrido, it's cooking in an autoclave in a low pressure.
[00:23:45] Speaker D: Right.
[00:23:46] Speaker C: So it's. Now I am answering your question. What I do prefer, to be honest for me has a very good advantage or disadvantage or not good things. Both systems. I don't have a favorite, to be honest.
Not in the cooking, not for cook.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Okay, so here's a question and this, this kind of short answers of what you think comes out of each one. So we have different flavor profiles. So when we're tasting through tequila, sometimes I can tell the difference if it's a roller mill or if it's a tohona. Sometimes I can tell in my flavors that I feel like it's more autoclave versus stone oven. So what, what are most of the flavors that are imparted in a tequila done low and slow in a stone oven? What are your, your most, the profile flavors that you're most likely to pick up stone oven, low and slow?
[00:24:40] Speaker C: Well, this, this is my, my answer.
How is the way that we are cooking that agave?
[00:24:46] Speaker D: Right.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: How is the process?
[00:24:48] Speaker D: Why?
[00:24:49] Speaker C: Because according by the books, we need some temperature in order to reach.
In order to make the hydrolysis, which is the hydrolysis in order to turn that complex sugars in fermentable sugars, it doesn't matter if it is in an oven or in an autoclave, we need some minimums.
But when we are making the hydrolysis we can found so we cannot. We have a complex sugar. This complex sugar is inulin, right? Inulina.
So inulina or the inulin is the most complex sugar that we can find in agave, at least in the blue agave waiver. So due the hydrolysis, we are cutting that complex sugar in simple sugars, which is mostly fructose and glucose.
So when we are sending the glucose and the fructose into the fermentation process, the yeast is turning in a different kind of alcohols. The branch the sugars came in from the fructose on the. Or the sugars coming from the glucose, right?
So this ability, it's the thing that we are using in order to get very complex tequilas. Because also when we are making the hydrolysis in the, in the brick or in the sans steel, we are not making an 100% hydrolysis all the times. Always some amount of that sugars has not turning into simple sugars, you know what I mean? And anyway the yeast try to eat that sugar in make another compounds in another processes. So my final answer, it's depending a lot the way that you are cooking your agave, right?
Because it's kind of complicated, at least to me give. To you giving a precisely answer because it's, it's.
It's complicated. So we need to have a lot of imagination in order to try to understand how is the way or how is the path that we are following making different flavors, right? Are you following me or, or, or not?
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I follow you. I mean what I gather from that, which makes a lot of sense to me, is there's. There's not a single piece of that profile that comes directly from cooking it. It comes from the whole process. So if you're going to make a tequila that is maybe more floral and more citrus is going to be a combination of how you cooked it, probably how you shaved the pinka on the agave and then how you fermented it, pine or stainless, length of time, type of yeast. And then also the process of distilling is going to be more of how each one of those pieces create a profile that's maybe more floral or a profile that's more vegetal or a profile that's brighter and cleaner. So it's. What you're saying is not just the cooking. It's a combination of all those pieces.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: Exactly. Produce tequila, at least in my opinion, is a combination of all the steps.
[00:27:58] Speaker D: Right.
[00:27:59] Speaker C: Since the agave. Yes, for sure. Since the maturity of the agave, since the harvesting, since the way that we are cooking. So it's in a very good. You have a very good answer, by the way, because it's the combination of everything. So I always try to share with the. With the people. Produce tequila is a hundred percent.
[00:28:16] Speaker D: Right.
[00:28:17] Speaker C: Make the count, make the match.
Water. I. I am not counting the water because the water, it's very important.
It's very necessary in all the process.
[00:28:28] Speaker D: Right.
[00:28:29] Speaker C: So for me, the water. I. I don't mention the water because the water is the same important as the production by. By itself. You know what I mean? Okay, if we can skip the water.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:42] Speaker C: If we have good water, we have a good possibilities in order to get a good number.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: All right.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Sorry, we lost that last 12 minutes. I know he gave us a lot of information in there, and I hope that's really helpful and you learn more about the tequila manufacturing process. Our next show will be about fermentation and he'll go into all of the different facets of making different flavors in tequila based on how you ferment. So thanks for watching these shows. Thanks for tuning in. If you have any ideas or things that you would like to have Oscar cover any questions, please put them in the comments. Thanks. Have a great night.
