At some point, every distiller has a reason to check on efficiency. Maybe you’re concerned with sustainability. Maybe you need to know how long it will take for an efficiency upgrade to pay for itself. Or, maybe you’re just trying to prove that you’ve maxed out capacity before an investor will provide funds to scale up.
If the thought makes your stomach turn, you’re not alone. Many craft distillers fear that measuring their yield will put them under pressure to sacrifice quality and character in the name of efficiency. However, yield improvement is less about rewriting that award-winning cookie recipe, and it’s more about not leaving chocolate chips in the bowl.
“While I do think it’s true that there are some approaches to yield improvement that are more married to the accountant’s bottom line than they are to product quality,” says Matt Strickland, master distiller at Iron City, “nobody in my opinion is going to tell you that you should think about improving yield at the cost of quality.”
Yield improvement can, in fact, be the opposite of a quality-sacrificing assimilation process. It can provide opportunities for the distillery to distinguish itself.
“We’ve really just scratched the surface of what you could do,” says Strickland (who also is a Spirits & Distilling contributor). “There’s loads of room for innovation.”
It starts with understanding your unique system by studying yield at each step. From there, you can make custom improvements that prioritize quality.