EVER wondered where your wheat ends up? Maybe in bread, noodles or scones? What about vodka?
The wheat from Jamie Frost's farm is making its way into the vodka bottles at the new Hippocampus Metropolitan Distillery.
Mr Frost grows wheat, barley, oats and triticale on his certified organic 800 hectare farm near Dumbleyung.
The Australian soft wheat varieties Corrigin and Tincurrin he grows were a good fit for vodka, Mr Frost said.
"The flavour profile is really important in making vodka and the soft wheats have a low protein with higher starch levels," he said.
While yields tended to be lower in the organic wheat crop compared to conventionally grown wheat in the area, the 1.5-2 tonnes/ha yields attracted a premium for use in organic foods.
"We also have longer rotations of two years of pasture to one year of crop, which helps keep weeds and pest under control," Mr Frost said.
His grain is processed at Eden Valley Biodynamic Farm mill near Dumbleyung and sold to Hippocampus where it is used to create vodka.
Founded in 2014, Hippocampus crafts vodka and gin onsite at its distillery in West Perth.
The new outfit is also becoming known for its award-winning gin, made in the dry London style.
Distiller Alex Poulsen has a long history working with a wide range of well-known WA brewers and distillers, including Cheeky Monkey in Margaret River and Little Creatures.
While studying pharmacology and biochemistry at university, he quickly discovered a life in a lab coat wasn't going to suit and travelled throughout Europe before returning to Perth and taking up the role at Hippocampus.
Mr Poulsen said the distillery experimented with barley-based vodkas, WA raspberry and strawberry gum gin and various wheat varieties before landing on its current recipe.
Hippocampus use 25-28t of wheat per year to brew 65 fermentations, which yields 25-30 bottled batches of vodka.
Wheat is fermented for a week in hot water with white wine yeast to create a "boozy porridge" with a 10 per cent alcohol level.
The mix is put in the "Rolls Royce" Carl custom-built copper still for its first distillation, reducing the mix from 1500 litres down to 500L and upping the alcohol content to 30pc.
The second distillation removes any unpleasant characteristic and purifies the alcohol. In the process, the mix goes from 500L down to 80L, with a knockout alcohol content of 95pc.
The batch is distilled a couple more times to remove the "heads" and "tails", retaining the "hearts" as the best part of the brew.
After a short four weeks ageing in the bottle, the final product is a smooth, subtle tasting vodka which is sold Australia-wide.
Despite many vodkas marketed on the amount of distilled and filtration it goes through, Mr Poulsen said the high quality wheat meant there was no need for filtration.
Vodka can be made with a range of ingredients, but he said the best quality were made with grain, each giving its own subtle taste.
"Vodkas made with rye have spicy characteristics, barley savoury, potato starchiness but wheat gives a subtle sweetness like vanilla or baked bread with a really rich mouth feel,'' he said.
"It's all about exercising subtlety, such as a pilsner beer or delicate white wine."
He said Hippocampus didn't set out to be an organic vodka distiller, but it found the soft wheat varieties sourced from Mr Frost's farm yielded the best quality wheat for vodka.
"The characteristics of a good vodka are all about neutrality - odourless, colourless and tasteless," he said.
"However, we are pushing back on this and believe it should have some characteristics and you should be able to pick what it is made from.
"It makes sense that we use wheat when we live in WA where the best quality wheat is grown - with each bottle containing the 'spirit of wheat'."
