StillSmart

Re: My New Process

2011-07-24T10:10:07+00:00

Thanks for the tips, I'll give those a try. It really is just a flavour thing for the rum as everything I have tried ferments dry in 2 days on the molasses. Even good old allisons bakers yeast does fantastic. On a sugar wash I was pushing 20 day ferments with allisons. It finishes my molasses wash off in 36 hours.

Statistics: Posted by Capt-Cudellez — Sun Jul 24, 2011 10:10 am

Re: My New Process

2011-07-24T09:29:40+00:00

Capt-Cudellez wrote:
Hi phantom, i use 1 level tsp per fermenter and I have found that the ec-118 performs better with it than without. I have very soft, quite tasty water, 2 malt whisky bottling plants within 10mins drive, and several brewery's in the other direction.
I guess if I could find a yeast that prefers the sofer water I could get away without using it, but as the wash is still really neutral in flavour, I'm happy with this one for now.
I've also read that some folks suggest ec-188 should only be used for flavoured spirits as the yeast its self can produce off tastes, I haven't had any problem.

Other than gin, I have got quite into doing rum. Im currently doing 3 ferments with different yeast to see how the flavour is impacted. There is a noticeable difference in the taste of the beers with the yeast being the only variance.

Ok, well if you prefer it like that, then hey! WTF

For your rums, it might be prudent to try yeasts like those that seem to do the bollocks for meads - given the similarity (or likelyhood of similarity) to a honey must (sugar content and all that stuff). So, K1V-1116 (easily obtained) and/or D21 (not so easily obtained i.e. probably mail ordered from Morewine in the US).

regards

P!

Statistics: Posted by Phantom — Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:29 am

Re: My New Process

2011-07-24T09:14:55+00:00

Hi phantom, i use 1 level tsp per fermenter and I have found that the ec-118 performs better with it than without. I have very soft, quite tasty water, 2 malt whisky bottling plants within 10mins drive, and several brewery's in the other direction.
I guess if I could find a yeast that prefers the sofer water I could get away without using it, but as the wash is still really neutral in flavour, I'm happy with this one for now.
I've also read that some folks suggest ec-188 should only be used for flavoured spirits as the yeast its self can produce off tastes, I haven't had any problem.

Other than gin, I have got quite into doing rum. Im currently doing 3 ferments with different yeast to see how the flavour is impacted. There is a noticeable difference in the taste of the beers with the yeast being the only variance.

Statistics: Posted by Capt-Cudellez — Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:14 am

Re: My New Process

2011-07-24T08:31:49+00:00

Well, I don't do my ferments on that kind of scale (good on yer though....)

I was just looking at your comment about

and a few teaspoons of gypsum to correct my soft water, it's much cheaper than buying turbos.

I've been reading some of the "handbooks for distilling" that float around the net, and pretty much all of them suggest the use of the softest water possible, because of the issues of taste and quality that surround "hard" water and the presence of calcium and magnesium salts. In fact, they suggest using rain water, but given the difficulty of harvesting rain and keeping the quantity clean enough, that a good substitute is reverse osmosis or distilled water.

So is that part of your process really necessary ?

regards

P!

Statistics: Posted by Phantom — Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:31 am

Re: My New Process

2011-07-23T20:30:06+00:00

Boiled bakers yeast that I get for free from the local tesco bakery. Some potassium based fertiliser, vitamin B tablets, and a little citric acid.
I first did this making rum, following the pugi-rum recipe over on the artisan distiller site.

After some very long ferments following winos plain ol sugar wash recipe, i swapped out the bakers yeast and started using ec-118, it was slower than expected and nearly stalled so finished it with some additional yeast neutrient from the HBS. next time I put one down, I added a load of the yeast bomb I had left over from a rum wash. finished in 4 days flat.
After doing this a few times, I tried repitching on the lees, and it took off like nothing I've seen before, the thing was bubbling before I got the lid on.

As I only use 1.5 packs of yeast on the first gen per fermenter, and 1 pack per for each subsequent wash, the bomb costs next to nothing, and a few teaspoons of gypsum to correct my soft water, it's much cheaper than buying turbos.

Statistics: Posted by Capt-Cudellez — Sat Jul 23, 2011 8:30 pm

My New Process

2011-07-23T11:01:54+00:00

Here’s what I currently do. I have only done this end to end once– and I’m currently 2 weeks into doing the second cycle. I’m currently trying to develop a solid gin recipe to call my own, so my aim with this is to produce some stock neutral to do back to back infusions for direct comparison. My gin is a long term goal; I have no illusions about achieving this short term. I am currently making some very tasty gin, but there are so many ways to cut it even from a single recipe you could spend a lifetime perfecting it.

-any constructive criticism will be warmly welcomed.

Day 1, Put down 2x 25L sugar washes – using a yeast bomb for nutrients.
Day 5, 1st gen ferment stops. –stir out the CO2, leave to settle out.
Day 7- rack 23L from each into my big 110L plastic barrel for clearing.
-get 2 more washes going on the lees of the previous wash + additional starter from 1 new pack of yeast.

Day 9 – 2nd gen Stops fermenting – as only takes about 50 hours for subsequent generations.
Day 11\12 – rack these into the big barrel (now 90 something litres in there). Get 2 more washes down – for the 3rd generation I add more yeast bomb mixture to top the nutrients up. + a new starter. (after removing about 30% of the lees)

Day 15 – 3rd gen stops fermenting – stir out CO2 leave to settle.
Day 17 – rack into second barrel and repeat.

Day 20 – 4th gen stops fermenting
Day 22\23 – rack – chuck the yeast and sterilise the fermenters. – I now have 2 x 94L ish barrels of wash clearing in a little over 3 weeks, using only 2x33L fermenters.

Day 30 – I can start to strip barrel 1.

I can do 2 x 30L strips in an evening, or 4 in one day at the weekends. Barrel 2 isn’t clear and ready until about day 40 based on the first cycle so I’m not in any hurry to do the strips. Obviously temperature, variation from wash to wash, how well its clearing all come in to this, once I’ve done a few more cycles I’ll have a better idea of the average end-to-end times, I can only go on what has happened so far.

I do 6 strips in total and chuck the remaining wash to free up the barrels again. – I need to get a move on and cut the 50L keg I have for turning into a stripper – this will mean going from 6 strips to 4 - a big saving in effort.

The 6 strips result in around 45L of 40% ish low wines from my 9-10%ABV wash which I store in a 50L stainless keg until I’m ready to do a spirit run.
I do 2 x 20 something litre spirit runs on my new VM column head. The VM is a pleasure to use, much easier and much much less fiddly than the T-500- fine adjustment is done with half turns of a stopcock, rather than tickling the T500 needle valve like a safe cracker. I run it on my T-500 boiler on 1300w power, during hearts I’m running at about 1.2l/h, and getting azeotrope. The mid column temp is rock solid until you hit tails, then the dial give a little wiggle and starts to creep up. I power down at this, as I don’t bother collecting tails – this leaves a fair bit in the boiler, but from trying re-distilling tails on the T500, I found you got so little hearts out, it just wasn’t worth the effort of collecting them in the first place– if I’m wrong with this thinking, please jump in someone.

After airing for 2 days, I chuck the heads and feints into another 50L barrel to be re-run at a later date, and toss the little tails I have collected down the drain.

Statistics: Posted by Capt-Cudellez — Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:01 am