So you re-used some yeast that had been used for a ferment but with liquid carbon
Had you used finings to clear the first batch of wash?
So when you used it again, it didn\'t clear naturally or with finings
Did it ferment all the way down ok or did you have to add more nutrient???
Here’s what I did, I made up the triple distil yeast and carbon in the usual way, added turbo clear, it did clear but like most washes it was not crystal, the was slightly grey, that grey being the carbon and that carbon was going in the still.
So I then chucked in 5Kg of sugar and water stirred it up and in 30 days time it was clear (with grey tint) once again, I did not add any finings this time as it was no more or less cloudy than last time. I concluded that whilst it does work - saving 4 quid was not worth the long ferment time.
As for wine yeasts etc, if they\'ll ferment to 14%, a la turbo, then there\'s no reason why they shouldn\'t work well with the appropriate nutrient. As for flocculation issues, there doesn\'t seem to be such good info on a lot of the yeasts, but the makers of the Lalvin range, Lallemand, publish extensive information about their products, including the flocculation abilities of the various yeasts.....
I\'d have thought that ale yeasts might not produce such a high level of alcohol as they\'re bred more for flavour than alcohol level tolerance...they might flocculate well but ain\'t gonna "do the business" as far as making ethyl alcohol for distilling......
Now I am looking into yeasts that flocculate better rather than speed or attenuation , some beer yeasts seem to be ok for this, as is a few wine (which is more preferable). Of course you do need to add nutrients or it sticks. (I never said they would be high alcohol) its a test that’s all.
I\'d love to hear about your experiment of fermenting some backset in the wash, that sounds interesting, though I can\'t for the life of me, think of why you\'d be doing that. The backset is water with lower alcohol levels and logic would dictate that if anything, adding alcohol could cause a ferment to stick - albeit, alcohol at a lower level than distilled spirit. It might cause the yeast to "poop out" early, leaving some residual sugar...........
Well I ran the still using cheap electric to get most of the alcohol out, as jimmy has said its a known method, Jack Daniels uses it for their sour mash, but cooked yeast is a very good nutrient, my plan is to use this backset purely for the nutritional value – if it adds a nice flavour all the better, if not it’s not the end of the world. It might be that the extra carbon required to clean up the spirit might negate any benefit from doing it,
but one thing is for sure......
After reading a few books, and other forums I am beginning to see the same regurgitated information repeated verbatim, the trouble is that although some of it may be good correct information it’s not necessarily the ONLY way to do things, if you read the same thing that seems to come from several independent sources then people seem to think that it’s a solid fact and set in stone, when really it’s one man’s way from one book.
Its the same with advice about not leaving stills running, in its day that was very sound advice, but with today’s electric stills it’s not much of a problem, in fact I run the Smart Still on a timer, and the reflux on a 12 hr strip run at night on economy 7 – and I feel quite comfortable doing so too. I have not needed to adjust the water and get ¾ of a demijohn @ 85% every time, its cost less to make and seems to be very clean to the smell and taste – so its happy days.
In my past I have been flooded out 3 times, and had a 100G fish tank leak, so 22L or 4L of wash on the kitchen floor is a walk in the park for me.
Statistics: Posted by umpa — Thu May 21, 2009 11:38 pm
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