StillSmart

Hi Guys.

This one has got me baffled, as you know i do some concoctions.The latest one
is a wash with 1kg of flaked maize/500gms of flaked barley/500gms of flaked
rye/1kg extra light dry malt extract/11kg sugar and two sachets of single strain
whisky yeast with a/g, made up with a total of 46ltrs of water.Its still fizzing away after 16 days, i set a similar sized yellow split pea wash using alinsons yeast 5 days ago and its almost done.anyone had any similar experiences?

cheers B_D

You don't state how much Allinsons's you used,(I use 100g to 25 lits of yellow split pea,sometimes 4,sometimes 5 Kg sugar and it finishes in 3 days,with probably unnecessary heat).
I can't imagine the sachets that you used are anywhere near that quantity,and would expect them to take awhile longer.
Is that of any help?
Robert.

@Blue Duck: There are a lot of possibilities, but my first answer would be to suggest that the split pea was a much more friendly environment for the yeast.

It is also within the realm of possibility that the whiskey yeast packages were we stored improperly or are expired. That would result in a low pitch rate and an extended fermentation. I have had that happen to me.

Chuck

What's was the starting gravity and where is it now?

I've only done one large batch (38lt) and it didn't seem to fully ferment dry, also it held a lot of gas, I was de-gassing it for ages, always had loads of bubbles but the gravity wasn't changing over a few days, I've left it for another week.

Can't think of anything else

sorry should have added more details, i dont bother trying to take a starting reading i never could get a proper reading with grains in,its sitting at 10.34
this morning,still plenty activity,temp sitting at 23%c with a quilt wrapped round the fermenter.might chuck another sachet in and hope it livens things up.

The split peas done, its sitting .990 this morn. i only add a dozen 7grm sachets of alinsons to my double batch its always worked that way for me. I use the sachets opposed to the tins, the tins never quite worked the same for me.


thanks for the replies. cheers B_D

Well,i checked this evening after agitating and adding another sachet of yeast
this morning it has come down a couple of points, like Anavrin said doing a larger
ferment it doesn't always zero out, i have noticed that with various washes, if i can
get it down to 10.10 i will be happy because my last bran/malt/mollasses finished there
and the results were good. I might have miscalculated the sugar content on this one,
gonna have to rethink when using yeast with A/G, might be more sugar getting released
that the yeast can cope with.

cheers B_D

I think if using grain you have to be very careful with the mash temperature, maybe even lower it a couple of degrees to ensure your getting a conversion where most of the sugars produced are of the fermentable type,

I know if you mash a little higher than normal temp, say 68-69 it's good for making a more full bodied beer because some of the converted sugars add to the gravity but arnt fermentable, lower temps 60-64 will make thinner, dry beer, this is where we want to be I guess, we're not interested in drinking the wash but we want as much fermentable sugar as possible to get as low final gravity as possible.

I hear you Anavrin, but it wasn't a mash as such. I used flaked grains to avoid the mash procedure as my mash tun isn't quite finished yet. I relied on the method of adding the boiling water to release the starch, and let the yeast with the ammo-gl to convert any unfermentable sugars. Your feedback is appreciated, its bookmarked till the tun is finished. Then i might give the all grain method a go.

cheers B_D

Well this bugger is still going, its down to .10 at the moment but still active.
still at 23%c. Unlucky with the ferment but i consider myself lucky that its still healthy, no off tastes or smells. Hope the end product was worth the wait.

cheers B_D

Yes, a bugger when a mash stalls,and I hate re-starts myself.
But I also hate waste.
Good luck with this wash of yours.
I would have expected nutrients to be there,did you check Ph.?
Tell me that I am wrong by all means,but how much Allinson's did you use for a split pea wash of similar size? I suspect that the two sachets of yeast used on this slow one were each intended for 5 Litres......
Probably asking too much for 46 litres.
These days I use LOTS of yeast,and am disapointed if a wash hasn't finished in four days max.
Robert.

Well it managed to get down to a couple of points off zero,quite happy with that result. Its racked into 2x fermenters and i'll prob. strip tommorow,i have a single strip of this already done, so thats a spirit run sorted for the weekend.

@ Robert, i use a dozen sachets of alinson yeat for double batch of split pea, it always works of in about 5-6 days.
I think the two sachets of whisky yeast are getting overworked with double batch's, might go back to doing them in singles again.

cheers B_D

Well i finally got the time to do this run, put 24Ltrs of 37% of strip in the T500 boiler with vino's pothead design started her up on full power for around an hour.When the bend became hot i powered down to 900w using my cheapo 3000w scr controller.6 quids worth and it works pretty good.tossed 1.5ltrs of heads/fores.powered up to 1200w collected 6ltrs hearts down to 70% as it still smelled and tasted good.turned off, I know there still a fair bit of alc. left,i dont want a cupboard full of jars as i've got what i wanted. Going to nuke this on j/d chips so i have drink for the UNfestive season.

CHEERS B_D

Some here may consider you wasteful,but what do you or I care, if you are happy?
I hope your UN-festive season is at least as good as the one that I for-see for myself!
Robert