StillSmart

Well its been about 2 months since I started the re-use old turbo yeast project, and today I can report its finished.
Its fermented down to 1010 from 1080, and cleared real quick, far quicker than first time arround.
I think the reason it did not stick was that there must have been some nutrients unused from last time.
I think the reason it took so long was that there were only just enough nutrients to keep it ticking over.
Also its worth noting that I started a fresh turbo last monday, and its fermented down to the same 1010 as the reused yeast.
Now given that a pack of turbo yeast is about 3 quid, and takes a week, and the reused yeast takes 2 months - i\'ll be buying my yeast from now on - lol.

Well seeing as how stuff like the still spirits turbo\'s are aimed at getting about the 14% ABV mark, it\'s probably cheaper to use wine yeast.
for instance, Lalvin\'s EC-1118 is supposed (according to the data sheets) to go to about the 18% ABV mark - that\'s about £1 per pack, some tronozymol nutrient is about £4 per 200gms - I think it\'s about 1 tsp per gallon you\'re gonna get quite a few batches per box - for arguements sake say 5, that\'s 80p per batch.
The sugar has to be enough to get a starting gravity of about the 1080 area to get just over 14% ABV. then maybe you want to make sure about using the carbon - which is what? about £1
So you\'ve saved yourself about £1.50 per batch straight away. Yes, you might get a bit higher ABV as well if you up the gravity with a bit more sugar - you\'d just have to make sure about it being aerated for 1 or 2 days instead of just the mix when pitching the yeast. Damn, you might want to use a bit less tronozymol and replace the reduction with straight diammonium phosphate (it\'s a little harder to find but cheaper).
If you get the yeast from the states then it\'s already cheaper (about 2/3 of the price due the the state of the £ - it used to work out about half price and that included the postage).
compared to the £3.25 or so just for a pack of turbo yeast, it\'s not really much messing around to make the wash cheaper to produce.
Oh and if you can get your sugar in 5kg bag\'s instead of 1 kg bag\'s it\'s cheaper or even better if you can get 25kg bags.
Etc etc - there\'s lots of ways of making sure you can save a few £££££\'s
hell, if you\'re not in too much of a hurry, take the 800ml\'s of alcohol at about 60% as per the instructions and use that as \"the heart\", but then keep collecting \"the tails\" right down to about 5% (professionals will go down to 1%) and then just add the tails to the next batch prior to distilling. That way you\'re not inadvertently throwing perfectly good spirit down the drain!

Hi,
The project was never about saving money on the yeast. Simply to see if it could be done for a wash as I know it can and is and have done it for beer. Beer having its own nutrients is never a problem, but I wanted to see if a sugar wash would stick.
Because of the time it takes, and the turbos cost so little I consider it not worth the effort, also buying different things in from multiple sources to save a few quid over several weeks - again (for me) just not worth it.
I know some hard core distillers wont agree with me, but its not like making beer. Now for beer only all grain will do but for alcohol using essences - a turbo is quick and works fine.