StillSmart

Hi Guys

As the title suggests I've made a concoction using pearl barley, I nipped into Morrison's on the way home from work, while there I went to grab a bag of red lentils, I was thinking to myself, what else could I try apart from lentils that might make an interesting wash, I looked around and picked up a 500g bag of pearl barley at 55p, cheaper than the lentils so I thought I'd give it a go!



They're quite small and hard so rather than just soak them in boiling water, I decided to cook them as per the instructions on the pack, so it was to boil them for 10mins, then simmer for 50mins.



I added all the pack, 3lt of boiling water and turned on the heat.



I had to top the water up about 15mins from the end as it was looking a bit gloopy, anyway, they cooked and look like this.



The next step was to make the main wash up, I disolved 5kg of sugar in 3lt of boiling water and topped up to 23lt (SG1.080 at 24°c)

I then poured in all the cooked pearl barley, water and all from the pan.

Looks like sugar puff soup but all the bits sunk to the bottom after 30 seconds or so.



I then added 2 teaspoons of yeast nutrient and thanks to Fil, a teaspoon of Amyloglucosidase, this stuff is very starchy, bit like boiling rice, so let's see if the ensyme can convert any during the ferment!

The resulting overall temp after I added the barley was 32°c and I dry pitched half a tub of Allinsons yeast on top.

I'm just about to go give it a stir after pitching and I'm going to check the PH, I'll report the PH soon

Ok so I just went to give it a stir and check the PH and in the time it took me to write my original post, this happened



It's off like a rocket

The PH on the other hand was too high



So I disolved a tablespoon of citric acid in some hot water and added it, May have only needed half that amount, seems I went from one extreme to another!






It's in the fermenting fridge now anyway, set at 24°c, we will see how it gets on, might need to increase the PH at some point but time will tell!

I can't wait for the next episode, I'm really interested in this one

One thing you might want to try is toasting the barley before boiling it. One of the best drinks I've made so far was a UJSSM that was started with the backset from a toasted barley sugar head.

What does adding barley or lentils add to the wash?
I've seen a few posts on people doing a lentil wash, but the amounts seem so small in the scheme of things, I was wondering why bother.

Thanks

PieOPah wrote:What does adding barley or lentils add to the wash?
I've seen a few posts on people doing a lentil wash, but the amounts seem so small in the scheme of things, I was wondering why bother.

Thanks

The two products and others including tomato paste, are added as nutrients for the yeast, while producing a neutral spirit.

Without nutrients the yeast will hibernate before they have finished their work of converting all the sugar.

I prefer natural nutrients that I can pick up in the supermarket rather than pills and powders from the chemists.

Ah, great stuff. I may look into that for my next neutral wash :-)

Of course, if you're making neutral you probably don't want to toast the barley as I suggested. I was half asleep when I read the OP and my brain went straight to faux whiskeys, rather than using barley just for the nutrients.

Update

It's dropped to 1.050SG but it's going slow, I'm thinking I need to add a little baking soda to increase the PH back to around 5.5, give it a stir and maybe pitch a little more yeast, if it works I'll only use a tea spoon of citric acid next time, it may even be a waste of time if it doesn't ferment dry but if we don't experiment we will never find anything better than what we already know.

Just baking soda should be all that you need. The yeast is just sleepy, not dead.

Anavrin wrote:Update

..... if it works I'll only use a tea spoon of citric acid next time.

Uuuh! isn't that what got you into trouble in the first place

A teaspon is an awful lot of acid to add at one time!

I found adding Citric Acid is best done 1g at a time. In some circumstances the effect can be profound and I've no idea why the change can be different in different recipes

Watching this with great interest as it seems almost all pulses are suitable to provide nutrients to sugar washes for our purposes

AM

Checked it again today, give it three teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda and gave it a little stir but that didn't make much difference to my ph, the sticks I'm using are a narrow range so all I can say is it's less than 4.

But it is still going, it's dropped 12 points in the last 24 hours to 1.038SG

Doesn't seem to ever be doing much but it must be doing something because its heading in the right direction, I'm holding the temp at 24°c +/-0.6°c

@ Anavrin: Let the temp come up toward 30. It might give you more activity.

Adding yeast to a slowly working wash is not likely to do much. The pitched yeast is already in an anaerobic environment that new yeast won't like. For additional yeast to work you would need to recreate an aerobic environment - which the working yeast wont like.

Hi RunJohn

I haven't pitched anymore yeast, if I did I would make a starter first to avoid problems with new yeast being pitched into an anaerobic environment, I don't want to increase the temp above 24°c as its a wash for neutral and I want to avoid any off flavors if possible, hopefully the starch from the pearl barley is being converted into fermentable glucose, may have to use I vinometer to establish the final ABV, if it ferments dry and the ABV is above 11% then I guess the Amyloglucosidase has done its thing!