yeast

[Myles]

Anytime a supplier starts talking about yeast fermenting to 19% or 20%, I start wondering if they are intending it for fuel alcohol use.

I know that I sometimes ferment to 16% but that is with great care, and deliberate use of methods to minimise stress on the yeast.

Some of these high alcohol tolerant yeasts are most definitely stressed when used as recommended. It doesn't matter if you are making fuel, but some of the fermentation products don't taste very nice.

[daren]

Sounds good
What’s the price?

Mine was free but it’s £17 free delivery on eBay. Seller sells direct for garffen,

[Easydrinker]

That is not the cheapest yeast price out there.
I would need some very good reviews to tempt me to try it, at my own cost.

Robert

[Mash]

It's a big tub, but 25% dearer that Allinson's.

It will be interesting to see what the quality is like. All yeasts do different stuff (and if you want to be picky.. on different days, at different temperatures etc)

[H12rpo]

Well looking on the site, it appears this is a ‘turbo yeast’ ie high alcohol tolerance and comes with nut4ients and a ph buffer ( though I still do t understand how a ph buffer works

[packapoo]

Weren't you the guy having stalled wash problem just recently?

Apologies if I've wrongly fingered you; the buffer stops you sweating the pH

Have heard tho' it comes at a taste cost

[Myles]

Well looking on the site, it appears this is a ‘turbo yeast’ ie high alcohol tolerance and comes with nut4ients and a ph buffer ( though I still do t understand how a ph buffer works

pH Buffers are just like a seesaw. They contain a mixture of a weak acid and its conjugate base (matched alkali) in a balanced relationship.

Small changes in acid or alkali are counteracted by the buffer working in opposition, so the overall remains balanced at a designated value. Different buffers are available to maintain a range of different pH values.

I haven`t used them yet so can not comment on the taste aspects.

[Phantom]

Well looking on the site, it appears this is a ‘turbo yeast’ ie high alcohol tolerance and comes with nut4ients and a ph buffer ( though I still do t understand how a ph buffer works

pH Buffers are just like a seesaw. They contain a mixture of a weak acid and its conjugate base (matched alkali) in a balanced relationship.

Small changes in acid or alkali are counteracted by the buffer working in opposition, so the overall remains balanced at a designated value. Different buffers are available to maintain a range of different pH values.

I haven`t used them yet so can not comment on the taste aspects.

From the mead world, many are surprised how acidic honey (actually sugar in general) can be. One of the issues, especially with "traditional's" (that'd be honey, water, nutrients and yeast), is that you can get some unexpected pH swings i.e. you mix a must and fire it up, only to have it start ok but it seems to be slow.

You do all your checks etc, then when it comes to checking pH, you find that it's dropped to 3.2 or lower and the yeast is on the verge of stalling. Some potassium carbonate helps balance it back up, say to about the 3.6 pH sort of area which I understand is good for both wine and mead (maybe all sugar based ones) fermentation.

I did manage to find some details about this, but I can't find it ATM. Apart from routinely adding some to my trad mead ferments, then only bit of info that's actually stuck in my head is some fragment about the fermentation chemistry and "delta-gluconolactone".

So I'm presuming that by bunging some K2CO3 into the ferment at the start allows the ferment to progress without much of this potential swing down. K2CO3 is considered the better of such materials as it doesn't leave any possible "chalky" taste that can occur if you use CACO3 instead......

Right, that's my tuppence worth I'm off to the Still Dragon site to try and work out what I need for a column........

[Easydrinker]

My thanks to Phantom and Myles there.
I think that I understand a little more.

All I can say from experience is that my sugar based neutral ferments are very acidic by day 3 or 4, and the addition of an Alkali (Sodium Bicarbonate here) seems to sort them out. And allow them to ferment out a few days later.

Different strokes for different folks maybe?
Or just different,water ,methods et. al.?

Robert.

[Phantom]

My thanks to Phantom and Myles there.
I think that I understand a little more.

All I can say from experience is that my sugar based neutral ferments are very acidic by day 3 or 4, and the addition of an Alkali (Sodium Bicarbonate here) seems to sort them out. And allow them to ferment out a few days later.

Different strokes for different folks maybe?
Or just different,water ,methods et. al.?

Robert.

A little "aside".........

As with sanitising, it's better to use potassium carbonate because you can get salty/metallic notes from the sodium based possibilities (yes they tend to be more expensive, but it's why I located potassium metabisulphite rather than sodium metabisulphite for sanitising etc).

Worth the extra cost and effort IMO.......