Confused. Please help...

[Max]

Hi there

So glad this forum exists.
I'm a newbie from indonesia. Just recently purchased easystill from brewhaus.
I need help.

I read in forums that alcohol will drip after around 1hour, but mine already drip after around 20 minutes. Is that ok?

I did 3 washes. 1 for whisky using lalvin 118, 1 rum with bakers yeast, 1 sugar cane juice with lalvin 212, but they all have the same bad awful smell. The sugarcane juice had rotten egg smell. Why is that?

There was also very bad awful smell when i did the distilling process, the resulting alcohol smell rotten egg. Why? I did throw in dead bakers yeast as nutrient for the 3 washes, it this the cause?

My rum's OG was 1.060. FG 0.993. I used bakers yeast, brown sugar, palm sugar, aren sugar (javanese sugar). Room temperature around 23 - 25 C.

Any replies will be much appreciated. Apologize for the bad english.

[chill]

Hi and Welcome!

The alcohol coming out at 20 minutes either means it is really hot where you are or you have an unmodified water distiller. If your wash is at 40C, it has to heat up less than mine at 18C.

The rotten egg (sulfur) smell indicates a bacterial infection in the wash. That suggests that you did not keep the fermentation clean enough or that it got too warm. Again, I would guess the temperature there might be a problem. I will suggest only letting them ferment 2-4 days, and then running them without clearing. You will need to put in a little less to avoid foaming and pushing the lid off.

If you can provide some more details on the contents of your washes, we can like give you some other advice.

Chuck

[Capt-Cudellez]

The rotten egg (sulfur) smell indicates a bacterial infection in the wash. That suggests that you did not keep the fermentation clean enough or that it got too warm.

I don't think that is a sure thing chill - I often get sulphur smell on the ferment when using certain yeasts - it cleans up fine by the time the ferment is done and the beer smells and tastes like it should.

Also about 1 in every 3 rum strips I do, I forget to add the copper pieces to my all stainless pot head, the resulting spirit smells very eggy off the still - I just add some copper bits to the distillate and in a few days its clean as a whistle (you do get some black flakes - but if re-distilling or filtering then shouldn't be an issue).

Not saying your wrong, just letting you know I experience that now and again.

[Max]

Thank you so much for the replies. I'm restrating the whole thing tomorrow. What happen if my OG shoots up to 1.100? Is it ok?

By the way, the cooling fan short circuited a few seconds after i turned it on, so i dismantled it & connect the cable straight to power supply andnow its running fine, but i forgot which side the fan should be blowing. Is it up or towards the coil? Currently i set it blowing upwards, is that correct?

[chill]

Max: Yes, up is correct.

Capt: You could well be right. I have gotten that sulfur smell at times and it was not present in the distillate, but I do always run with copper (old pennies, the ones that are actually copper! ) It is a smell I recall from my wine making days when things went badly awry. Max, try soaking some copper in your distillate to see if that removes the smell (hydrogen sulphide, IIRC).


Chuck

[Max]

Thanks Chill, Capt. I think i know what to do now.