StillSmart

The 'ideal' temperature depends on what you're trying to achieve - the purest quality comes with lower temparatures, and hence slower fermentation. You can boost the temperature and therefore increase the speed, but you may get more off-tastes, the exact effect of this will depend on the characteristics of the particular strain of yeast. In simple terms, you need it above 17 and below 30 I'd say, 25 is probably a good midrange although as I have two fermenters and only one immersion heater I'll tend to do one with the heater and leave the other one to take longer, then it'll be done by the time I've finished distilling the first batch.

i dont drink wrote: i got over 4 litres @95% out of the t500

I've got between 93-94% running really slow on the T500, never got near 95% when testing at 20oC. From what I've read I cant see how its even possible on such a short column unless your doing something special with packing to up the HETP (height equivalent to a theoretical plate).

Back to Jimmy's point - which is a good one - being able to control the ferment is a real art - especially if making flavoured spirits like rum or whisky - I'm taking really detailed notes on temp, pitching rate of yeast, PH etc.
Trying to improve my brews and find what works better - I'm getting good stuff out, but its rarely the same good stuff and the inconsistency is really bugging me.

CC

Capt-Cudellez wrote:

i dont drink wrote: i got over 4 litres @95% out of the t500

I've got between 93-94% running really slow on the T500, never got near 95%

CC

i run mine @55-60ºc and it possibly could of been 90-96 but when i looked it was 95 ish...
im not using professional ( but no one is as far as i know) tackle so that might come into it.

the end result does get us rather pissed though !

al.

Al - Did you rehydrate the 1118 following the instructions?
Did you check the pitching temps with a thermometer?

Pitching a single packet may be a bit slow off the mark, if you don't want to make a starter - I find pitching a few packets to well aerated wash gets things going faster. If your reusing the yeast at the end its still cheaper than turbos by the time you're on your second wash.

When I'm going for neutral I also shoot for a sub 1.080 SG. but this is a personal preference - lots of folks do it differently.

Oh and Good Luck!!!

CC

it was a total of 26 litres with 7 kilos of sugar.... the sg was roughly on the 80 mark with 6 kilo's of sugar and between the 90 and 1.100 mark with 7 kilos.

i don't fully understand how to read this meter tbh..

Yeah I didn't mean to panic you, one will do the job, just slowly as the yeast have to spend longer building up a colony. If planning to reuse the cake, I'd pitch 3 for the sake of a few quid.

To rehydrate the yeast - there is normally instructions on the back of the sachet. The Lalvin labs strain is something like, add the sachet to 50ml water between 40-43oC leave without stiring for 15mins, then stir and add to the wash at around 30oC.

When making a starter (I don't always, I sometimes pitch as above) i do it a few days ahead of time - I read somewhere when I was starting out it was good to feed the yeast then starve them a little before pitching. I have always done a starter like this, so have nothing to compare it to

hmmm, I foresee a side by side experiment coming up in the next month or so to determine if this is actually beneficial. Unless someone knows the answer????

Oh, Just noticed Adian brought up trial jars - i have now broken 3 of the bastarding things
These days I only have one "for best" that I use when cutting spirit (when not half jaked)

I now just just leave a hydrometer in each fermenter for the duration of the ferment - I have experienced less infections since changing to this process - it may not be the sole reason, but seems plausible that you reduce the risk of infection by not adding a foreign object to the wash after you get going??

Mind you, no air locks, tea towel lids, lax sanitising between washes - what do I know

Oh, remember to take the hydrometer out before degassing - bloody done than n'aw!

That's no prob!

When my wash is finished, with three EC1118's in it, I degas twice then let the wash settle out. After 48 hrs it will have settled pretty well even though it will not be clear.

I then carefully rack off into a clean & sterile fermenter, degas thoroughly again and put the lid on and leave it alone till it clears - 3 to 5 days.

The yeast cake in the bottom of the fermenter is ready to re-use and should be re-started as soon as possible. I dissolve 500g of sugar in 2Lt of water at 35oC, add to the yeast cake and stir gently to mix up all the compacted yeast and add more oxygen to the wash and get the yeast budding again to replace the poor departed yeast cells who willingly gave their lives to make alcohol for me.LOL

I leave this 'new' starter for about two hours. At the same time I heat 10Lt of water to 60oC and dissolve the remainder of the sugar(6.5Kg) in a clean & sterile fermenter to be used for the new wash. Once the sugar's dissolved I add the balance of the water for the wash and aerate big time.

When the water/sugar is around the 25oC mark I pour the 'new' yeast starter from the old fermenter into the water/sugar mix. Add 25g of Tronozymol and a quarter teaspoon of Epsom Salts BP put on the lid and airlock and it's off again "like a bucket of pissed up frogs"!! !

Note: Because the sugar & water mix is not the entire wash volume I cannot take an actual SG reading for this wash. In this situation it is acceptable to assume the standard SG for 7Kg of Sugar in a 26Lt total volume wash - that is 1.103 - and I record this as the actual SG.

As you can see you need three fermenters, minimum, to do this but it is really worth it from the point of producing reasonable volume. Depends on what you want to make. With me its Bourbon/Sour Mash so 60% of what I make is going into storage for proper aging - in ten years time I'll have a ball and maybe this will be legalised by then and you can all come.

Have Fun

AM

its now down to 1.030 now even after i went away for the weekend and left the brew belt turned off hahaha....

is it possible to tell how much longer its going to take to finnish as its taken nearly a week to drop from 1.050 to 1.030?, or isn't it possible to tell?

might it be worth throwing another 1118 in?

al.

I wouldn't bother adding more yeast, they should have a good enough colony to do the job, adding a decent amount at the start reduces the lag till it stars working off.
You might try adding a few more teaspoons of yeast nutrient though, but if the gravity is still dropping, I'd just leave it to get on with it and try and keep the temp in the min 20s if you can.

the temps been about 24 ish give or take as I'm keeping an eye on it and turning the belt on or off depending on temp.

it seems to be still bubbling and the gravity is dropping albeit slow but on saying that, I'm used to turbo's brewing like hell so I'm probably expecting too much.

i think (but not sure) that if i put more nutrient, I'l impart more unwanted flavours so il just leave it for another week.

al.

Good stuff - if your going to put another brew down on the lees you may be surprised about how much faster the subsequent brews are.

I pitched fresh yeast on a wash and it took 12 days to get down to .990, Pitched the same recipe on the lees Friday teatime, went out to have a look this afternoon and its already down to 1.100 from 1.850 SG

i take it the lees are whats left of the yeast cake at the bottom?.

aid mentioned that not so long ago and I'm deffo going to re-use it again.

as soon as mines dropped to 990ish, then il look into what to do with it then.

al.

yeah that's right.

I just rack off the yeast, then add 3-4 litres of water to keep the yeast happy till I'm ready to add more water\sugar\nutrients. I add everything at about 30oC and it gets started again within a few hours.