White sugar or brown sugar

[bumblebee]

I am fairly new to this so please bare with me. I have been using an airstill to make my spirits. I have been making a simple wash of 25 liters water, 8 kg of white sugar and turbo express yeast. I like the product it makes but would like to try something different. My question is, could I use brown sugar instead of white sugar or a combination of each? What kind of product could I expect if I did this?

[Anavrin]

Brown sugar is less refined and will produce more of a Rum flavour to your spirit, using 5kg of brown sugar topped up to 25 litres should ferment dry with just Allinsons bread yeast and maybe a teaspoon of yeast nutriant.

As for your normal wash with the turbo yeast, 8kg is a lot of sugar for a 25litre wash, I know some turbo's say you can but you will really stress the yeast and get a lot of off flavours, you will get a much cleaner tasting end result if you keep the sugar down to 5kg in a 25litre wash.

[Myles]

Its just my view but please ditch the turbo.
A lot of brown sugar is just white with colour. Demerara is real less refined cane sugar.
Aim for no more than 11% and use any ale or beer yeast. I ferment cool and use fermentis lager yeast.

[Easydrinker]

Yes, do try using a yeast that is not a turbo,My standard these days is Allinson's,(50g at a time) cheap as chips in Tesco, and also I only use 5Kg sugar to a 23 litre wash.
When you learn what works for you,you tend to stick with it.

Robert.

[Seagull]

Yes, do try using a yeast that is not a turbo,My standard these days is Allinson's,(50g at a time) cheap as chips in Tesco, and also I only use 5Kg sugar to a 23 litre wash.
When you learn what works for you,you tend to stick with it.

Robert.

Do you add nutrients and liquid activated carbon?

[chill]

A big NO to the liquid carbon! Pure water and sugar does not provide much nutrition for yeast. Giving them a side dish of something (Trono, kale, lentils, raisins, wheat germ, grains, cereal, fruit, DAP, your neighbour's cat) will help them work faster, produce better flavours, and ferment to a higher ABV. Pure sugar washes make for sick yeast.

Chuck

P.S. Just kidding about the cat. Mostly.

[RumJohn]

@Bumblebee: I do not use white sugar. It is lacking in nutrition, and therefore you need to supplement the wash, which I prefer not to do. The exception to that rule is cachaca - made with golden syrup. I do not like the idea of having to add junk to a sugar wash.

What I do use is what you would consider, a poor quality brown sugar. It is loaded with molasses and very sticky. But it is extremely fermentable. So much so, I not only use it for rum, but also for the neutral I make vodka and gin out of. It is of course distilled to a much higher degree and becomes odorless and tasteless.

[chill]

Shops selling Indian or Chinese food will usually have some very raw sugar. It will not be granular like white sugar, it will be dark brown, hard lumps or blocks. It makes a nice rum like product.

[Easydrinker]

A big NO to the liquid carbon! Pure water and sugar does not provide much nutrition for yeast. Giving them a side dish of something (Trono, kale, lentils, raisins, wheat germ, grains, cereal, fruit, DAP, your neighbour's cat) will help them work faster, produce better flavours, and ferment to a higher ABV. Pure sugar washes make for sick yeast.

Chuck

P.S. Just kidding about the cat. Mostly.

Yes ,you can drop in lots to feed the yeast.
Cat may work.It does in a septic tank.

Robert.

[Chefbmack]

@Easy... very nearly just projectile snorted a fine Canadian whiskey over my computer. Thanks for the laugh.

[Icefever]

@Easy... very nearly just projectile snorted a fine Canadian whiskey over my computer. Thanks for the laugh.

Chef the old adage "you don't have to be daft to be here...holds true on this forum" and Vodka f**ks a laptop also...as I know from last year.

[chill]

Was it a Mac? I dumped a glass of red wine on my Mac and it kept working, but most of the keyboard glowed burgundy instead of white!

[Icefever]

No just a bog standard HP....but it was only 8/9 months old...

[Easydrinker]

This current laptop keyboard has been suffering from "sticky Keys" for a couple of months now, since the last spillage.
I need to find time to be offline for a day and sort it, a good sluice and dry usually sorts it.
What makes you think that I regularly spill drinks on it to know that?

Robert.

[bumblebee]

Brown sugar is less refined and will produce more of a Rum flavour to your spirit, using 5kg of brown sugar topped up to 25 litres should ferment dry with just Allinsons bread yeast and maybe a teaspoon of yeast nutriant.

As for your normal wash with the turbo yeast, 8kg is a lot of sugar for a 25litre wash, I know some turbo's say you can but you will really stress the yeast and get a lot of off flavours, you will get a much cleaner tasting end result if you keep the sugar down to 5kg in a 25litre wash.

Will I still end up with the same abv wash once it by ferments by dropping to 5kg of sugar from 8kg? I usually end job with 13-14%. I still want to use the turbo yeast for now.