Alcotec Turbo Yeast Discussion

[Voddy]

I couldn't think of any place else to put this post - I hope it's okay here.

Hambleton Bard do a range of Alcotec turbo yeasts. I use them because of time and space issues and I fully understand the 'purists' who use grains etc. I wish I did but I'm not in a place where I can do that just now.

The Question is - if you use Alcotec's turbo yeast range, which of them have you found to give a better wash for neat alcohol after a strip run in the T500?

Also, I use half a sachet of turbo yeast with 80% of the sugar and find that I get much more mileage out of my purchases. Anybody else tweak their turbo recipes?

Many thanks
Voddy.

[Mash]

I can hear another with an inner Yorkshireman. Good idea.

I am not a fan of turbo's, but I often hear good reports of vodka star!

[vino-tinto]

+1 for Vodka Star

[Mash]

VT. Would vodka star lend itself to being split into two ferments do you think?

[Anavrin]

I've split Alcotec 48 in the past, it still ferments dry, just takes a little longer to get going, I'm pretty sure I've split a vodka star but can't remember, vodka star is in a smaller pack so if you do split it, it won't look like you've got much to work with.

I'm actually doing a bunch of turbo's at the moment, a little experiment with tempetature, I've set the fermenting fridge to 21°c to limit the fermenting speed and hopefully get a cleaner wash.

I've done an Alcotec 48 with 5kg of sugar, that fermented in a week at 21°c and has now cleared in a week by its self, which I'm supprised at because in the past they've stayed a bit milky white.

I've also used a vodka star with 6kgs of sugar at 21°c, I was going to start another today but this ones still going after a week in the fridge, I decided to go with the full 6kg sugar in the hope that keeping the temp down will make it cleaner.

I'm going to do two more of these before combining them all for a spirit run, will be interesting to see of keeping the turbos temps down to normal levels will produce a cleaner neutral.

[chill]

I have not used turbos until recently. The washes that I have been concocting as of late have not fermented well, releasing a lot of sulphur, excessively yeasty, and eatery smells in the house. SWMBO was NOT impressed and I can't fairly blame her. I can't say if her, the yeast, or I was the more stressed. I am not sure exactly where I started to go wrong, but some neutral smelling ferments seemed in order to allow me to continue to live indoors.

Hence, I've been playing with Turbo's lately too, this one:
http://www.home-distilling.com/store/pc ... 3p1361.htm This turbo has delivered pleasant smelling ferments. At 6KG of sugar in 25L, it takes well over a week to ferment to 0.990 (this is in a cool basement, 20C or less) and seems to stay milky for a while. A couple of tsp of potassium metabisulfite kills the yeast and fixes the milkiness, so I suspect the fermentation is just very, very slow at the end. I have a couple batches on now with 5Kg and 5.5Kg to see if that helps fermentation to end better. I have only run off a couple batches so far and the result seems to be a bit less neutral (aka more unpleasant) and most of my home made washes, even some the stinky ones. Carbon filtering cleaned that up.

I have not tried splitting a package yet, but at $3 Canadian each there is not much incentive to do so. I might try 6Kg and package of EC-1118 to confirm that the yeast in the turbo is not tolerant of higher levels of alcohol.

Chuck

[Mash]

Good stuff guys. Please share the results.
I initially started with turbo's and filtering.
But I have been chasing a "super neutral" that can be produced in the airstill with no filtering.
How long it takes (elapsed) is not an issue, low sugar slower ferment seems to add to quality.

This kale wash will be interesting. My wheat wash is very close to "super neutral"

[hampk]

I switched to Mash's Wheat Wash after getting bored waiting for lentils to finish fermenting. I'd be interested to know how the kale recipe works out..!

Cheers

Hampk

[Mash]

I am going to put kale on the weekly shopping list.
My wife gets the shopping.
Are we going to run a book and see if she smells a rat?

[chill]

i'd be much more concerned about her demanding that you eat it! Maybe it is a texture thing but... shudder.

My latest turbo are 5Kg - just over 1.0, 5.5Kg still about 7% potential alcohol remaining (sorry did not spin it around to get the SG).

[Voddy]

I appreciate the very helpful input, guys, thank you.

To add my bit in, I split an Alcotec 48 Gold pack in half and add 6kg of sugar to a 20litre wash and I get exactly half-a-demi-john jar of neat alcohol before I get diminishing returns in respect of electric usage versus alcohol production.

Without doing the maths, I get a gut feeling that I'm getting a good deal splitting this in half.

However, being Yorkshire, I am intending to split the pack into three with 5kg of sugar to a 20litre wash. I will post my results here.

I'm going to buy the Vodka Star and see how that goes.

btw SWMBO understands that without the smell, she doesn't get the produce! ;-)
However, I am slightly reasonable, and I distill when she's out.

[Easydrinker]

My twopence worth.
When I re-started distilling a couple of years ago, I was a great advocate of Turbo yeasts.I used to split the packs in two, use a little less sugar, accept a longer distillation time, carbon filter, and all was OK in the world of neutral spirit.
Then I moved to less expensive, more organic washes, like Lentils.
I was so pleased that I stayed with them.
This month I found a few sachets of Turbo, whose B.B.E. dates were almost up and so decided to use them.
The Alcotec did as expected.
The Vodka star was reluctant to start,even full packs, but throwing in some Allinson's soon had the washes looking like a Turbo should, no head but lots of fizz.
The brew room then had that familiar Turbo smell.
I am into the spirit runs of some and the strips of others.
I will be going back to Lentils, I am more convinced now that they are better.

Robert.

[Mash]

I do find the subject of off smell in turbo's interesting. It appears that it is mainly the ladies that take issue.

I ferment inside and distill outside. So fermentation smell is the more important to me.

[packapoo]

I know I'm a bit slow and out of step with the rest of the distilling world.....

With the plethora out there on turdbo yeasts and their consequence why anyone uses them is totally beyond me

HOWEVER......if I was work space challenged I would run an airstill and probably then accept turdbos and consequent parting of coin to filter output to gain something suitable for consumption.

But I'm not. So I don't.

If I was an airstiller I'd be spending all my time looking for ways and means to get away from the turd and then hopefully the filter by running friendlier washes.

Peace.

[Mash]

"turdbo" love it.

I am an airstiller. And I have... Wheat and no filtering.