Alcotec 23% - lets see what happens.

[MrCat]

Day One
After yesterdays SS reflux run I thought I\'d chuck the Alcotec 23% on as I\'ve got two weeks until the next run.
The instructions were nice and simple, make 18 litres of water at 40 degrees. I wish I\'d bought a lottery ticket tonight as I managed to match both numbers first time.
Added the 10.5kg of Dextrose. As the dextrose was in nice clear plastic bags I thought it would be fun to get the biggest kitchen knife I had and slice the bottom off the bags. And it was fun Even the missus thought it was fun when I gave her the last bag to add.
It\'s the first time I\'ve used dextrose and it mixes in so much easier than sugar.
I thought I had thought things through - I didn\'t want to over mix the yeast so I put the nutrient in first, then the carbon and gave it a good stir. I added the yeast, gently mixed it and took the OG reading
Then I realised I\'d got the order wrong. I should have taken the OG reading before I added the carbon. I took a SG reading and it was off the scale. The scale runs out at 1.20, there is a line at about where 1.30 would be and this was floating about the 1.40 mark. Off course the carbon is going to affect the reading. Head palm moment..
Oh well - experience is what you normally get just after you needed it.
I\'ll add this one to the OG/FG book but not really worry to much about it.
So it\'s day one. Lets see what happens

[Ronbo]

Hi MrCat,

1.400 is the highest reading I have ever heard of! But, as you say, the carbon and suspended yeast might affect the reading.

Also I am not sure of the relation between Dextrose and ordinary super-market sugar.

In theory, had you used 10.5kG of ordinary sugar in 18.5L of water, to make up 25L the O.G. would have been 1.160 producing 24.7% (in theory)

Really interested in how you get on!

Ciao.

[phlogiston]

SG reading and it was off the scale

Air bubbles on the hydrometer?

1140 rather than 1400?
To get an SG of 1400 in a sugar solution you would need about a kilogram per litre, which if you could get it to ferment would produce about 60% alcohol. I\'d be surprised if the carbon made a huge difference.

[Ronbo]

Yeah, think I go along with Phlogiston on this.

Did you put the hydrometer in straight after pitching the yeast, and when you removed it, was it covered with yeast particles which you then had to wash off under the tap?

The yeast would have been like little gas filled balloons trying to lift the hydrometer upwards!

Ciao.

[MrCat]

Phlogiston got it right - I mis-read the scale.
The yellow band is 1.000, the next division is marked as 10 which I thought was as 1/10th division so it should have been 1.10 but of course it\'s not - it\'s 1.010
The 1.100 line is much further down the scale.
So it was actually sitting at 1.140.
And of course the wash would still be over 20 degrees (it was about 25 degrees when I pitched the yeast) so we have a further inaccuracy.
Today we have lots of gas being generated, the carbon makes it nice and easy to see the bubbles stuck to the side of the fermenter The gas isn\'t as strong smelling as the SS turbo classic so at least the house isn\'t being stunk out at the moment. We\'ll wait for next week for that !!

[Ronbo]

Hi MrCat,

If I had got off my ar..se and had a look at my own hydrometer scale, I would have realised that the reading should have been 1.140!

Nice one Phlogiston.

So, still interested in your results MrCat. Just keep an eye on the wash temperature, it can be much higher than ambient.

I\'m still learning as I go.

Ciao.

[MrCat]

Well after a slow start it is well and truly fermenting now. When I checked it this morning I could just hear a faint whistle from somewhere and it was gas leaking between the rubber grommet and the airlock.
I sealed that and it\'s now bubbling for about a second every three seconds. And it even smells nice too but already you can smell the alcohol in it
The ambient temperature has risen a bit - it\'s currently at 24 degrees which also seems to have re-started the SS Turbo Classic in the fermenter alongside. The SG in that has finally started to drop albeit slowly.

[Ronbo]

Hi Mr Cat, Don\'t worry about the whistle sound you get from the fermenter bucket. That shows that you have positive pressure from CO2 inside.

You may also note that the lid of the fermenter has a slightly domed appearance, all good stuff! Don\'t fiddle with it!

Ciao!

[MrCat]

Ok - we are on day 9 - fermentation appears to have stopped. I pushed the lid down this morning before leaving for work, noted where the water was in the air lock and it was in the same place when I came home so no CO2 has been produced today.
Taken the SG and it\'s just under 1.000 and the mix tastes a little sweet Mind you that is a lot of dextrose converted. I\'ve given it a good shake up and I\'ll leave it another day to see if the yeast has got anything left to give.
In comparison a SS classic fermented 6kg of sugar down to .990 in under 48 hours.

[Ronbo]

Interesting, I would have thought that a 20%+ yeast would have left it tasting as dry as a desert.

Still -- 1.140 down to, say, 0.995 is still 19%

Ciao.

[MrCat]

Threw the turbo clear in on thursday, left it until today, siphoned it off into another fermenter and it\'s ready to go. The SG today is just over .990 and it doesn\'t taste sweet anymore.
It\'s going through the reflux tomorrow, then getting cut back to 50% and going through the reflux again to see how clear and pure I can get it

[MrCat]

Ok - ran it through the SS reflux yesterday. It took 90 mins to warm up the 23 litres of wash. As it was heating the smell from the outlet was really nice - much better then the first wash I ran through.
As soon as it hit 78 degrees I backed the power down to 700 watts. Disposed of the first 100ml and waited.
With the power down at 700 watts the output was very slow (about 200 ml hour) and the temperature was moving around quite a lot - dropping down to 77 and heading up to 81. Also the power reading was fluctuating, dropping as low as 625 watts at one point. With this setup I only have temperature alarms when the temp goes up so the SS may have been under temperature for a while. I\'ve got a much better USB temperature sensor on the way so I\'ll be able to have high and low alarms.
However the output was excellent. Averaging 93% with a really pleasant smell. I was collecting in 200 ml batches so I could compare the smell and the % across the run. The strange thing is both myself and my missus could just catch what smelled like fruit in the output. How this happened I don\'t know as there wasn\'t any in the wash.
But after 6 hours I was running out of time (and had only collected about 2 litres) so I upped the power to 900 watts and the output increased considerably. I got another 1/2 litre at 92% and had to shut the SS down. The wash still smelled strongly of alcohol as I reckon I probably got less than half of it out but what I\'ve got is superb - it smells fantastic, it\'s absolutely clear and it\'s 93%.
A great little yeast. Very pleased with the results and just a shame that I didn\'t have time to get everything out of it.

[MrCat]

Put another 23% on today, this time I only put the dextrose and the nutrient in, waited for the temp to drop and took the OG before adding the carbon and the yeast. Off the scale between 1.030 and 1.040


23percent by Mister_Cat, on Flickr

[MrCat]

Same as last time !!
The photo was the second alcotec before I added the carbon and the yeast to get an accurate OG reading. The ferment ran pretty much the same as the first (read from the top of the thread)
I only had time to strip the run before we went on holiday - I got about 10 litres at a little over 50%, I\'ve added it to some heads (etc) from previous runs, added some carbon filtered water, carbon filtered the batch and I\'ve got about 20 litres at 40% to do a final reflux run on.
It\'s going to be a long run at .5 litres an hour so I may split it into two runs.