Various questions from a novice

[monkeyboyuk]

Hi All,
first post so please be patient with me!..

Ive been a homebrewer for many years. Over the time i have come to use my prefered sterilising agent WVP for all my beer and cider dablings...
I believe personally that its the best program for maintaining good control of bacteria during the brewing process...
I have added a SS to my hobby and now do a turbo wash every 2 weeks. Its a wonderfull adition and to be honest, ive only just started beers again after a few months because of the smart still taking all my time..
My first question,
Is there a need to sterilise with washes especially turbos?..and the fact its going through the SS ?
Would a decent clean with an antibacterial washing liquid and good rinse be sufficient for a good wash fermentation?..
basicaly, am i doing too much by sterilising.

My second question
please can someone give me a better idea of what i should be doing with a 20% wash ... I have been doing a 50ml foreshot,750ml heart, and 300 mil tail for rerunning once id got 4litres.....i discovered thou that doing a 600ml tail cut, that it was still round the 50% mark and im begining to think ive been wasting a lot of potential tail stuff down the sink lol..

My last question,
I noticed that someone mentioned on here about using original brand spirit such as southern comfort as a percentage additive to a 40% filtered spirit rather than adding essenses?..does this really work (i thought it would have had a weaker taste by say doing 80%spirit 20% original mixed?..

I have a few more questions but ill save them for another time..
any help would be much appreciated..

thanks
Rich

[mozr]

I'm a relative newbie too but I'll give it a shot.

Hi All,
first post so please be patient with me!..

Ive been a homebrewer for many years. Over the time i have come to use my prefered sterilising agent WVP for all my beer and cider dablings...
I believe personally that its the best program for maintaining good control of bacteria during the brewing process...
I have added a SS to my hobby and now do a turbo wash every 2 weeks. Its a wonderfull adition and to be honest, ive only just started beers again after a few months because of the smart still taking all my time..
My first question,
Is there a need to sterilise with washes especially turbos?..and the fact its going through the SS ?
Would a decent clean with an antibacterial washing liquid and good rinse be sufficient for a good wash fermentation?..
basicaly, am i doing too much by sterilising.

Sterilising is very important. Any infections picked up will magnify in strength throughout the ferment, and off flavours will increase in potency. If it aint broke, don't fix it.

My second question
please can someone give me a better idea of what i should be doing with a 20% wash ... I have been doing a 50ml foreshot,750ml heart, and 300 mil tail for rerunning once id got 4litres.....i discovered thou that doing a 600ml tail cut, that it was still round the 50% mark and im begining to think ive been wasting a lot of potential tail stuff down the sink lol..

So you are doing a strip run? I collect 1500ml (everything) in every strip run,then re run it and make the foreshot/heads/hearts/tails cuts after that. So if you are only collecting just over a litre on your strip run, I would say you are missing out on 500ml.

My last question,
I noticed that someone mentioned on here about using original brand spirit such as southern comfort as a percentage additive to a 40% filtered spirit rather than adding essenses?..does this really work (i thought it would have had a weaker taste by say doing 80%spirit 20% original mixed?..

I think what was meant was to use a concentrated essence, but also add 20% of a store bought product to make it more alike, adding subtle flavours etc.

I have a few more questions but ill save them for another time..
any help would be much appreciated..

thanks
Rich

Hope I helped.

[Jimmy]

My last question,
I noticed that someone mentioned on here about using original brand spirit such as southern comfort as a percentage additive to a 40% filtered spirit rather than adding essenses?..does this really work (i thought it would have had a weaker taste by say doing 80%spirit 20% original mixed?..

Yeah, as mentioned the idea is that you use an essence (or some other method like infusion, etc) but add about 10% of the actual product to fool the tastebuds, it does seem to work pretty well but try it yourself and see what you think, report back if you get anything great or terrible!

[i dont drink]

well... i use bleach!

just put a good squirt in the bucket and give it a good scrub with a scrunchy and leave it for 5 mins then since well.

iv never had a wash die or go bad so it must be ok !

with the airstill i used to throw the first 50ml and then keep the next 800 or so and throw the rest as it used to smell and taste like a tramps gusset.

if you want to get everything out of a wash, buy a t500 like i did and use a classic wash because i usually get over 8 litres of spirit @ 40% out of a 25litre classic wash and then i filter it with the essencia and bobs your uncle.

I'm pretty sure that when you see that spirit drip out of the t500 at over 93%abv, you'l wonder why the hell you used an airstill for so long lol

[billmcc]

Tramps Gusset ??

[mozr]

There speaks a man of experience Bill!

[monkeyboyuk]

lol..thanks for the replies... "tramps gusset "..

Ok, im gonna embarrass myself here but, the way I was told by Mr homebrew man that gave me the advice on the SS, was to run it as per my previous post...50mls\800mls\300mls....

What is a stripping run ?
Because from what ive read into here, plus other posts, it seems that a different method of taking off a straight 1500mls then disgarding the rest and running 4liters of the stripped stuff back thru the SS for then refining seems to be the thing to do?..
I thought filtering was the way of cleaning the spirit of flavours not repeat runs?.
Does going into cutting depth with a SS realy matter considering its limitations of quality?..

I am certain now ive been wasting more than I should have.
In addition, and whats been said here, ive already made a condensor as im handy with a blowlamp and looking for a barrel now to canibilise lol..


thanks guys
Rich