1st Sugar wash question

[Indianamoonshine]

Tomorrow will be seven days for my first ever sugar wash with 6kg of sugar and 30 liters of water with Triple Distilled Turbo yeast. I'm still getting a bubble every 6 or 7 seconds from my air lock. That tells me the yeast is still working? My last hydrometer reading was two days ago at 1.100 Should I rely totally on my hydrometer reading and wait until it drops to .990? Or, is it a combination where it will quit bubbling and drop below .990 at the same time? Thanks again for helping.

[Capt-Cudellez]

Also some washes with suspended solids like molasses or fruit, will throw out the reading making the hydrometer less useful, you just use it in this case to tell when the gravity has stopped dropping.

I then taste the wash, if its still got a sweetness to it, then it's stuck, no sweetness then its done.

[Almanac]

Yeah! like Capt. C says, Sweetness is a dead give-away. It ain't finished 'till it's dry.

For what it's worth, my very first sugar wash using a 48 hour Turbo got stuck and after a week there was almost no activity so I decided to clear and run it through my Airstill. The wash was really sweet and the actual ABV was only about 10% from 8Kg of sugar!!.

I didn't get a great amount of spirit in the end and what I did get was also slightly sweet but I learned from it so it wasn't a total loss and yours won't be a loss either.

Whatever your outcome you'll have achieved something most people won't even attempt and nothing teaches like experience and practice and we'll pitch in to help as much as we can.

If you haven't done anything else with your wash and if you did just put 6Kg of sugar in originally you could try dissolving 1.5Kg of sugar in 1Lt of hot water, let it cool to 25oC. While its cooling scoop 2Lt of your present wash out and discard it (to make room for the new sugar and water mix).

When the sugar and water has cooled to 25oC stir it into the wash making sure to raise all the sediment from the bottom to allow all the yeast to get at the added sugar.

Make sure you wash temp stays constant between 25-30oC and you should get some more activity in the next 24-48 hours. Then let it run until the activity is no more than the odd bubble every few minutes. You're probably looking at another 4-5 days anyway then degas and clear.

Hope this works out for you - Good luck!

AM

[Indianamoonshine]

Thanks for the advice. I didn't mean to mislead you but it was 6 kg of sugar and 25 liters of water for a total wash of 30 liters using the Triple Distilled Turbo yeast. I also used carbon. My plan is to give it another two days, degas, and then use my clearing agent. I'll keep you posted on the progress. Again ... appreciate the help and suggestions.