StillSmart

Last year I had a bit of trouble with my neutral washes finishing. Never really got to the bottom of it, looking at the water report it might have been the supply was being treated at the time, but I digress.

I went back to using turbos for neutral washes, but used them with low starting gravity and kept the temps low with good results.

So over the past few weeks I've been fermenting side-by-side alcotec 48 and a plain sugar wash with nutrients and pH stabiliser. The plain wash is more effort but wanted to see if it did make a superior wash.

The contenders.....

50L sugar wash, 10Kg sugar, aerated, and 1 packet of alcotec 48 pitched at 34oC.
Fermented out at 26oC using my temp controlled fermenters.

50L sugar wash, 10Kg sugar, nutrient mix, aerated, pitched EC-1118 yeast starter @ 34oC. Fermented out at 31oC. (I would scoop a pint of the yeast bed for the each generation of the wash)

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The nutrient mix is as follows (per 50L wash)

< 1/4 cup Potassium Nitrate
1/2 tsp Epsom salt
3 x B-vit complex tabs
5g citric acid
100g Trisodium Citrate
And 600g malted barley added to the wash.
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The turbo is completely dry @ sub 0.090 after 4 days

The non-turbo takes 8-9 days to get down to around 0.095 - EC-1118 isnt a quick fermenting yeast, but its plugs along nicely.

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Each wash got 2x 45L strips, resulting in a total of 23L just above 50%

For the spirit run, I charged the still with the 23L of low wines + 17L of water to bring the ABV down to sub 30 ABV.

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The return: Each spirit run I took off about 1.5L of heads, just shy of 7.5L of hearts, leaving the rest in the boiler as tails. I took off the product at the same rate on each run, hearts was a slow and steady 460ml per 18min.
Product was coming off close to 97% - which sometimes happens, but not always on my still. I cant explain this, but pressure (or lack of) in the column must be to blame. If left to its own devices the product will be back at 95.6% after a few days.


The taste test: Well the missus and I both agree that there really isnt much in it.
When both samples were watered down to sub 40%, the turbo was very neutral tasting, with maybe a very very slight hint of something on the nose, but really just looking for fault.

The non-turbo had no smell whatsoever, but perhaps a slightly sweeter aftertaste.

Both will make an excellent base for gin - or other masserations.

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Cost: The turbo costs £2.80 a pop, The nutrient mix costs me about £2.20 each wash + the initial yeast of £2.40. I'm about to pitch my 4th gen using this same yeast, so yes if running continuously you would end up ahead, but I don't have use for that much neutral

Nice detail CC.
On a smaller scale,I have also been trying to compare alcotec 48 and a sugar wash using bread yeast and nutrients.
My results show that the turbo finishes in half the time,and to my (possibly aged and jaded palate),after running through my pot,tastes pretty much the same as its comparison.
I'm obviously not producing spirit as neutral as yourself,but even with that allowance made,to myself,the taste difference is very slight.
I'll keep playing.
Of course all this constant brewing and distilling means that I am running out of space to store spirit.Life can be so hard!
Robert.

Thanks for the post Capt’n lots of food for thought here.

For some of my first washes, I tried a campaign of Vodka Star and as you know I was never happy with them, they all had an aftertaste that I did not find enjoyable.

Your trials and results have got me thinking that I may give it another go.

The two main differences that I see in your methods and mine are half the quantity of yeast/nutrients and I think more importantly, temperature.

My first warm box was very efficient perhaps too efficient If I pitched the VS yeast at 30 the temperature would just keep going up to around 36 /37 and only came down when the wash was finished. I never had the luxury of trying ferment at 26 deg.

Your findings have started me thinking again and will put some more VS on my list of things to do along with Aidanmac’s Lentil wash. I am missing my Sunday mornings in the shed, looking forward to getting back.

I go for lower temps with my VS washes. In the colder weather I have a 4 foot tube heater between the fermenters and the wall. If there is a heatwave, I'll run down stock rather than do a wash.

I've had a real bad experience with fusils and it now takes just a small amount of them to put me off the product. So I've no interest at all in heating a wash to 20'C or more.

The pH stabiliser bit is still a trial in itself now I've had consistent results over several generations, I'll be taking that out to see if the wash stalls or how it affects the time to ferment out. you should hear about that in the next 2 weeks.

Its great having the controllable fermenters that hold their temp, it takes one variable out of the equation.

Must admit CC I still rate VS for neutrals. For what it costs I just pitch fresh every time but if I was doing continuous I would roll with a culture

I suspect if I take up any more kitchen/fridge space she'll string me up

AT: I had that problem not so long ago but I solved it by building a new "shed" which I then proceeded to fit out with all sorts of little comforts. It's a work in progress and haven't quite got the central heating and wide screen in yet but I'm working on it

AM

Capt-Cudellez wrote:The pH stabiliser bit is still a trial in itself now I've had consistent results over several generations, I'll be taking that out to see if the wash stalls or how it affects the time to ferment out. you should hear about that in the next 2 weeks.

Its great having the controllable fermenters that hold their temp, it takes one variable out of the equation.

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Well, I did the wash the same without the pH stabiliser. The ferment time was 19 days.
It really struggled in the last week, and I think if I had not such a stable temp control the heat would have went out of the ferment and it would have stalled.

The wash seems to be a bit fruitier than the previous, which could be down to the extended ferment. I'll wait till I run it before commenting more.

Overall I think that the pH stabiliser could be a useful addition to sugar washes that tend to slow and stall. But the way I did it is just too expensive to make it worth the hassle.

I'm sure with some work, I could reduce the additives down to make it more cost effective. But for neutral I think I'll stick with the turbos for the shear ease of it.

Sipping Vodka will still need to be grain based though

Along with the washes currently running and due to run,I have just got a second gen. turbo going like a good un.I intend to see how far I can take this one before it dies.
Bloody mindedness.
Turbos have their uses,and while cheap,re-generated are even cheaper.
Robert.

Whereas I don't fanny around with temp control and all that shit.......

Hot tap water to dissolve the sugar then close the bucket. The following day, pitch yeast at room temperature and give it all a good blitz with a stick blender and leave it.

In 2 weeks VS will have dropped to 0.996 and clear to almost as clear as a SS Triple distilled yeast, carbon and finings batch. I don't strip per se, just double run it in my T500 with the first run let down to sub 40% with RO water, the second run will get let down to exactly 40% before running it through my carbon Z filter.....

A nice clean neutral with negligible traces of sweetness etc.......

YHB wrote:
My first warm box was very efficient perhaps too efficient If I pitched the VS yeast at 30 the temperature would just keep going up to around 36 /37 and only came down when the wash was finished. I never had the luxury of trying ferment at 26 deg.

Your findings have started me thinking again and will put some more VS on my list of things to do along with Aidanmac’s Lentil wash. I am missing my Sunday mornings in the shed, looking forward to getting back.

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Firstly apologies for resurrecting an old thread. Just wanted to feed something back to YHB. The issue with run away temps is most likely down to the qty of nutrients in the pack.

I recently put down my first washes of the year - the power tripped in the shed before they took off and I had pitched them much cooler than usual and I hadn't bothered aerating the wash- so was hoping the heated fermenters would bring them up to temp (as you can tell as I was in a bit of a rush)

So by the time I realised I had no power the wash was cold and still as sweet as at the time of pitching.
Got the power sorted and heated up - 24 hours later not a lot was happening, a slight fizzing, a day later the sg had hadn't really moved. I started to wonder if the yeast was compromised as it was probably 2 years old, and had been through a few warm summers.
So pitched another packet - in reality the yeast was probably just getting started, as pitching the yeast and nutrient, caused lots of foaming that needed beating down.

This time my fermenters were useless at keeping the temp stable - it plugged along at 32-33oC for the next few days until it was dry, the heater was off the whole time.
So it looks like the idea of underpitching turbos (or pitching into much larger washes as I do) looked to help keep the temps more controllable - an makes for a cleaner wash.

I'll probably just use these washes for cleaning runs on my new still as i've been unhappy with warm ferments in the past.

Again,thanks for the detail Captain.
However what is unclear in your last post is the type of washes you used for the power failure one.Is it again a side by side sugar/nutrient wash and alcotec 48?
I am asking because these days I favour a variation on the lentil wash,and because it ferments so fast,it creates a lot of heat,which I cannot (easily) control.
Using my pot still,I am content with the double distilled product,after passing it through the Essencia filter.
In my opinion,my variation on the lentil wash knocks alcotec 48 out of the ring.
Maybe my palate is old and tired?
My only experiences of cooler ferments have been the VERY slow ones which took forever to finish,and possibly didn't taste so good for that reason.
Even my Turbo's with low sugar used to get get pretty hot.
Not having the use of temperature controlled fermenters (here meaning Coolers),I cannot understand or appreciate any benefits.
And suspect that I possibly never would.
But equally suspect that that is horses for courses.
And that one mans Slivovitz is another man's poison!

Robert.

Just the Alcotec 48 this time robert. I've done 9x 50L washes that never shifted more than 1 oC from the 26 dialed in on my fermenter heater.
This is the first one to run away, due to the extra nutrient and yeast.