StillSmart

Has anyone had any experience with this recipe from http://www.artisan-distiller.org? I've used the quantities 3.17 kg sugar, 750 g corn flakes, 12 oz jar of Grandma's molasses, a 200g tube of tomato paste and 10 g Allinson's active dried yeast. I started the wash on 30th August and a month later it is still gently fermenting. There is about 2 1/2" of sediment in the bottom of my fermentation tub. The starting gravity was 1.070 and is now almost 1.000 so according to the recipe should be ready to distill but obviously I can't distill whilst it is still working. Any ideas on how long it might keep working or whether I might have done something wrong? Having been used to turbo washes being ready in a couple of weeks I'm now having to spend too much money in the booze dept of Tesco! Any advice would be gratefully received.

at 1.0 with all the other stuff in there it probably is done. Give it a good stir to get the CO2 out, and it'll probably stop fizzing.

Using bakers yeast is slow slow slow with sugar washes - if you use a wine yeast like ec-1118 it'll be done in a week mate.

Tomato paste has a lot of nutrients and vitamins in it.
Huge difference with/without. Water/sugar/yeast will ferment obviously but by giving it something to "eat" will help. That's why if you have nothing else for a sugar wash, throw in some raisins. They have a few natural vitamins but more importantly they have nutrients for the yeast.

I've done the #2 recipe quite a bit (it's my favourite).

I use EC118 yeast, yeast nutrients, double up the mollases and up the sugar a bit so I get an OG of about 1090. It tends to ferment down to about 995 so I end up with about 11%. My g/f is a coeliac so I use gluten free cornflakes which co-incidentally avoids all the extras that cornflakes have. That said however as the recipe has been on that site for plenty of time I wouldn't worry about all the extra bits they add to the cornflakes.

I keep the fermenter wrapped up in a blanket to keep the temp stable. It normally takes a three or four weeks but it is well worth waiting for.

And it doubles up nicely too!!!

aidanmac wrote:Thanks goinbroke2! I get the nutrient part but Tomato Paste!!!!!! Come on, are we that miserable a bunch that we can't spend a few quid on yeast proper nutrient.

aidanmac

In the context of that recipe I think the idea is that you can get most of the ingredients from just about any shop - I could walk to my local supermarket and 10 mins later have bought all the ingredients.

I don't particularly care for tom paste in the wash either but you can provide nutes and vitamins without going to the HBS.
As I've said before I'm a big fan of the yeast bomb - all ingredients available from the supermarket too.

Capt-Cudellez wrote:As I've said before I'm a big fan of the yeast bomb - all ingredients available from the supermarket too.

Please can you do us all a big favour and start a thread in fermentation titled "Yeast Bomb"

Basically a FAQ, what it is, how you make it, how you pitch it and how you developed it ?

I've looked through artisan distiller and each time I get a little confused about how everyone makes theirs (and they are normally for 50 gallon and more washes)so a version 25 litres (or a little more) would be fantastic.

It would be ace if you could

Thanks.

Thanks very much to all of you who responded to my question. As you might expect the fermentation stopped the day after I posted! However, it doesn't seem to be clearing much and I gave it a serious degas with a degassing tool that attaches to an electric drill. I've put some finings in but it still looks a bit murky. There also looks to be about 5 litres of sediment which is mainly the remains of the cornflakes presumably. I'll give it a couple more days and then think again if it has still not cleared.

you need to syphon the wash off the sediment into a clean fermenter befor adding turboklar
alan

And remember, it will never look like water, in other words dont expect it to become crystal clear.