Back to Basics

[Almanac]

In the first 5 months of this year I tried all sorts of different recipes promoted by different distillers here and elsewhere. These were tried and trusted recipes that reportedly worked well for those posting them and their results....but they just gave me endless trouble and poor return for my efforts.

Finally, I decided I needed to go back to basics and forget about all the fancy stuff, like all bran and tomato paste, so I re-wrote my basic sugar wash recipe and now, when I walk into my 'brewery', I can hear the washes trying to get out of the buckets and run around like wild things

My wash ingredients are as follows;
21 litres of warm water at 30oC
6Kg Sugar
1Tsp Youngs Wine Nutrients (this stuff contains DAP and Ammonium Sulphate)
2 Vitamin B tabs crushed and dissolved in a little warm water
* pH Buffer made up of 100g Citric Acid and 100g of Sodium Bicarbonate
Note: the pH buffer had been originally listed incorrectly as 50g of each part and was corrected on Sun 23 June 2013
100g Allinsons Bread Yeast

* In the past I followed recipes that said to use 1 Tsp of Citric Acid or the juice of a lemon and sure enough the wash would take off. After 3-4 days the bubbles would slow down and I believed the wash was almost finished until I checked the hydrometer and found it a long way from finished. My pH meter told me why. The pH of the wash crashed soon after take-off and had dropped to the mid 3's - too acidic for the yeast to do any fermenting I tried various amounts of Sodium Bicarb, Sodium Carbonate, Potassium Carbonate, but, while the pH came back up to 5 at first, it quickly crashed again. Then I came across a post by Dr Who on MD about making an effective pH buffer and that's what I've posted above. The water at my place has a pH of 7 and there's no limescale and very little else remarkable about the water.

Method
I take 500ml of the warm water @ 30oC and place in a clean 2l container. Add 250g of the sugar from the recipe (do not use DME or LME for this purpose) I dissolve the sugar and use a hand whisk to introduce plenty of air to the liquid and also make sure the liquid is still 30oC - if it's cooled I add a little hot water to make it up to 30 again.

Add the yeast to the warm sugar water and I give the container a quick swirl to get the yeast well mixed. This is covered with a lid and left to stand in a basin of warm water for about 30 minutes. The yeast very quickly starts to breed and multiply and a thick frothy head forms. I give the container a good swirl every few minutes and when the yeast has used up all the sugar they stop breeding and the foam stops forming

While the yeast is growing I completely dissolve the sugar in the 21l of warm water, add the Youngs nutrient, dissolved 'B' vitamin tabs and finally the pH buffer. Note: add the buffer slowly as the wash will foam up.

When the wash is ready I get the yeast starter and give it a good whirl to get the yeast mixed up well and pitch into the wash. With the lid and airlock on the wash usually gets going within an hour and three hours after pitching it's like a runaway train and it's a waste of time trying to keep water in the airlocks, it just keeps blowing it out. By the end of day two it will have slowed a little and I put water in the airlocks then.

Here's the lesson I've learned from all this: In the natural process of fermentation a wash will become more and more acidic as the yeast makes ethanol and CO2. This increasing acidity slows the activity of the yeast cells and when the wash gets too acidic for them they go dormant and the fermentation stops.

For this reason it is clearly wrong to introduce acid alone at the beginning of the wash, even if your water has limescale, as it will only hasten the crash of the pH of the liquid and put the yeast to sleep However, by using the pH buffer above the wash pH will stabilise around 5 and stay there for the entire ferment resulting in more complete conversion of the sugars to ethanol

Enough of this waffle, I've got a stripping run to do

AM

[Still Trying]

Aidanmac
I like your thinking on back to basics, keep it simple. Explanation of pH changes is in line with the chemistry. I may well try a similar approach to in my next wash if I can get DAP & Am SO4 otherwise it is a TPW with a bit more sugar to try to get up to 13-14%.
I have a question. Was it 21L + sugar or total vol of 21L?
Supplementary question - what was OG &FG?
Best regards

[John51]

Consistency is the reason I'm only using Vodka Star yeast.

[Admiral Toad]

I'm still a big fan of Vodka star for sugar washes it just works o I don't mind boating a couple of quid

That said may well try the PH buffer on my whisky washes as these tend to run fast but stop with a much higher gravity than the V S washes

[Almanac]

I have a question. Was it 21L + sugar or total vol of 21L?
Supplementary question - what was OG &FG?
Best regards

The wash recipe was 21l of water plus sugar.

SG was 1.086 and FG was 0.992 final yield was 25l @ 12%

Me a Happy Camper

AM

[Myles]

Very interesting - I intend to use that pH buffer from now on.

For my rum / sugar washes I routinely add Epson Salts (Magnesium Sulphate) at just 1/4 tsp to 5 or 6 gallons. It seems that yeast like to have a little magnesium.

[Capt-Cudellez]

I got some food grade Trisodium citrate to use a pH buffer in my sugar washes after running in to some problems towards the end of last year.

After a blinding start to this year fermenting below zero with my heated fermenter I've not put a sugar wash on for months. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things in the coming weeks.

[alan]

this is the first non turbo/vodka star wash,that i have done using the ph buffer.I have never had much luck with sugar washes in the past.but i will now thanks to AM
alan

[Almanac]

I like to think I'm big enough to admit when I've cocked something up and put my hands up

In the recipe I posted here I listed the ingredients for the pH buffer as a total of 100g made up of 50g each of Citric Acid and Bicarb. This was my error and would be insufficient for a 25 litre wash.

What I was supposed to say was that it requires 100g of each of Citric Acid and Sodium Bicarbonate

Apologies to all - Mea Culpa

Believe it or not, I discovered my cockup after making up a wash and doing exactly what I had written rather than what I knew and couldn't understand why, on day two after pitching the wash, the pH had nosedived to 3.8

On all my washes I use a wide roll of masking tape to to make labels to stick on the lid of the fermenter to record all the ingredients used, gravity readings, pitch date, etc.. So, when that wash ran into problems the first thing I checked was the label on the lid and that's when I spotted my stupidity hence my apology herein.

If there are no objections I will amend the original post just in case it misleads anyone else and I'll include a note to explain the amendment/correction.

AM

[Robbo79]

What temp do you keep your fement at ? 30C ?

[Robbo79]

Also aidanmac, how long do your fements usually take, ive been going a week tomorrow and its now down to 1.000

[chill]

That seems about right. Usually about 10-14 days for mine to ferment dry. Things slow down at the end when the alcohol level rises.

[Robbo79]

Chill what temp do you ferment at? This is my first wash of this type I normally do the packets, I must say its smelling and tasting much more neutral already. Also after ferment whats you way of doing things, rack and degass, leave to clear for a few days ? Sorry about all the questions mate!

[chill]

I don't really get too fussed about it. Sometimes I just ferment at room temperature which is 18c to how ever hot it gets in my basement. In the winter I have been known to toss in an aquarium heater set to about 28c - no idea if that is accurate or even still working. I should check one of these days. I let it go in an unsealed fermentor until the main fermentation stops then rack into a sealed (e.g. with an airlock) secondary until it finishes. Then I de-gass and usually add Sparkleoid to help it clear. If I am behind my production quota I have been known to run it uncleared. Then it gets carbon filtered. It is more like gardening than a scientific process!

Chuck

[Almanac]

My ferments all start off at 30oC and I keep them at 25oC once the initial rush is over.

My ferments slow right down after 7-8 days and are usually completely finished after 10-12 days.

After the 12 days I rack them off and degas completely. Generally it takes another few days to clear enough for the stripper as I don't need it quite as clear as I would for my Airstill.

If I'm really in a rush I throw some Sparkolloid in and it gets crystal overnight

AM