StillSmart

Finally mixed up some of the 25kg of dextrose today.

Weird though. You get used to mixing up 6kg of sugar for a turbo, like SS triple or Vodka Star. I seemed very strange mixing 10.5kg of the dextrose. Seemed like a hell of a lot, but then again, the Alcotec high alcohol is supposed/advertised/rated at 23% ABV so I shouldn't have been surprised, but it just seemed like it took forever to weigh out the dextrose.

{edit}for info, 10.5kg of dextrose in 18 litres of water, as per the instructions for the yeast, give a gravity of 1.140, which is rather higher than I'm used to with using sugar/SS triple or vodka star. Either way, I don't follow about how they think this yeast will do 23% ABV like that, because a drop of 140 points equates to 19.02% ABV, if it finished at 0.990 a 150 point drop equates to 20.38% ABV and if it finished at 0.980 the corresponding 160 point drop equates to 21.73% ABV - to get 23% I'd have to see a drop of 170 points - I'm sure I measured the dextrose out properly, but WTF I'll just let it run and see how it gets on.......{/edit}

With that in mind, I don't know if anyone here is on the distillers or new distillers lists at Yahoo groups ?

There's been a series of emails late last week into this week about "sugar replacement". One of the American list members mentioned that he'd always managed to get what he felt was the cleanest ferments using HFCS/high fructose corn syrup.

It doesn't seem to be easily available in the EU, but there's different versions (including one that I found on Amazon) that have different ratio's of fructose to glucose.

I wondered if anyone had tried that

Hi Phantom,
I saw this Turbo in my local HBS. Can you share your results with this Triple Still Turbo? Alcotec states it gives a very clean neutral wash, so I am very interested in your experience.....

Well as usual, I'm never in a hurry to get my ferments done in the minimum time.

Its actually still in the bucket waiting for me to put the finings in. I followed the instructions to the letter but the weight of dextrose didn't give me a gravity that would produce in excess of 20% ABV.

It has fermented down to 0.990 so I think its gonna be in the 18 to 20% ABV area. What the flavour will be like I dont know yet, but given the difference in cost of the yeast, dextrose etc, it may be a clean ferment but it doesn't seem to be worth the effort or extra cost. I normally just use vodka star, I don't bother with carbon or finings (I leave my batches in the bucket for about a fortnight so its usually clear enough).

So with double distillation (a T500) and letting my distillate down with reverse osmosis water, with one run through my Z filter I already get a nice clean neutral.

Hence little is gained from the extra cost.....