smartstill great spirit bad smell

[harpo]

i made a 20ltr wash of 5kilo suger and a tin of molassess added nutrients and turbo yeast fermented out cleared put 4ltr a time into still came out at 65%abv but the smell is realy offputing what have i done wrong help!

[marc83]

Was it a store bought turbo yeast?do you really need to add molasses and nutrients with your turbo??I dont.And mine comes out odour-free.

I use a 25L still so unsure of your smartstill.Do you carbon filter the finished spirit?This may eliminate the odour.

[Ronbo]

If you can get pure white sugar, why have you added Molasses? They are the dregs of the pure sugar producing process.

If you are using \"Turbo yeast\" why add nutrients? -- the Turbo yeast already has them.

You say your alchohol came out at 65% but you do not quote the quantity collected.

A \"Smart still\" will produce 350mL of 65% in 30min, 53% in the next 30min, and a very wiffy 40% in the next 35min.

Hope this gives you a clue.

[hoppinmad]

hi harpo,

im not really sure what you\'re trying to do there, sounds like your attempting to make rum and if so i wouldnt use turbo yeast as i think it really requires carbon filtering which will strip out the rum flavouring. the smell is the impurities and it will probably come through in the taste also. try a bread yeast or maybe lalvin, it will take a lot longer to ferment but will be much cleaner spirit for it imo and should distill much better

[hoppinmad]

hi harpo,

im not really sure what you\'re trying to do there, sounds like your attempting to make rum and if so i wouldnt use turbo yeast as i think it really requires carbon filtering which will strip out the rum flavouring. the smell is the impurities and it will probably come through in the taste also. try a bread yeast or maybe lalvin, it will take a lot longer to ferment but will be much cleaner spirit for it imo and should distill much better

furthermore the turbo yeasts have all the nutrients the yeast needs so adding more wont do it any good (sorry for the split post but i managed to press send post whilst reaching for my pastis n lemonade mmmmmm)
cheers, hoppin

[Ronbo]

Hi Harpo,

Just to be accurate -- the timings I gave you are from the first drops of distillate falling!

[harpo]

thanks for the info i did as the recipe and instructions on turbo yeast, the smartstill is the table top still takes 4ltr of wash at a time,my wash was 20ltr at 11% and the turbo yeast was store bought.i have never disstiled spirits before and am finding it dificult not as easy as making biodiesel and getting desperate for a good vodka that i have made

[marc83]

What kind of store bought turbo yeast suggests adding mollasses and nutrients?

If you want a nice voddy try a Still Spirits Triple Distilled turbo yeast and just use sugar and water.works every time.

[Opus 27]

Have to agree with Marc83, just sugar and water with SS trple distilled yeast. This should give you 25 Litres at 14%. Sling th first 20 Mls away when you distil (Heads) and keep the next 700 Mls. Carbon filter and you should have some nice clean Vodka. Don\'t forget to cut to 40% before you filter.
Opus

[bluecap]

Turbo yeasts are designed to have just sugar added, there packed with nutrient so much so I use a third of a bag of Alcotec 48 to 5 kilo of sugar in a 25L wash.

[Jimmy]

Hi Harpo - welcome, don\'t worry we\'ll get you sorted, it\'s a good bunch of people around here!
Your issue is almost certainly a combination of the use of a turbo yeast and the way you have distilled.
When using a turbo, it\'s pretty much essential to run the spirit through activated carbon after you have diluted it - the yeast is powerful but can produce off flavours/smells.
Secondly, don\'t be greedy! You\'ll get the off smells if you try to take too much from each run. I\'d recommend starting your still, when it gets going discard the first 50ml or so and switch for a clean container. Collect maybe 700ml (depends on the strength of the wash to begin with) and then switch off - don\'t be tempted to carry on too long as once you get some off-smells they\'ll affect the whole batch, not worth it for a few extra ml. Or to put it simply - the smell comes from the beginning and the end, try collecting in small increments, swapping the collection vessel, and taking a sniff of each jar, you\'ll learn a lot (also try rubbing it between your fingers).
Another option, which I prefer, is to do a quick and dirty \'stripping run\' first. No matter what I put into the still, for my first run I always put in 4 litres and take off 1 litre, no faffing around. These I collect into glass demijohns until I\'ve done all of the wash. I then mix them together and dilute as required to allow me to divide into 4 litre batches. I can then measure them with an alcometer to get the strength and make more accurate calculations about how much to collect.
Hope this helps, feel free to ask any more questions and we\'ll do our best to help out!

[lyonacre]

Harpo, Lots on the forum about smelly spirit. I had the same problem using white sugar and SS Triple yeast. First way round it was to cut to 40% then distil again. gave much stronger spirit, much less smell. Cut back to 40% again. The smell also gets better when you put it through the activated carbon.

I am still on the SS triple turbo and there s very little smell. Next batch wil be with Vodka Star which everyone says is a whole lot better.

Whats the molasses for? If you want to make rum just buy some essence. Lots around and my rum drinking son says the SS Top Shelf dark Jamaican variety is good.

Oh, and I am running an airstill and for each 4L of wash I take out 700ml of spirit.

[lyonacre]

And I forgot to say.....
It\'s a lot easier than bio-diesel!! And not messy!

[Phantom]

Harpo, Lots on the forum about smelly spirit. I had the same problem using white sugar and SS Triple yeast. First way round it was to cut to 40% then distil again. gave much stronger spirit, much less smell. Cut back to 40% again. The smell also gets better when you put it through the activated carbon.

I am still on the SS triple turbo and there s very little smell. Next batch wil be with Vodka Star which everyone says is a whole lot better.

Whats the molasses for? If you want to make rum just buy some essence. Lots around and my rum drinking son says the SS Top Shelf dark Jamaican variety is good.

Oh, and I am running an airstill and for each 4L of wash I take out 700ml of spirit.

Just for info lyonacre, I suspect it depends on a few things as to how much to "harvest" etc.
For instance, with a 4ltr still charge, it was after reading over at homedistiller that I got into the habit of binning the first 25mls - the instructions that came with my still didn\'t say anything about that.
Also, the printed instructions said to take 800mls, which is what I do and it varies between 59 and 62 % ABV. I didn\'t used to, but after reading kiwidistillers instructions over at homedistiller it doesn\'t matter whether I use my "smart still" (before they started selling it as the "Air Still") or my SuperReflux, I still try and "strip" it first, collect enough, then let it down to 40% and redistill. The smart still then gives me about 80% and the SuperReflux about 85 to 90% (using copper mesh in the reflux chamber instead of the ceramic saddles provided).
I\'ve never had any "smelly" spirit. Cloudy, yes (only from the superreflux), smelly, never. I always carbon filter - full strength if I want "rocket fuel", but usually at 40%. The instructions for my Z filter didn\'t say about letting it down to 40% before filtering, I worked that one out from other sources of info.

[lyonacre]

Hey, Thanks for that Phantom.
I did try binning the first bit through, well I saved it to see what it smelled like - about 25ml, but I still had quite a strong smell and the ABV of the collected spirit was slightly lower. I picked up on an NZ forum that its best to avoid going to the 800 if you can so I have been sort of hovering around taking out 700 and not bothering to bin the first bit.
Current bucket is full of Vodka Star and, so far, the smell is a lot less and a lot sweeter than the brewing process with Triple or the Alcotec equivalent so I am hopeful that the spirit will be sweeter too. Will probably be next week I get to the distilling and will report