StillSmart

RumJohn
"Attn: Cherry: Your initial SG could go a little higher. Your sugar to water ratio has room to change."

I know you're right. Unfortunately these are my first two washes ever. Since reading around these boards I've switched to a '2 pounds sugar to each 1 gallon water' standard.

"You keep stirring the wash. Depending on how vigorous your stirring is you might be adding oxygen to the wash which you don't want at this stage. Leave it alone."

Will do. Thanks for the info/guidance.
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John51 "... imo diy is false economy if you are buying in product while getting the diy down."

You make a cogent argument. Yet, I still hear my granny in my hindbrain saying, "Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." Plus, it seems somehow counter-intuitive, socialist, smoke-and-mirrors, asymmetrical... or something.

I'm not a huge drinker and - at least at this point - am not thinking about turning out copious gallons of salable-grade product. I'm more looking to do micro-scale artisan crafting of good, social tipple for friends and family. Bulk buying of a turbo yeast doesn't fit with that current goal.

I'm verymuch looking forward to taking and learning from this board, and others, the good techniques, recipes, solid practices, etc. that over time will help me evolve a version of this hobby most satisfying to my needs and sensibilities.

I've only had an air still for a month, now, and have yet to run a real wash. I appreciate all comments and advice. Every bit of it goes toward shaping how I do and think about my distilling; thanks in advance, everybody, for all the success I see headed this way.

Another option is bread yeast. I switched to it from Champagne yeast and have been happy with the result. It is quite cheap and you can bang in a lot of it instead of making a yeast starter. You can't push the ABV as far as with Champagne yeast, but it finishes quicker. I use about 5Kg of sugar in 25L of water.


Chuck

Sweet! chill, once my other yeasts have run out I intend to turn to baker's yeast at least to try it out.

I saw something about yeast mixing when reading around. I wonder if it would work to do a bread yeast initial fermentation, then add champagne or cuvee after a couple days/weeks to get a greater ABV out of the wash?. And if there would be an advantage to doing it...?

I bet someone here has tried it. How'd it work?

No need.

Bread yeast will consume 5Kg of sugar in 25L of water. There will be nothing left for the Champagne yeast.

Exactly. Bread yeast can handily eat that much sugar. If you upped it to 7 or 8 Kg you would likely need the champagne yeast and the ferment would take longer and you are more likely to get unwanted off tastes. In my experience, you are far better off making more, lower ABV washes, than chasing fewer, higher ABV washes.

Chuck

So, the advantages of baker's or brewer's yeast, lower ABV washes, are:

- more affordable (questionable, if you are pitching 3 or 4 times more)
- fewer off flavors
- easier/more-obvious cuts
- shorter fermentations/quicker fermentation finishing
- the satisfaction of using easily-obtained/household ingredients to make something, if not extraordinary, at least beyond what's ordinary for most people.

Are those accurate? Are there other positive attributes?

And, other than the lower ABV's-per-batch, are there any cons?

Have never used a Turbo yeast. Can't get it here anyway. I use a bakers yeast, it works fine and I get a good clean wash usually around 11%. I use .25Kg of sugar per liter, no nutrients, or any other additives for the rum wash.

The wife likes rum drinks. I've been checking out a number of rum-related posts - many of them yours. I'm going to get there sooner than not. Thanks for the help.

Two thoughts on rum:
- it is one of the easier things to get a decent result from
- it REALLY improves with age, much more dramatically than say whiskey

Chuck