Birdwatchers sugar wash recipe

Post by **rad14701** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 1:02 pm

Hammerhorn wrote:Using Rad's modified BW recipe (below) that was posted in WPOSW. Everything is going fine with my wash, but I wanted to ask what temp range should I follow, BW's or something a little less? Seems BW's is a little to high from what I have been reading. Also, I let my starter sit for an hour, too long for this recipe? I am also using Red Star Active Dry Yeast, I can't find any documentation of ABV with this.

Because you are using Red Star bakers yeast the optimal fermentation temperature would be 75F - 85F, as it would be for any bakers yeast... Lower temperatures will cause bakers yeast to slow to a halt...

Hammerhorn · Post by **Hammerhorn** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 3:54 pm

rad14701 wrote:
Hammerhorn wrote:Using Rad's modified BW recipe (below) that was posted in WPOSW. Everything is going fine with my wash, but I wanted to ask what temp range should I follow, BW's or something a little less? Seems BW's is a little to high from what I have been reading. Also, I let my starter sit for an hour, too long for this recipe? I am also using Red Star Active Dry Yeast, I can't find any documentation of ABV with this.
Because you are using Red Star bakers yeast the optimal fermentation temperature would be 75F - 85F, as it would be for any bakers yeast... Lower temperatures will cause bakers yeast to slow to a halt...

So I assume you then keep your recipe in the 75F to 85F range and not the 85F to 95F range as the BW's recipe states?

Post by **rad14701** » Mon Apr 21, 2014 5:34 pm

Hammerhorn wrote:
rad14701 wrote:
Hammerhorn wrote:Using Rad's modified BW recipe (below) that was posted in WPOSW. Everything is going fine with my wash, but I wanted to ask what temp range should I follow, BW's or something a little less? Seems BW's is a little to high from what I have been reading. Also, I let my starter sit for an hour, too long for this recipe? I am also using Red Star Active Dry Yeast, I can't find any documentation of ABV with this.
Because you are using Red Star bakers yeast the optimal fermentation temperature would be 75F - 85F, as it would be for any bakers yeast... Lower temperatures will cause bakers yeast to slow to a halt...
So I assume you then keep your recipe in the 75F to 85F range and not the 85F to 95F range as the BW's recipe states?

I run several recipes in that temperature range regularly... You lose a little Hearts to Heads and Tails, at worst...

Post by **OlympicMtDoo** » Tue Apr 22, 2014 6:52 am

rad14701 wrote:
Hammerhorn wrote:
rad14701 wrote:
Hammerhorn wrote:Using Rad's modified BW recipe (below) that was posted in WPOSW. Everything is going fine with my wash, but I wanted to ask what temp range should I follow, BW's or something a little less? Seems BW's is a little to high from what I have been reading. Also, I let my starter sit for an hour, too long for this recipe? I am also using Red Star Active Dry Yeast, I can't find any documentation of ABV with this.
Because you are using Red Star bakers yeast the optimal fermentation temperature would be 75F - 85F, as it would be for any bakers yeast... Lower temperatures will cause bakers yeast to slow to a halt...
So I assume you then keep your recipe in the 75F to 85F range and not the 85F to 95F range as the BW's recipe states?
I run several recipes in that temperature range regularly... You lose a little Hearts to Heads and Tails, at worst...

+1 I shoot for the same range 75-85 works fine for all BW's and Sweet Feed.

Undies · Post by **Undies** » Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:37 am

I have changed the BW calculator to include some basic instructions. It's now in two parts - the instructions and the calculator.

I'm sure they'll need some fine tuning, so let me know what you pick up. Enjoy!

http://shuggo.com/birdwatchers/

oilguy · Post by **oilguy** » Fri May 09, 2014 9:01 pm

Gonna give this a go,
50 litres water,10 kg of sugar ( on sale for 8.99 Today

)
100 ml lemon juice
2 cans 156 ml each paste
1/2 tsp Epsom salt
1/3 cup Fleischmans bread makers yeast (rehydrated first)
Pitched yeast at 105,
SG -1.075
It's been 1 hour now and not much action,
Hopefully in the morning it will be rocking and rolling
Good night!

oilguy · Post by **oilguy** » Sat May 10, 2014 7:53 am

It's not going gangbusters this morning but it is working slowly,temp is at 78 ,so I think I will need to get it warmed up some

Post by **OlympicMtDoo** » Sun May 11, 2014 6:13 am

oilguy wrote:Gonna give this a go,
50 litres water,10 kg of sugar ( on sale for 8.99 Today )
100 ml lemon juice
2 cans 156 ml each paste
1/2 tsp Epsom salt
1/3 cup Fleischmans bread makers yeast (rehydrated first)
Pitched yeast at 105,
SG -1.075
It's been 1 hour now and not much action,
Hopefully in the morning it will be rocking and rolling
Good night!

That all sounds pretty good should be working like crazy, I'm from the land of gallons and Ounces so I have to convert all your figures in my head best I can but the pitched at 105 I aint sure about? What is that? I pitch at 85F to 90F. OMD

Post by **rad14701** » Sun May 11, 2014 6:22 am

Check the pH... I never add anything that will make a wash acidic unless it is used, and neutralized, in the invert sugar process... At 78F the wash should be rocking and rolling, especially with that much yeast...

hanon · Post by **hanon** » Mon May 12, 2014 8:02 am

I recently purchased a 20 L alembic still and decided to make a sugar wash for my first sacrificial run. This seems to be the recipe most people are using for this, however I plan to use White Labs Neutral Grain Yeast (WLP078) rather than bakers yeast. I plan to use 10 pounds of sugar to create 5 gallons of wash, so I should hit ~1.07 SG. I've never used WLP078, but I've used plenty of other White Labs yeast products, so 300 billion cells (the amount I plan to pitch) should be plenty to ferment 5 gallons at 1.07 SG. I'm probably just going to throw everything in my 5 gallon kettle and boil it to invert the sugar, then cool it and pitch the yeast. I'm a little worried that the tomato paste will leave some flavors on my kettle, so if there is a more neutral option to add nutrients I would prefer it. Also, is the tomato paste that critical? I really don't mind losing a few points of efficiency as this is for a sacrificial run. Also, since this still was professionally made in Portugal, I imagine it will be pretty clean after an initial cleaning, vinegar run, and another cleaning with plenty of elbow grease, so I imagine if I do a 2nd distillation with my sugar wash and make proper cuts, I can water it down to 40%, do a 3rd distillation, and have a reasonably neutral high ABV spirit that would be fine to drink.

planethax · Post by **planethax** » Mon May 12, 2014 10:04 am

You may need to do some more reading.
Yes the tomato paste is critical, without it the yeast will have no nutrients.

hanon · Post by **hanon** » Mon May 12, 2014 2:34 pm

I saw another recipe that used Gerber baby food, so there are other options than tomato paste, and while I probably wouldn't get a 1.07 SG sugar solution down to 1.000 without adding such nutrients, I could always do a small sample to see how much attenuation I could get with just lemon juice and some basic minerals. Also, I'm using distillers yeast, which is much different than bakers yeast. It will fully attenuate a 1.040 SG sugar solution in plain water in less than a week at room temperature (I once made a starter using White Labs Scotch Distillers Yeast and sugar, crashed the yeast out, and the sugar beer was fully attenuated 3 days later), and can attenuate 10 pounds of sugar in a 5 gallon batch of 10% ABV beer (I made a 20+% ABV beer by pitching the starter and continuously adding sugar.) While there is a lot of information about optimal pH and nutrients for barley mashes, unfortunately most of the information about nutrients and pH for sugar washes is a little more anecdotal, and most people are using bakers yeast which will need higher temperatures and most likely more nutrients to fully attenuate.

planethax · Post by **planethax** » Mon May 12, 2014 3:21 pm

Ok then carry on.

Hound Dog · Post by **Hound Dog** » Mon May 12, 2014 4:06 pm

There is a slew of other nutrients to use but really, you will not taste the tomato paste in the wash and the yeast will eat it all up.

planethax · Post by **planethax** » Mon May 12, 2014 4:59 pm

Beside for the lemons for acid IIRC (original recipe) the main ingredient is tomato paste.
Can you use other/different nutrients? Yes but then it's not birdwatchers recipe which is what this thread is about (^^^ looks at title )
If you have read this thread and many others on here you would already know the flavour a wont (minimally if you want to try) come through. Hence the neutral.

hanon · Post by **hanon** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:12 pm

I'm not worried about the tomato paste in the wash, I know that it will drop out of solution with the yeast, I'm worried about the tomato paste in the kettle causing beer I make in the future to have a tomato taste. "+sugar +wash" was the first search I tried in an attempt to find a good recipe, but it returns nothing since "sugar" and "wash" are too common of words, so I had to go through the board index to find an appropriate thread about a sugar wash. I read quite a few different threads on the site about sugar washes, but posted here because this was the biggest sugar wash thread and seemed like the best recipe. I am already changing the recipe just by the use of distillers yeast, and I would love to find a good recipe that does it that way, but a search for "+sugar +wash +distillers +yeast" pulls up 7386 matches, which is basically a search for "distillers" since it wants to ignore the words sugar, wash, and yeast. If anyone knows of a sugar wash recipe that uses a more neutral source for yeast nutrients, I would love to find it, but the search function seems to be unable to use common words for any form of exclusivity that might aid such a search.

Post by **T-Pee** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:19 pm

Try the Advanced Search at the top right corner.

tp

hanon · Post by **hanon** » Mon May 12, 2014 8:25 pm

That's the one I was using. It doesn't like the words sugar, wash, and yeast, and I'd imagine any other words that appear too commonly on the board.

Anyway, I decided I'd do an experiment. I'm boiling a pound of sugar in a half gallon of water with some lemon juice and gypsum (my addition, equivalent to 2 tsp in 5 gallons of water). I'm going to split it and add tomato paste to half of it, that way I can see how much difference it makes for my method.

Hound Dog · Post by **Hound Dog** » Tue May 13, 2014 1:07 am

If you are sweating the tomato paste that will not leave a taste, try Wino's Plain Old Sugar Wash. It is also in the "Tried an True" recipe section.

By the way, for searches, go to the forum main screen, click the "HD Google Search" link at the top. When a new tab opens leave the wording in the search box, space and type your search query after it. This works much better. Although, "sugar" and "wash" are just going to be WAY to broad of a search. I mean those words on a distilling site are like searching "chicks" on regular Google. Perhaps you will get something on baby chickens but you will have to wade through a million porn sites to do it!

Post by **rad14701** » Tue May 13, 2014 6:05 am

hanon wrote:I'm probably just going to throw everything in my 5 gallon kettle and boil it to invert the sugar, then cool it and pitch the yeast. I'm a little worried that the tomato paste will leave some flavors on my kettle, so if there is a more neutral option to add nutrients I would prefer it.

I'd suggest doing some research into the proper method of inverting sugar because your plan of action is incorrect... It has been covered here in the forums and I have posted several different methods to properly invert sugar...

As for the tomato paste, it is a non-issue as far as leaving anything behind... Soap and water will clean any fermentation equipment, or whatever methods you normally use... Same goes for the still... Tomato paste is one of the simplest yeast nutrients there is...

hanon · Post by **hanon** » Tue May 13, 2014 7:00 pm

I read about 4 different methods, but assumed it was the acidity that caused the higher boiling point (I have an ionizer that can make low pH water as well.) A quick look again made me realize that raising the boiling point would most likely need a higher concentration of sugar (than 10 pounds in 5 gallons) in addition to the lower pH. And as far as the tomato paste, as I said it's all about the boil kettle, nothing to do with fermentation or distillation.

hanon · Post by **hanon** » Tue May 13, 2014 7:26 pm

Thanks for the advice Hound Dog, I tried my search that way, and while it gave me 2000 results, at least it worked. I finally read through this whole thread (had only read the first 5 pages previously) and then read through all of Wineo's thread. It is more what I'm looking for and they are talking about pH and distillers yeast all over the place. Looks like I'll be making some salsa with that tomato paste.

Hound Dog · Post by **Hound Dog** » Wed May 14, 2014 12:57 am

hanon wrote:Thanks for the advice Hound Dog, I tried my search that way, and while it gave me 2000 results, at least it worked. I finally read through this whole thread (had only read the first 5 pages previously) and then read through all of Wineo's thread. It is more what I'm looking for and they are talking about pH and distillers yeast all over the place. Looks like I'll be making some salsa with that tomato paste.

Glad to help. Hope the other recipe gets you what you want. Just to throw it out there, the All Bran recipe is my favorite. Go a little lighter on the cereal for a more neutral taste but it is a great nutrient also. I use Frosted Mini Wheats when I make it and have a real smooth wheat vodka.

Sorry for getting off topic in this thread everyone.

dendog33 · Post by **dendog33** » Wed May 14, 2014 9:26 am

rad14701 wrote:
hanon wrote:I'm probably just going to throw everything in my 5 gallon kettle and boil it to invert the sugar, then cool it and pitch the yeast. I'm a little worried that the tomato paste will leave some flavors on my kettle, so if there is a more neutral option to add nutrients I would prefer it.
I'd suggest doing some research into the proper method of inverting sugar because your plan of action is incorrect... It has been covered here in the forums and I have posted several different methods to properly invert sugar...

As for the tomato paste, it is a non-issue as far as leaving anything behind... Soap and water will clean any fermentation equipment, or whatever methods you normally use... Same goes for the still... Tomato paste is one of the simplest yeast nutrients there is...

You can lead a horse to water!

hanon · Post by **hanon** » Wed May 14, 2014 3:27 pm

rad14701 wrote: I'd suggest doing some research into the proper method of inverting sugar because your plan of action is incorrect... It has been covered here in the forums and I have posted several different methods to properly invert sugar...

Thanks again to Hound Dog for pointing out your All Bran recipe which led me to the link on the board index (http://homedistiller.org/sugar/wash-sugar/invert" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow) which seems to indicate it is more about the pH than an increased boiling point and also gives a recommended pH of 3.6 for simmering at the boiling point of water for 15 minutes.

oilguy · Post by **oilguy** » Mon May 19, 2014 5:55 pm

oilguy wrote:Gonna give this a go,
50 litres water,10 kg of sugar ( on sale for 8.99 Today )
100 ml lemon juice
2 cans 156 ml each paste
1/2 tsp Epsom salt
1/3 cup Fleischmans bread makers yeast (rehydrated first)
Pitched yeast at 105,
SG -1.075
It's been 1 hour now and not much action,
Hopefully in the morning it will be rocking and rolling
Good night!

Update
SG is at 1.020 after 10 days, does this seem to slow

Hound Dog · Post by **Hound Dog** » Tue May 20, 2014 1:13 am

Check your PH. If it is acidic the yeast will go on strike. They like a more neutral environment. A little calcium carbonate (egg shells, sea shells, calcium tablets, tums, calcium carbonate powder, baking soda) will work.

1965 wite · Post by **1965 wite** » Thu May 22, 2014 8:58 pm

Thinking about trying bird watchers next. A few questions though.

1. Do I really need to transfer to carboys and do all the shaking ect? I want to just keep it simple and ferment in my normal unlocked vessel.

2. Can I use dry bakers yeast or does it have to be "fresh" bakers yeast?

3. How important are the higher temps stated in the recipe? I haven't done anything special to my other washes other than keep them above 65f. Haven't let them get too hot either.

4. Should I use a lower SG? It says 1.09 to start but their is a lot of discussion about lower temps and lower SGs

What works well for you guys that have done this one??

Post by **googe** » Thu May 22, 2014 9:18 pm

Ive done heaps of these as most have, not any more though, don't like the end product compared to other neutral based washes. Just do it one fermenter, Dry bakers is fine, ive done mine in temps as low as 2c over night and never had one stall, it will just ferment slower. I always go lower sg, 4-45kg sugar for 25L. Good luck mate

Post by **rad14701** » Fri May 23, 2014 7:29 am

Thinking about trying bird watchers next. A few questions though.

1. Do I really need to transfer to carboys and do all the shaking ect? I want to just keep it simple and ferment in my normal unlocked vessel.

2. Can I use dry bakers yeast or does it have to be "fresh" bakers yeast?

3. How important are the higher temps stated in the recipe? I haven't done anything special to my other washes other than keep them above 65f. Haven't let them get too hot either.

4. Should I use a lower SG? It says 1.09 to start but their is a lot of discussion about lower temps and lower SGs

What works well for you guys that have done this one??

I never shake or transfer... I aerate using a wooden stick or an arrow shaft in a portable drill... But I do rack into secondary vessels to enhance the clearing process and then rack from the secondaries into the boiler... This is just my personal preference...

Bakers yeast is bakers yeast, whether fresh or dry active...

Bakers yeast, any kind, likes temperatures in the 75F - 85F range... It, along with many other yeast strains, will start slowing or even stall as early as the low 70's...

You can use whatever SG you like but considering how this wash is intended to be distilled in a reflux column for neutral spirits any SG up to 1.092 is acceptable...

Home Distiller

Birdwatchers sugar wash recipe

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Birdwatchers sugar wash recipe

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