Both washes stalled in less than 12 hours

[midnightmaraude]

It stopped bubbling like two weeks now.
Hydrometer is fine.

[midnightmaraude]

Oh and both barrels are 1.07
Which is weird too
I would think if it was truly 1.07 it would be a lot sweeter tasting than it is

[rad14701]

Sounds like you've got two stalled washes there...

Have you checked the pH...???

What is the wash temperature...???

[midnightmaraude]

I don't know exact ph but i put in the 5.2 ph balancer
The temp is normal range..it's indoors third floor condo.
Never had an issue before.
I dunno man...I'm really stumped. What is odd is i would think the wash would be mich sweeter than it is considering it started at 1.08 and it reads 1.07
Also the wash was working for a week....
I mean that had to work off more than .01 of the sg right?

[HDNB]

from that wiki place

"The juice is then extracted from the core of the agave, called the piña.[2] The juice is filtered, then heated to break the complex components (the polysaccharides) into simple sugars.[citation needed] The main polysaccharide is called inulin or fructosan and is mostly fructose."

didya do that? maybe full of unfermentables.

you could always add some shells, heat it to pastyuerization temps, say 175* for a half hour, cool and repitch. that will cover most (all?) the bases, Invert the sugar, kill any nasties, balance PH, dead yeast will provide nute for new yeast...

140 bucks, i'd be wagging my tail pretty hard trying to save it.

[midnightmaraude]

Well the place i bought it from cooked it at 114 degrees to make the extract. I think what I'm going to do is run it and extract what alcohol there is then let it cool and repitch yeast

[midnightmaraude]

I'm gonna go the pasteurized route.
If that doesn't fix it down the sink it goes

[Snackson]

I don't know exact ph but i put in the 5.2 ph balancer
The temp is normal range..it's indoors third floor condo.
Never had an issue before.
I dunno man...I'm really stumped. What is odd is i would think the wash would be mich sweeter than it is considering it started at 1.08 and it reads 1.07
Also the wash was working for a week....
I mean that had to work off more than .01 of the sg right?

The 5.2 is a stabilizer for making all grain batches and won't do anything after that. Most likely, your pH crashed along with a lower temp. I've made agave washes and they stalled due to temp. A little space heater helped warm them up. You say normal range but if the liquid inside the fermenter isn't around 75 or higher, it might be too cold.

[midnightmaraude]

Temperature on other barrel is 69.
I'll also try putting a warming belt on this one.
Will the crushed oyster shells balance the ph?
Otherwise how do you adjust it in a agave wash?

[still_stirrin]

Will the crushed oyster shells balance the ph?
Otherwise, how do you adjust it in a agave wash?

What is the pH now? Have you checked it, or are you supposing that it is low?

Crushed oyster shells (calcium carbonate) will stabilize (buffer) the acid level during fermentation. But it not the best way to raise the pH. Add the shells at the start of the ferment to retard acid development.

If you need to raise the pH, use slacked lime (calcium hydroxide), sometimes called "pickling lime", and is available in the grocery store where you have the canning supplies. The hydroxide is a strong base and will raise the pH without adding a bunch of sodium or other flavor changers.

But you've not actually measured it...so, get pH papers and check it.

[midnightmaraude]

So for giggles i wemt and tested the sugar level
Now it's 1.05
What is happening?

[midnightmaraude]

Evaporation?

[still_stirrin]

It stopped bubbling like two weeks now...Hydrometer is fine...Now it's 1.05...Evaporation?

It was 1.07 and you thought it was done. Now, its 1.05 and wonder how it got to 1.05?

I think it is still fermenting, all be it, quite slowly.

You've been given many ideas how to help the ferment along, but it's not apparent that you've done anything.

So, you can just wait....and wait...and wait.

Next time, I suggest following a T&T recipe and save yourself (and us) the frustration.

[midnightmaraude]

Why are you being rude? I have tried many things with this wash multiple times. It was 1.07 before i did the pasteurizing and when i took it off the stove it was 1.05
So clearly it didn't ferment while it was cooking at 175 degrees!
It's been 3 hours since i pitched the new yeast and it's not bubbling at all.
My guess is due to the agave I never had an accurate reading of sg to begin with and the new yeast can't work in the environment it has. I think it makes sense
That both stopped at 1.07.
Sorry to inconvenience you. I was simply trying to
Figure out what happened here. I've never had a stalled fwrment ever and I've been at this 4 years now.

[mulligan]

If it doesn't have a really nasty mould then give it time or rack it or use a wine fermentation stopper and then distill it.

Apart from potentially burning the base of your boiler and surge boiling etc, stilling not completely fermented wine/wash while not ideal isn't the end of the world.

[Mikey-moo]

Why are you being rude? I have tried many things with this wash multiple times. It was 1.07 before i did the pasteurizing and when i took it off the stove it was 1.05
So clearly it didn't ferment while it was cooking at 175 degrees!
It's been 3 hours since i pitched the new yeast and it's not bubbling at all.
My guess is due to the agave I never had an accurate reading of sg to begin with and the new yeast can't work in the environment it has. I think it makes sense
That both stopped at 1.07.
Sorry to inconvenience you. I was simply trying to
Figure out what happened here. I've never had a stalled fwrment ever and I've been at this 4 years now.

So before you pasteurized it the gravity was 1.07. After pasteurization it was 1.05. That is weird. Both readings taken at the same temperature right?

[midnightmaraude]

No the 1.05 was taken while hot.
This morning i noticed a burp every 8 seconds.

[bilgriss]

Most hydrometers are calibrated for 60F and will read lower gravity at higher temperatures. Particularly if it's hot.

Glad you have some fermentation showing. Now keep the temperature stable and watch the pH.

[midnightmaraude]

Still bubbling away.
Seems pasteurizing it and adding the oyster shells
Did the trick

[Mikey-moo]

Still bubbling away.
Seems pasteurizing it and adding the oyster shells
Did the trick

You added more yeast too though right?

[midnightmaraude]

Of course.

Still bubbling ...

[midnightmaraude]

Still bubbling a week later

[shadylane]

Glad to hear the ferment is working
On your next wash, I'd recommend a yeast bomb, oyster shells and a SG around 1.07ish
Depending on the yeast and temp it could ferment dry in under a week

[midnightmaraude]

Glad to hear the ferment is working
On your next wash, I'd recommend a yeast bomb, oyster shells and a SG around 1.07ish
Depending on the yeast and temp it could ferment dry in under a week

I'm not sure it was the oyster shells that did it. I'm sure it helped but I pasteurizing it and boiling it up may have made some unfermentables fermentable. The second barrel I boiled up as well pitched the shells, waited til it was 100degrees (highly active yeast), went to bed and in the morning it wasn't bubbling. The liquid was luke warm so I went and bought a jar of the yeast again and pitched that. Been bubbling since. Instructions say 100 to 115 degrees but I think that must be just to get the yeast activated for using in bread and you can't dump em in the 100 degree water full on.

[rad14701]

I'm sure it helped but I pasteurizing it and boiling it up may have made some unfermentables fermentable.

Now, that would be a real trick if it was true... Unfortunately, you didn't make any unfermentables fermentable because, well, they're unfermentables... Meaning that they contain no fermentable sugars or starches that can be converted into fermentable sugars... Hence, unfermentables...

[midnightmaraude]

I'm sure it helped but I pasteurizing it and boiling it up may have made some unfermentables fermentable.

Now, that would be a real trick if it was true... Unfortunately, you didn't make any unfermentables fermentable because, well, they're unfermentables... Meaning that they contain no fermentable sugars or starches that can be converted into fermentable sugars... Hence, unfermentables...

then I'm stumped. I guess it was the PH then

[shadylane]

Just a thought
From the limited research I've done, it would appear agave syrup has very few nutrients to feed the yeast.
Pasteurizing the stalled wash, boiled the old yeast and made nutrients available for the new yeast you pitched.
Search yeast bomb

[bluefish_dist]

Might try doing a two step nutrient addition. The instructions I have for agave is to add 2/3 of the nutrients at pitch and 1/3 24 hours later. Agave may also have sulfur in it which makes it hard to ferment.

[midnightmaraude]

Well here's the end of the story.
Bubbling stopped. I checked it it read 1.03 on both barrels.
I decided to run it. First barrel spit out 130 proof awful and the run down was short.
Second barrel 100 proof! I was even thinking of just dumping it. I ran it then i combined the two and did a doubke distil. I then did a triple distil..started at 160 proof.
In the end out of 14 gallons I got 1.5 handles.
Not sure of the quality either.
So maybe the unfiltered agave i bought is the culprit. Maybe I'll try the processed stuff next time.

[shadylane]

Well here's the end of the story....
....So maybe the unfiltered agave i bought is the culprit. Maybe I'll try the processed stuff next time.

The processed agave juice sounds like it would work ,
And a yeast bomb, oyster shells, temp control and last but not least,
Don't try to feed the yeast, more sugar than it can take.