have i ruined my mash guys?

[irishmike]

ive had a mash of rads "gerber" on for around 24hrs and am getting worried i doomed it from the start. I made the mash according to rads recipe and am fermenting it in a 5gal water jug, the kind that fits into a stand up cooler. ive read on here that many people dont use airlocks and i figured that the moonshiners of old probably didnt either. lost of people on here say they just cover a wash with a cloth to ferment. ive searched this site all day and keep finding conflicting info about the need for an airlock to deny oxygen. the mash is bubbling away but i read somwhere on here that this means fermentation is taking place but that alcohol isnt nessesarrily being produced. i was so happy because it smelled like alcohol in my bathrom where my mash is but now i think that the smell im mistaking for alcohol is just a yeast smell, like how it smells in the local beer store. have i ruined this thing guys? any info you could give would be great.

[irishmike]

my mash also never developed a cap on it as ive read so many times on here. should there have been one? will it come later?

[Dnderhead]

yeast produce alcohol if the fermenter is open or closed,, even with wine/beer the "primary" ferment is open (usually with loose lid) the secondary is closed but this can go on for months. as a cap goes that depends on what is in the wash, the cap is unfermented halls/grain/skins that float on Co2. most processed cereals do not have this or its ground so fine that it is not going to form a cap.

[tryingitout]

Like dunder said yeast produce alcohol. As long as it is bubbling it is making alcohol and co2. The yeast is eating sugar and farting co2, and in the process it coverts the sugar to alcohol. (so I have learned) And as long as it is bubbling the co2 is pushing out the oxygen. Problem arises when there isn’t enough co2 to keep the oxygen out, oxygen in along with bacteria.
TIO

[irishmike]

thanks guys. makes me feel a lot better. will finish soldering takeoff arm on my still today and will run the wash when ready. keep an eye out on the "my first" page for pix. thanks again.

[rad14701]

Gerber washes usually don't form a krausen on top at the start like most grains and larger cereals... The most I get out of them is a layer of clear to whitish bubbles sometimes forming for the first few hours, but not always... The normal CO2 bubbles from my Gerber washes have been very small, like fizzy soda pop...

I also use a 25L water machine bottle... Most of the time I use an airlock but sometimes simply use a coffee filter and rubber band... I have an All Bran wash going in in that fashion that is running slower than I had expected, but they just recently shut off the heat in the empty apartment below me that had been set to 90F for the entire winter so it's cooler than normal in my office closet...

Just let your wash run its course - it'll be fine...

[olddog]

will finish soldering takeoff arm on my still today and will run the wash when ready.

Don't forget to do a couple of cleaning runs before you run some wash you are going to keep.

OD