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How much Baker's yeast should I use for a approx. 20 gallon mash ? and does it hinge on the brand used ? I've used Turbo yeast in my first two tries and came up with results in what some of the experts on here say smelly & nasty tasting likker.... :-( live -n- learn I guess... lol

I use about 2 tablespoons per 5 gallons, so 8 tablespoons or 8 of the small packets.

Do you recommend Baker's yeast to any other yeast for good flavor ? My first (ever) two runs I did with turbo yeast and it tasted & smelled nasty...., of course I most likely made some other mistakes to also cause that...

Ron I think most use bakers yeast because it is cheap, accessable and does not impart a bad flavor. Of course you have to make sure you don't get a lot of yeast in your boiler but that goes for any yeast. Other yeasts may give you a better end result but you will have to experiment with different types to find one that you like. Also dont push your yeast to hard and shoot for a high abv wash try to keep it down around 10%. I think it is more important to have a good healthy ferment than to wory about what yeast to use.

What Pumpman said
+1

If you are doing a straight sugar wash, you will need to add some neutrients. (Turbo's have too many neutrients, so they can be pushed to higher ABV)
Keep the potential under 12% and feed the yeast the right amount of neut's.

I recently followed the WPOSW recipe with baker's yeast, and I used 1/2 cup for 5 gallons. The more experienced guys on here can use less in their batches and make it work well, but I'm not at that point. I started with Turbos, too, and they were fun to watch - but they always made things with too many off-scents and bad flavors. There's been plenty of discussions on here about how much yeast - some guys dump a lot, some guys use a little and are skilled enough to get them to reproduce enough so that they become a lot.

This is the first time I've used a lot of yeast, and I couldn't have been happier with the results. Baker's yeast is cheap, and I'm doing it this way for the foreseeable future. If you're just starting out and having some trouble, my recommendation is to do the same. There's plenty of other things to work out and perfect - you don't want to be worrying about whether or not you've got any functional yeast in your batch. I'm sure you want to be concentrating on the art of distilling, and enjoying a good product when you're done. Work on the yeast issue later if you're so inclined.

I use 2 tbsp of Fleischmann's dry active bakers yeast per gallon so 1/2 cup (8 tbsp), should work fine for 5 gallons... Less yeast only increases lag time but doesn't really decrease off flavors because you still need a given number of yeast to convert sugars to ethanol and CO2... Using what may appear to be excess yeast merely reduces the aerobic multiplication phase, given proper aeration, and speeds the progression into the anaerobic phase... Faster ferments leave less opportunity for infections to take hold due to ample CO2 layer protection and rapidly rising alcohol content...

Thanks guys !! I found one of my other problems the other day...! It was a construction issue of my still , I didn't seal the top of my cooker and the vapors kinda escaped before making up the riser (whatever it is called )