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Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 11:40 am
by dazastar
It boasts 20+ alc level in 7 days.

Did exactly as the instructions said. 10.5 kilos of dextrose, 20litres of water - and keep temperature bellow 24 degrees C (the instructions say it will stop if it goes above 24C). Well after 6 weeks (not 6 days) bubbling slowed down to a stop. Hydrometer reading was only half way - no where near .990 - not even 1.000.

Anyway - could not get it to continue bubbling - even tried pitching a bit more yeast and shacking it. Racket it and distilled with normal alc product I would get if i used bakers or even turbo for that matter......what a waste. Any one else had this experience.

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 3:04 pm
by rad14701
A wash with 10.5 kg of sugar in 20 liters of water is going to have a potential %ABV of 30.9... The alcohol content might be killing the yeast even though there is sugar left to ferment...

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:16 pm
by Rod
did the recipe say

10.5 kg

or

10.5 lb

of dextrose

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 7:58 pm
by dazastar
http://www.brewcraftwa.com.au/infosheet ... Yeasts.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

As it says in this brochure, 10.5kg in 20litres of water

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:25 pm
by rad14701
Not sure how the same amount of water and sugar can yield different amounts of alcohol based on the yeast used... Something just isn't right with those figures... Those figures can only be correct if the yeast dies before all of the sugar has been converted to alcohol and CO2 - essentially, a stalled ferment... A 75% - 83% efficiency rate is far too conservative, not to mention wasteful...

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:42 pm
by Aces High
Do you know what your starting SG was? It must have been massive. Having said that, Dextrose is different to normal white sugar and you require more dextrose for the same ABV outcome. If you used standard white sugar you may have only needed 9KG for the same result. I see that they specify dextrose and not white sugar (mainly cause they sell it in 1KG bags for an outragious price)

Maybe you can split it into 2 x fermenters, top it up with water and then add some cheap bakers yeast to finish it out. Sounds like there will be plenty of dead yeast to supply the bakers yeast with nutrients. otherwise run it like it is, but it sounds like there's still a lot of sugar and potential alcohol left in there

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 8:52 pm
by HookLine
Dextrose has a lower conversion rate than plain sugar (sucrose). From memory, 1kg of dextrose is equivalent to 0.85 kg of sucrose. So 10.5 kg of dextrose = about 9kg of sucrose.

Still way too high though, if you want clean booze. Use half that rate of sugar.
I see that they specify dextrose and not white sugar (mainly cause they sell it in 1KG bags for an outragious price)
Heh. Indeed. In fairness, dextrose ferments a bit cleaner than sucrose, so I am told. I think the beer and wine guys prefer dextrose for this reason. Never tried it myself.

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 9:15 pm
by dazastar
Thanks everyone,

I suspected as much, dodgy marketing designed to waste my dollers, good thing I purchased the dextrose in bulk.

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 6:18 am
by rad14701
dazastar wrote:Thanks everyone,

I suspected as much, dodgy marketing designed to waste my dollers, good thing I purchased the dextrose in bulk.
The dextrose itself isn't the problem, it's the misleading advertising... I started to do a quick search for the efficiency of dextrose but stopped once I took another look at their varying result claims which should be more linear in comparison to the amount of dextrose/sugar used... It's not your fault that the ferment has stalled as you were simply following misleading information... But, as pointed out, the ferment can most likely be saved by splitting, diluting, and pitching more yeast...

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:37 am
by radio11
dazastar,just wanted to put my 2 cents worth in,around here s/w ontario.a lot of shops sell stuff called extreme alcobase,they say its best used with dextrose?way more money than just good old white sugar.these pacs use 18lt of water and 10.5kg of dextrose or 9.0kg of good old white.they do work if u keep your temps around that 18-24 deg range.but in the end its more fit to be used for fuel. :(

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 12:41 pm
by rad14701
radio11 wrote:dazastar,just wanted to put my 2 cents worth in,around here s/w ontario.a lot of shops sell stuff called extreme alcobase,they say its best used with dextrose?way more money than just good old white sugar.these pacs use 18lt of water and 10.5kg of dextrose or 9.0kg of good old white.they do work if u keep your temps around that 18-24 deg range.but in the end its more fit to be used for fuel. :(
I don't think even the most hardy turbo yeast is going to ferment to 29.4% ABV... :? Heck, why bother distilling if you can get almost 30% right out if the fermenter... :roll:

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 7:35 pm
by radio11
rad14701,well u got it,with this stuff they say filter it, stabilize,flavor it.drink it. :shock:

Re: Still Spirits Power Yeast - what went wrong

Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:01 pm
by Verbyla
I'm new to distilling and have been testing out different yeasts with white sugar vs dextrose. I used 10.5kg of both sugars and found that dextrose just made it 1.000 but the white only made it to about 1.045 after 3.5 weeks and with a week of no change in the gravity . No surprises as apparently dextrose has a lower alc yeild. The only thing i did differently to what you did was that i used 24L of water. I had it sitting in my temperature regulated fridge sitting at a constant 21C +/- .5C. I didn't find that it produced a great quality spirits and doubled distilled everything which fixed things.

I would use it again with dextrose but i'll make a 4 x 25L washes, distill 20L of wash at a time and double distill the spirits. That is unless i find another yeast i prefer or if by reading through this forum I find a better way, which is highly likely as i've learnt so much already :P