Rice vodka yeast starter medium

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Guerilla Distillah
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Rice vodka yeast starter medium

Post by Guerilla Distillah »

Hey everybody, I bought a neutral spirit yeast culture from my local homebrew store, I started it yesterday in 500 mL of 1.050 SG sugar water. Do you reckon this is going to cause me grief when I finally pitch into a fermenter full of converted rice sugars? I will be supplementing with a little bit of cane sugar to make my final gravity if necessary. Any suggestions on a better medium if sugar is not optimal. I don't wish to go to the links of fully mashing a small batch of rice just to have the exact same medium. Seems like a lot of hassle. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
GD
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Swedish Pride
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Re: Rice vodka yeast starter medium

Post by Swedish Pride »

what is a neutral spirit yeast culture?
a pack of yeast from the HBS that they said was the bees knees for neutral?

If so, i'm sure you're yeasts are loving life, they love them some sugar.
I've read that ideally it should be the same as you intend to do the mash in but my palette is far from sophisticated enough to be able to tell the difference.

I just take a cup of yeast out of the mash, water it down with a cup of water and use for a starter.
then the next day when the mash has cooled down I pitch the starter
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Guerilla Distillah
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Re: Rice vodka yeast starter medium

Post by Guerilla Distillah »

Generally boss, that's my approach too. But in this case, 40 fission use of my time and boiler space, I doubled the recipe I'm using, and it's a single smack pack by white labs So it was my intention to step it up twice before Sunday. I had to leave for work early this morning and I forgot to check but I asked my wife to look and she said "yep, it's farting away" which is her description of the airlocks bubbling. So I know the little beasties are happy, but my worry is the compatibility factor. Generally I don't think it's that critical in the making of beer to be that far off in difference of mediums as long as it's from malt, but in this case, going from sugar to whatever form of simple sugar coalesces after my first 85% rice sugars mash attempt.

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Re: Rice vodka yeast starter medium

Post by Swedish Pride »

for what it is worth, in my rice mash I pitched dry bakers yeast right on top of the beer (wine?)
Turned in to a lovely drop, may have to do an other one now that you reminded me.
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ShineRunner
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Re: Rice vodka yeast starter medium

Post by ShineRunner »

Same here, SP. Pitched dry yeast right on top and it worked just fine. Not sure why you'd need a special neutral yeast, but I guess it's worth a shot. Maybe the stuff is magical!? Let us know how it works.

As for the starter, starting with table sugar is usually fine. It's yeast.They're generally not too picky about who or what they party with. They eat all kinds of sugars and poop out alcohol. It's pretty great!

SR
Guerilla Distillah
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Re: Rice vodka yeast starter medium

Post by Guerilla Distillah »

ShineRunner wrote:Same here, SP. Pitched dry yeast right on top and it worked just fine. Not sure why you'd need a special neutral yeast, but I guess it's worth a shot. Maybe the stuff is magical!? Let us know how it works.

As for the starter, starting with table sugar is usually fine. It's yeast.They're generally not too picky about who or what they party with. They eat all kinds of sugars and poop out alcohol. It's pretty great!

SR
Let me be clear about something… I don't work for white labs and they're not paying me anything. They have always produced a great product in my brewing experience I have never used one of their distilling yes. I simply went looking for something that was specifically designed and shouted for a neutral spirit. I have to think personally, while not a Labtech of any sort, it's probably easier to isolate and hybridize a yeast that illuminates or mitigates flavors then it is to design or propagate one for a specific flavor. If That makes any sense. So I'm certainly not going into this believing or even thinking that this is a catchall magic bullet for neutral spirits, but I definitely intended to grab something that was at least intended for that purpose. Unfortunately, this is my first intentional neutral spirit and my first ever dealing with rice other than using Hulls in brewing. But I will definitely report back. I recently tasted a vodka, for lack of better descriptions from a close friend who just got started distilling from Street sugar wash and it was absolutely fantastic. And he used 48 hour turbo yeast. Granted, it took longer than 48 hours, and he went through the extensive clarification process using carbon and the like. But the results said all I needed to know. Thanks again for the input everyone, I feel confident stepping up two more times with nothing but cane sugar in solution will be sufficient.

GD
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