Simple recipe

[ScottishBoy]

Just leaving this here for a note. I finally figured out what my old friend was doing when he did his wash. He always had a bottle of Geritol on the shelf over his still, but I never saw him take any of it. Never thought to ask him about it, but I bet that sly dog was putting in his ferments. He always said I would learn some things when I needed to.

So I basic'ed this recipe.

5 gallons water
5 pounds sugur
Fleischmans yeast ( 2 tbls)
1/4 cup lime juice
2 One a Day Multivitamins ( water soluble vitamin delivery)

Boil 2 gallons of water, dissolves sugur and lime juice, stir, add 2 more gallons of cool water, stir in vitamins. Let wax coat break open and retrieve with a strainer. If you dont agitate them, it comes off in one piece.
Drop in last gallon to drop temp to below 80F and pitch yeast. Stir well and move into sealed container with an airlock. I estimate 10-14 days for 14.7 ABV. Let is sit til it stops bubbling.

My still components wont be ready for a while, so I didnt need a huge jump in speed. Most of the intial work will be getting myself familiar with the process again.

Still...it's nice the be back..
SB

[theholymackerel]

5 gallons water
5 pounds sugur
Fleischmans yeast ( 2 tbls)
1/4 cup lime juice
2 One a Day Multivitamins ( water soluble vitamin delivery)

...
I estimate 10-14 days for 14.7 ABV. Let is sit til it stops bubbling.

There are plenty of sugarhead recipes here that will ferment out in a few days. Read up on nutrients.

Also, 5 lbs of sugar in 5 gallons of wash will yeild roughly 5% abv, nowhere near the 14.7% abv you claim.

[rad14701]

That wash needs more nutrients than 2 multivitamins will provide... Your friend was quite likely using Geritol as part of his nutrient regimen but that wouldn't have been all he used... If you are going to rely on yeast alone to do your fermenting you'd need to pitch a lot more yeast than 2 tablespoons in 5 gallons...

Pitching your yeast at a warmer temperature, more like 95F, would definitely help the initial yeast colony grow during the aerobic phase... Pitch closer to proofing temperature as at 80F you are already headed into the slower fermentation temperatures and your yeast colony will have a hard time getting large enough to do the job, even with proper nutrients which are now lacking...

Your recipe, with 5 pounds of sugar in 5 gallons of water, will have a potential 7% ABV yield as per the sugar calculator on the parent site... Using 2 pounds per gallon gets you to 14.1%...

Stick with the recipes on this site until you have a handle on things... They go from development to tried and true for a reason - they work...

At the very least you should add nutrients to the wash to fend off stalling... A 6oz can of tomato paste, or 5 cups of Gerber cereal, or 5 cups of All Bran, will do the trick... If you use on of the cereals it will work better to boil it for about 30 minutes with water:cereal ratio of 2:1 by volume before adding it to the wash... If you don't have room in the fermenter, either draw off some wash or simply use tomato paste...

Good luck...

[ScottishBoy]

Yup, you are correct. I just looked at my scribblings and I forgot to change over from L or Kg. I wish the US would just do it and join the rest of the world...
Thanks for the correction.
Im not looking for anything that finishes quickly as I mentioned before. However that does explain the medium activity I was seeing this morning. Guess its time for a little pick me up. Amazing how easily one becomes distracted at work....ahem.

Will most likely add another 5 lbs to the mix and the tomato past since I bought some for just such an occasion...although I may have some baby food in the cupboard.

Thanks for pointing out my math error..

Its been a LONG time since I did this.

SB

[ScottishBoy]

Okay just reproduced my mistake....idiot moi...

So I burped the container and took out a gallon of ferments and put them on the stove with another 5 pounds of sugar and a six ounce can of tomato paste. Boiled and then simmered with a little more lime juice.
Took a mixer and hydrated the ever loving hell out of my bucket then added the stove nutrients and sugar. This brought the temp of the bucket to 89 F, so I pitched 4 tbls of yeast and then aerated it again to the point where it was a solid light pink color due to oxygen saturation. Looked like really thin strawberry milk. Capped and put the lock on it.

The guy who taught me used to say "Frothy, Like a Beer." Of course I was the one who got to do it. We did it with an electric drill and this thing that looked like a torture device, about three feet long, four paddles on the ends. Looked almost like a pipe bore.

Its already double what the brew was doing when I got home.
Thanks for the patience guys.

[ScottishBoy]

Nice suggestion about the tomato paste. After I put that in and repitched I saw about 4 times the action ( in terms of CO2 ) from the batch. I have to admit I was a little hesitant about putting it in. It was a really odd thing to do but I cant argue with the results.

Forced myself to slow down and re-read, and then re-read again. Starting to understand a little more deeply than before. Thanks guys.

SB

[HookLine]

Tomato paste is a very good source of nutrients. Used it many times.

[rad14701]

Glad to hear that your ferment is showing signs of improved activity, ScottishBoy... We do use what sounds like some odd ingredients around here... Lentils, baby cereal, tomato paste... You name it and we'll try it to see if it aids fermentation - within reason...

[ScottishBoy]

The stuff that made me take a step back was the lawn fertilizer. I had to think that one through and it DOES make sense, but it was hard to accept the idea. Oddly enough I like the smell of the tomato paste and yeast. I am curious about a few different ingredients...Im wondering if those dehydrated mashed potatos might be a good thing to try. But I have a lot more reading to do..

[LWTCS]

Well, I don't wanna hear no CRAP about the Metamucil

[HookLine]

The stuff that made me take a step back was the lawn fertilizer. I had to think that one through and it DOES make sense, but it was hard to accept the idea.

Avoid the ones that use urea for the nitrogen source. Which is kinda tricky, as most of them do.

Try to get ammonia, or even better, nitrate sources of nitrogen.

[ScottishBoy]

Well, I don't wanna hear no CRAP about the Metamucil

Anything I say about Metamucil will be "Slick and loosely worded."...harharhar

[ScottishBoy]

Well, it's been a week and the wash is still chugging along quite nicely. It has slowed a little bit, but its still quite active. Im working it at room temperature so Im thinking it might go as far as the weekend. By then I will have a small scale still in place to drop it in. Going to run my first one as a pot still with a thumper and a standard condenser. Going to see if I can reproduce this stuff I used to make called "lakewater". Not sure how the tomato is going to effect it, but this IS a hobby of experimentation..right?

SB

[rad14701]

The tomato paste doesn't carry over into the spirits... It's just there as nutrients...

I just did an All Bran wash in reflux mode to make neutral spirits for a friends Glug recipe... I had run it in strip mode and then refluxed it just to speed things along but could have just done a single reflux run if I could have fit all of it in my boiler at once...

[ScottishBoy]

So this wash took a sharp dive in terms of CO2 yesterday and seemed like it was done, but it perked back up this morning. I would normally leave it until all activity stop but I heard someone mention that the settling yeast can leave a bad taste in the wash. What do you think?
Time to strip it out? Or wait til it's quiet?