8% ABV in 6 hours

[hoochlover]

I have some graphs of the data I have collected for some yeast tests.

My latest test was an 8% wash on my current nutrient mix, of sugar, yeast, epsom salts and water. Pretty simple. It fermented out in 6 hours. I use a 0.01g accurate scale to measure the CO2 lost. Does anyone else have any experience with fast washes?

8% abv in 6 hours

[yakattack]

Ummm... What?

Are you taking a sg and a fg using a hydrometer?
6 hours is crazy fast. Even if you were using turbo yeast (yuk).

To be honest I don't understand how you are measuring the co2 loss, or how that correlates to a wash finishing.

A little more info is needed.

Yak

[hoochlover]

Ummm... What?

Are you taking a sg and a fg using a hydrometer?
6 hours is crazy fast. Even if you were using turbo yeast (yuk).

To be honest I don't understand how you are measuring the co2 loss, or how that correlates to a wash finishing.

A little more info is needed.

Yak

No it's just normal instant dried bakers yeast.

Yes I have taken the gravity of most of my tests. It becomes kinda redundant to keep doing it at the start but it's a good way to double check the end. I weigh all my ingredients on a 0.01g accurate scale. Eventually you get much better at understanding the process through the CO2 lost, and it's a more accurate way of knowing how much alcohol was produced because yeast growth is taken into account for it unlike a hydrometer reading.

There is a formula you can use called the " Balling formula", it's rough but a good guideline.

2.0665 gms extract in wort make 1 gm of alcohol, 0.9565 gm CO2 and 0.11 gm yeast mass

I like you was also surprised. I started doing my tests with 4% ABV initially, and I got 5 hours on my first runs with epsom salts. And I was like wow, that's pretty fast. So I started playing around with different things, finding the optimal epsom salts, yeast etc. Without epsom salts in the amount I put it the fermentation isn't anywhere near as quick. So that is the one important nutrient you need. And perhaps with others it will be even faster, I've only tried citric acid so far and that wasn't faster.

If you click on my image it will show you the exact amounts I used and the temperature. One reason it only took 6 hours is because I used 20 grams of yeast. To do this exact same test for 25L of mash you would need 1.2kg of yeast. So you can see one reason it is so fast is due to the amount of yeast used, however if you used the same amount of yeast with no epsom salts it would be 2-4 times longer. I would like others to do the same test I have and verify the same results.

You can do a 4% ABV in under 2 hours by doing the exact same thing as I did for 8%, except just use 30 grams of sugar. So you can kinda see the effect an increase on ABV has on the time taken, even though it's only double the alcohol it takes 3 times longer to do 8% than 4%.

[hoochlover]

I would also like to add I haven't distilled any of these quick washes yet, I plan on doing that soon with a bigger wash once I find the nutrient mix I'm happy with. These tests are kinda pointless if the end result is rubbish as what distiller would care? However I am following a path that the majority of esters/fusels produced by yeast are caused by the lag and exponential growth phase as pointed out by many studies. By using high amounts of yeast I aim to reduce that and hopefully end up with a cleaner product.

So I'm not sure yet if these fast washes will result in a cleaner product and be of any use to anyone here. But it's interesting anyhow to get quick ferments. I didn't know it was possible from the things I had read.

[LBHD]

When making beer, my 6-12 oz step up starters ferment out very quickly as well.. I would be interested to see if stepping up the size doesn't affect speed!

[hoochlover]

When making beer, my 6-12 oz step up starters ferment out very quickly as well.. I would be interested to see if stepping up the size doesn't affect speed!

You can't make beer quick, the lag and reproduction phase are critical in the taste of the beer. It will taste like rubbish otherwise. I wrote something on this yesterday, I should perhaps repost it.

*edit* Actually I think I misread what you meant. Yes I agree it will be interesting to see if the larger size plays out the same. It's a lot of yeast to use and the cost is likely prohibitive for many people who don't mind the yeast reproducing and taking time to do it. 1.2kg of yeast that I use is about $20.

[Ferment_It]

Nice data hooch. It doesn't look like you had a very long lag phase. Was your yeast rehydrated prior to your experiment? I assume the short lag is largely due to the massive inoculum you used, but it still takes time for the yeast to wake up and get to eating- your data doesn't show this. Any ideas why?

I'm looking forward to see what else you have in store for us... Might I recommend comparing fermentation of different sugars? There is a debate going on regarding the benefits of inverting sugar and you seem to have the tools to test it.

[still_stirrin]

Do you expect this CO2/time (respiration) to be scalable up to working volumes? Try it and see if you can.

I'm not throwing the "BS" flag just yet...I'll wait for your test results...and what the ferment tastes like.
ss

[yakattack]

One thought, if your using that much yeast, as long as you are allowing it to settle out before running you can reuse that same colony for multiple washes. Not a bad way to get one strip run a night after work if you have 2 or three of these always going. I may try to duplicate your results when I start another batch.

Yak

[hoochlover]

Nice data hooch. It doesn't look like you had a very long lag phase. Was your yeast rehydrated prior to your experiment? I assume the short lag is largely due to the massive inoculum you used, but it still takes time for the yeast to wake up and get to eating- your data doesn't show this. Any ideas why?

I'm looking forward to see what else you have in store for us... Might I recommend comparing fermentation of different sugars? There is a debate going on regarding the benefits of inverting sugar and you seem to have the tools to test it.

Hi and thanks. The lag phase is directly related to the temperature and ph of the solution when such yeast amounts are used, but it's exactly the same with half the amount I used here in the 8% test. Why does half the amount of yeast have the exact same lag time as double? I guess because the yeast are triggered into producing ethanol quicker when the cell density is over a specific point and that point is even lower than 10g of yeast for the solution size I use. 20g of yeast isn't even the optimal amount for performance. It's just what I'm using right now. I got exactly a doubling in performance by using 20g vs 10g in my 4% tests. I shouldn't have seen that if 20g was "Too much".

My current testing shows the yeast push the PH down to 4.6 (optimal glucose enzyme splitting ph) before they start foaming, always. Once they hit 4.6 it doesn't drop again for some time and then slowly winds its way to ~3.8ish by end, it's always right on the mark. My starting ph is 6.1 but I've seen the same behaviour as high as 7.5 start. If the starting PH isn't around the neutral range the lag time is worse I've found.

I use reverse osmosis water to maintain a consistent quality and measure the PH with all ingredients in. I've also measured ph constantly for the first 30-40 minutes to see what happens to it. To bring the ph to 4.6 the yeast usually only takes 10 minutes at 30 degrees (6.1 to 4.6 in 10 mins). I haven't tested much higher temps yet but I suspect you'd get better results at higher temperatures. At 20 degrees it is very slow, the lag is horrendous even if you bring that 20C wash up to 30C within 30 minutes, it takes an extra 90 minutes for the yeast to ferment the exact same wash. I have a video on youtube showing this.



So yeast don't like changing conditions, or at least don't react to changing conditions as well as a stable condition. Funnily enough thermal shock of going from fridge to 30C has little to no impact on performance, but it DOES have an impact on foaming. It was even slightly faster but within margin of error.

I've got dextrose waiting for some testing, I hope to get to it soon.

[hoochlover]

Do you expect this CO2/time (respiration) to be scalable up to working volumes? Try it and see if you can.

I'm not throwing the "BS" flag just yet...I'll wait for your test results...and what the ferment tastes like.
ss

Yes it should be scalable up, the only difference would be gravity due to vessel difference but that could be overcome if it was a significant factor (Stirring paddles). But until I see it I won't say it is 100% going to work like it does on the smaller scale. I hope others are encouraged to do their own testing.

I want to test higher ABVs next. I'll probably go to 16% next and see what happens. It was a tripling in time going from 4% to 8%. It might be a quadrupling going to 16%. So 24 hours. But if you can do a clean 16% ferment in 24 hours, cleaner than some slower, 10% wash, it would definitely be worthwhile for us I feel.

[hoochlover]

One thought, if your using that much yeast, as long as you are allowing it to settle out before running you can reuse that same colony for multiple washes. Not a bad way to get one strip run a night after work if you have 2 or three of these always going. I may try to duplicate your results when I start another batch.

Yak

For my tests I want to use the same thing I've been doing to replicate results. This means going from relatively fresh cans of dried yeast at the temperatures appropriate.

But you raise a good point in regards to doing this for distilling if it does result in a decent wash. Something I haven't put much thought into yet, but yeah if you reuse your yeast then your investment won't be as high. Whether you'll get as clean a wash though, hard to know. I have a feeling these fast washes, with little yeast reproduction, are running these things to the limit. We want to run them to the limit without making them explode and pass on their flavor. Reusing these nearly exploded things for another batch would be an interesting experiment. I hope you can do some testing of your own, I will look forward to it. I have a weird fascination with yeast right now, it's probably not healthy.

[hoochlover]

One thing I want to add about the amount of yeast used and temperature of the start for anyone who wants to experiment..... If you look at the video I posted you can see that the foam is violent for the fast 2 hour 4% ABV washes. I don't know what this will be like in a bigger vessel yet but to get around this problem you need to stir it every 15-30 minutes. Since it only takes a couple hours it's not that big a deal but you can't just leave these things on their own. Since I measure them every 30 minutes it's not that big a deal to stir them up a bit if they are nearing their limit but if anyone else wants to repeat my experiments just be warned!

One way I found to reduce the foaming was to put the yeast under pressure. The foam can't really grow if it's in a pressure vessel. Using a pressure relief valve you can setup a quasi-cheap way to do this automatically for you. I have a video showing this effect too because I thought it was interesting. Initially I was hoping to setup some cheap mixing mechanism using the power of the CO2 rather than going for a fermenting paddle.

[skow69]

If you really want people to replicate your experiments I would suggest you stop dribbling in tidbits of information and post your procedure and results in an organized manner like you would in a real peer reviewed article.

Cheers.

[pfshine]

For a 40 gallon batch that's over 16 pounds of yeast.

[Teddysad]

This speed thing is all very well (at the expense of huge quantities of yeast).
What about the flavour/taste factor?
I see the optimum as a trade between reasonable speed (via a balanced proportion of yeast and nutrients) and as little impact on yeasty flavour as possible

[rad14701]

When is fast fast enough...??? And who needs to ferment that fast...??? What's the purpose if we really only need so much alcohol...??? How about a more academic format with at least some theory, otherwise all you're reproving is that more yeast and some Epsom Salt yields a faster ferment...

[raketemensch]

I still find it interesting. Not all experiments need practical results, and I said that as someone who prefers a 2-week fermentation.

It would be interesting to see if you could capture the escaped gasses and release them up through the bottom at timed intervals to "stir" it with bubbles.

I do agree that you should post your method so we can try to recreate it.

[woodshed]

Sorry man but not a believer.
Every distillery on the planet would already be doing this if it was worth it.
They pay people big money to maximize time spent, return, and to a point quality of what is returned.
I have had one ferment in years of brewing and distilling that went off in 29 hours. Still can't duplicate it.
Hoping you can prove us all wrong for doubting. But I doubt it.

[goose eye]

Yup would like to see it done


So I'm tole

[hoochlover]

If you really want people to replicate your experiments I would suggest you stop dribbling in tidbits of information and post your procedure and results in an organized manner like you would in a real peer reviewed article.

Cheers.

Sorry it wasn't clear. If you click the image up top in my first post it shows you the exact ingredients (weights, etc) used and temperature. I'm not sure what else needs to be said to people here who have experience with dried yeast already. "Mix the yeast in the solution after you've dissolved the sugar and epsom salts"?

[hoochlover]

This speed thing is all very well (at the expense of huge quantities of yeast).
What about the flavour/taste factor?
I see the optimum as a trade between reasonable speed (via a balanced proportion of yeast and nutrients) and as little impact on yeasty flavour as possible

Like I said I am not sure about how clean this is yet as I have not distilled any fast batch. You are right that there is a trade off between speed and taste, however until I distil one of these batches and find out how horrible it is or isn't I won't know the answer to that question. All I am doing right now is testing. I had never seen that you could get such fast ferments, so it interested me and I'm doing more of such testing.

Please look at these links for information on fusels/esters being majority produced in the lag/reproduction phase. There are many more if you do a google search, a couple of papers/studies showing it too.

http://www.whitelabs.com/sites/default/ ... e_Line.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://www.brewgeeks.com/the-life-cycle-of-yeast.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Some excerpts from Chris White's book on Yeast.

Esters, Alcohols, and More
Brewer’s yeast can produce five hundred different flavor and aroma compounds (Mussche and Mussche, 2008). After pitching, yeast undergo a lag phase, which is then followed by a very rapid exponential growth phase. During both the lag and exponential phase, yeast build amino acids, proteins, and other cell components. Most of these components do not affect the flavor of the beer, but the pathways involved in their production also create many other compounds that do leak out of the cell and impact beer flavor. The compounds with the largest flavor impact are esters, fusel alcohols, sulfur-containing compounds, and carbonyl compounds like aldehydes and ketones (including diacetyl). Although many of these compounds play a role in the characteristic flavor and aroma of beer, it is a beer flaw when some of these compounds reach higher, easily detectable levels.

Three main factors control ester production: the concentration of acetyl-CoA, the concentration of fusel alcohol, and the total activity of certain enzymes.

During the lag phase of fermentation, yeast begin to form fusel alcohols either from pyruvate and acetyl-CoA during amino acid synthesis or from uptake of amino acids (nitrogen). The formation of fusel alcohols involves the reoxidation of NADH to NAD+ in the final step, and some scientists believe that yeast produce fusel alcohols to make NAD+ available again for glycolysis (Kruger, 1998).

And a picture showing diacetyl production, clearly shown that most is produced in the lag, and early reproduction phase.

So after reading enough information on how yeast produce the majority of their esters and fusels in those stages I sought about trying to reduce those stages. But I am unsure if what I am doing will achieve what I want.

[hoochlover]

Sorry man but not a believer.
Every distillery on the planet would already be doing this if it was worth it.
They pay people big money to maximize time spent, return, and to a point quality of what is returned.
I have had one ferment in years of brewing and distilling that went off in 29 hours. Still can't duplicate it.
Hoping you can prove us all wrong for doubting. But I doubt it.

Well my test is easy to replicate. Grab 400ml of water, 30g of sugar, 1g of epsom salts and use 20 grams of yeast. Make sure it's 30 degrees, mix it and wait. If you don't have an accurate scale I can give you the measurements in table spoons and teaspoons if you want because originally I was using them before I got accurate scales. 30g of sugar is 2 tablespoons. 1g of epsom salts is slightly less than 1/4 teaspoon but you can use 1/4 if you want. And 20 grams of bakers yeast is 1.8 table spoons. If you do this at 30 degrees you can easily find out in ~2 hours that you can get a 4% abv solution. I would like people to do this experiment so they can repeat the tests I've done and either verify or disprove them.

[hoochlover]

When is fast fast enough...??? And who needs to ferment that fast...???

Good questions. If a fast wash produces a crap result with more fusels/esters/taste compounds then I suggest it's use is very limited for us. Even the time poor. If it produces something average it may be good for the time poor. Putting a brew on in the morning and distilling it later that night might be appealing to some people. If it produces something cleaner than longer ferments then it's just a matter of cost whether you want to do it or not. I assume most people want the cleanest fermentation possible.

How about a more academic format with at least some theory, otherwise all you're reproving is that more yeast and some Epsom Salt yields a faster ferment...

What sort of academic format would you like? Do you have any specific suggestions?

[der wo]

400ml water + 60g sugar = 437ml, SG 1053, 8.1%

You added: 1g epsom salt, 20g yeast.
Compared with birdwatchers 437ml:
http://shuggo.com/birdwatchers/calculator.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
.0027 teaspoon epsom salts (10-15mg), 1.2g yeast

So you used 20g instead of 1.2g yeast, 17 times the amount
and 1g epsom salt instead of 10-15mg, 80 times the amount

The fermentation is fast because of this huge amount of nutrients (also yeast is a good nutrient).

We all know, the taste of the yeast can get over into the final product. If you use so much, perhaps it will affect the taste more.
And the taste of epsom salt is really terrible. It's no problem with the original birdwatchers recipe, but probably this huge amount is a problem.

But yes, for me it's an interesting experiment. I never thought, it would be possible to speed it up so far. And not with such a simple formula, I thought you need plant fertilizers and other things.

Distill it. And please do a birdwatchers or similar proven recipe with same amount of water and sugar and compare the taste.

[hoochlover]

Distill it. And please do a birdwatchers or similar proven recipe with same amount of water and sugar and compare the taste.

I've already distilled both a turbo petrol wash and a nice slow 10% TPW so I have some good things to compare it to I think. I'm waiting until my stainless steel rig is ready to go before I put too much effort into doing more batches, my copper still is too small and boring. I need more experience on that before I start saying anything is certain when it comes to what wash is cleaner.

I'm running a 16% abv right now and it's doing pretty good. 9 hours gone and it's ~76% finished. I'm not sure why but this one seemed to ferment 60g of sugar faster than the 8% wash. Which seems odd to me. But until it finishes and I overlay the graphs I won't know for sure. One thing I know for sure is that the 4%, 8% and 16% washes all ferment relatively the same over the first hours. The sugar concentration seems to have little effect on performance.

[der wo]

16% is a hard job for non-turboyeast. Don't forget to take a SG-reading at the end of fermentation.

[hoochlover]

16% is a hard job for non-turboyeast. Don't forget to take a SG-reading at the end of fermentation.

Yeah that's the theory, we will see if its true. It's slowing down a little towards the end but it's still going strong at roughly ~4g CO2 per hour, I think it will be done pretty soon. It would currently be at about 12% alcohol and they say bakers yeast tops out at 14%. There is about 10-12 grams more to go. If it does finish , especially in the time frame that seems likely atm that is craziness. Never thought you could get a 16% abv in under 12 hours. I'll post those results tomorrow, takes some time to put the data into the program I use and it's late here. I was thinking this would be some 24 hour thing but it seems likely to finish soon so I'll probably stay awake longer and keep recording.

[skow69]

I've already distilled both a turbo petrol wash and a nice slow 10% TPW so I have some good things to compare it to I think.
What is a turbo petrol wash? Is that what you plan to use to compare flavors?

I'm waiting until my stainless steel rig is ready to go before I put too much effort into doing more batches, my copper still is too small and boring.
How big of a still do you need to run a half liter wash?

I need more experience on that before I start saying anything is certain when it comes to what wash is cleaner.
More experience on what?


I'm running a 16% abv right now and it's doing pretty good. 9 hours gone and it's ~76% finished.
So that's 76% by weighing the CO2 loss, right? I'm curious about that process. Do you do hydrometer or refractometer measurements also? What do you use for a fermenter? What scale do you use that can apparently weigh up to a kilogram with 0.01 gram resolution?

I'm not sure why but this one seemed to ferment 60g of sugar faster than the 8% wash. Which seems odd to me. But until it finishes and I overlay the graphs I won't know for sure. One thing I know for sure is that the 4%, 8% and 16% washes all ferment relatively the same over the first hours.
What does that mean? The same weight loss? Percentage loss? Temperature change?

The sugar concentration seems to have little effect on performance.

How much yeast did you use? And how much epsom salt?

[hoochlover]

After 12 hours the 16% ABV wash wasn't finished and I had to head to bed. It had consumed 49grams of CO2 to that point, and I was suspecting it would need to do somewhere between 52 and 56. Upon awakening the temperature unit I use to keep consistent temperatures hadn't worked correctly allowing the temp to drop and there was still activity going on. So at about 20 hours now since I started it's lost 55 grams of CO2, it's nearly finished but due to temperature mistake I can't really make any valid conclusions from 12 hours on. But it's given me some good data to work with and a rough estimation of how long it should take now.

It definitely seems those last couple percentage points are very difficult for my bakers yeast, but it has nearly finished it's job in under 24 hours and I suspect it would take around 16 to 18 hours at a consistent 30C temperature.

Some things I noticed, at around ~10-12% ABV there is no longer a foamy surface, it's like everything on top was either dissolved by the yeast or the alcohol. After having done so many of these I'm used to "foamy remnants" still being left on the top . I don't know if that's a good thing or not. It makes it much easier to see and hear the bubbles coming off the top at least. My initial thought is the ethanol is dissolving the waxy preservative sh*t from the dried yeast (sorbitan monostearate / E491) .