White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Sugar, and all about sugar washes. Where the primary ingredient is sugar, and other things are just used as nutrients.

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pintoshine
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White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by pintoshine »

Here is a general rule for a good, fast, and clean fermentation, with your choice of yeast.

ph 4 to 5. 4.8 being optimal
sugar no higher that 1.100 with 1.080 preferable.

Nutrients must have nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, iron, zinc, magnesium, foliate, niacin, riboflavin, protein (about 10 different amino acids) in the appropriate quantities.

The sugars are a whole topic.
Sucrose does best if inverted. Citric acid inverts faster than malic, tartaric, or lactic acid. Hydrochloric acid is extremely fast but kills yeast. Sulfuric acid is the best by far but the sulfur compounds eat the copper fast. I prefer to stick to the edible acids. Acetic acid is a wonderful sugar inverter but really makes nasty heads. Phosphoric acid is hard to get hold of except in hard candy and soft drinks but this is the magic sucrose inverter and adds a hint of soft drink to the spirit.

Maltose is a yeast favorite. Yeast is a super producer of maltase so it readily cleaves the maltose.
Glucose and dextrose, which are nearly identical but for some reason the chemists in the world love to qualify them by the source, ferment directly and easily.
Lactose isn't fermented too well by bakers, brewers or wine yeast. Wild yeast will eat this stuff up. The trouble with lactose is that so many bacteria will also eat this stuff up too. Every time I have gotten hold of a quantity of whey it was already sour.

The acidity added by hops makes yeast go crazy, and probably adds lots of other nutrients but are impossible to seperate the hops flavor from the distillate.

DAP works better than ammonia nitrate which work better than urea for nitrogen. I mean better as in the amounts required to get the same results. Ammonia does not work at all at first, but once the wild yeast and bacteria start converting it to urea it works ok. The urea always gives the tails a lot of acidity. Deathwish claims to be able to taste the urea in the spirit. Yeasts do funny things to urea or visa versa.

The proteins in fruits, grains and yeast are all suitable. Molasses has none. http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21Ru.html

The water soluble protein from malted barley obtained from a good protein rest at 120° F makes an explosive fermentation, but causes the foam to puke horrendously. Malt beer and a pot still without a puke box is a bad idea if you are in any kind of hurry. Every time I have tried this I have had to let the alcohol chill in the fridge and filter it twice to get it clear. I guess that is my bad luck. The protein in tomato paste is nice and balanced. Needless to say, almost all fruit juices are complete as they are. My favorite protein source is wheat germ. http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20Sb.html
A combination of sucrose (inverted with citric acid) and wheat germ will ferment as well as anything I have ever tried and tastes real good kind a like a wheat malt whiskey.

Additional nutrients for the pure sugar fermenters are B vitamin supplements. These can be pharmacy B mixes, complete one a day or the yeast nutrient kind from the home brew shop. I have never found any difference in these except that most of the pharmacy types have coloring and give the wash a tint. I grind all the pill type with a mortar and pestle.

One that I recently added to my nutrient list of super enhancers is magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts), It seems yeast need a bit of magnesium.

I did back-to-back fermentations of high fructose corn syrup, HFCS55 to be exact, with black strap molasses, in a couple different combinations.

The HFCS recipe was pretty straight forward. 10-10-10 at 1 tsp per gallon, 1/8 tsp citric acid per gallon, 1/5 a one a day per gallon and 1 tsp yeast per gallon boiled with the other nutrients. I pitched 11g dry champagne yeast.
This had a nearly complete fermentation in 14 days at 12% abv.

In another batch I used 1 gallon of 65% DSS black strap molasses in 6 gallons of water. I pitched 11g dry champagne yeast. This fermented to 9% abv in about two weeks.

I looked up at some site about the nutrient content of blackstrap. No nitrogen, no B vitamins, no protein.

I adjusted the recipe. I added DAP, one a day and boiled yeast to the 6 gallon batch of blackstrap. I pitched bread yeast. Bang, it was 9% in 32 hours.

I was stumped. What was it in the molasses that was not in my HFCS concoction? It turned out to be magnesium.

I redid the HFCS and added 1/4 tsp Epson salts for the 6 gallon batch. I pitched bread yeast and Bang! Same results as the molasses.

Deathwish did a large batch of 150 gallons with 55 pounds(5 gallons) of HFCS and 48 pounds(4 gallons) of Blackstrap with an adjusted ration of 26-6-6, boiled yeast, b vitamins, Epson salt. Again the same results, but in 48° F weather. Two days for full attenuation to 9%. The molasses seems to add the needed acidity and some needed minerals.

In the Proven Recipes you will find Deathwish's Wheatgerm. This is a very easy recipe for sugar washes. It is a cross between a synthetic wash and a grain wash in that it has some flavor like grain. It is very easy to do for beginners.
Last edited by pintoshine on Sun Nov 18, 2007 5:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
pintoshine
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An example of variations for synthetic sugar wash

Post by pintoshine »

This recipe is posted on the distillers main site.
It is also called econowash.
I have adapted it a bit because of new knowledge I have obtained over the years.

I prefer rain water or well water but tap water will work also. If you have creek water that is OK too.

10lbs (4kgs is close enough) white sugar. It doesn't matter if it is beet or cane sugar as long as it is cheap. If you have access to HFCS then use a gallon and a quart. 5 liters is close enough

1/4 cup dry yeast (60ml) . Bulk from Goodies, Sam's, GFS or any other place that sells bulk packages of active baker's yeast.

1 generic, Walgreens, Rite-Aid whatever multivitamin. One a day Brand would be fine. Ground to a powder. I prefer to find ones with no coloring. If it does have coloring yellow is pleasing. If it is in a gelatin capsule discard the capsule and use the contents.

Here there are variations.

Your choice:
a. 5 tsp DAP from the brew shop. I am having trouble finding this now. It always a blend of DAP and Urea.
b. 5 tsp 26-0-0 agricultural grade urea and ammonia nitrate.
c. 10 tsp 10-10-10 general purpose fertilizer.(note: some of the general purpose has sulfur coated urea. It usually won't dissolve and can be tossed after cooking)
d. 5 tsp 26-5-5 agricultural fertilizer.
(I'll discuss all the fertilizers later in the post)

1/2 tsp USP Epsom salts. Make sure the ingredient list has nothing except magnesium sulfate.

Your choice again:
a. 1 tsp citric acid
b. 2 tsp acid blend
c. 1 cup steep liquor from lacto-fermented corn or wheat flour or milo, sorghum millet or any other starchy seed.(adding the seeds or dough is OK too)
d. whey from making cheese
The idea here is to get the pH down to about 4 to 5.

So we will have accumulated in a big pot:
1. sugar of some sort to make alcohol.
2. dry yeast to provide protein.
3. multivitamin to provide b vitamins
4. a nitrogen source
5. magnesium
6. acid.

Procedure:
A 20 liter stock pot is the most common among brewers. It will only allow you to boil about 4 gallons comfortably. If you have boil everything then boil as much as you can in a single pot and top up with boiled water.

Depending on your selection of ingredients.
If you used any of the chlorinated water, creek water, cane or beet sugar, put everything in a pot, top up to 4 gallons with sugar completely dissolved and boil for an hour or two. A simmer should be sufficient. The long boil is to help drive off the chlorine, invert the sugar, or kill any nasties that might be in the creek water.

If you used only rain water or well water and HFCS then you do not have to dechlorinate the water or invert the sugar.
In this case just boil the yeast, vitamins, magnesium and fertilizer in a gallon of water for 30 minutes and combine with the HFCS and top up to 6 gallons.

A tip for using tap water. If you can set the tap water out in the direct sunlight uncovered in a shallow container, you can dechlorinate it in about 4 hours. This is cheaper than boiling. The UV from the sun causes the chlorine to combine with the free hydrogen in the water and it gases off really fast. My pool will dechlorinate 15000 gallons from 10ppm to nothing in a day without stabilizer. Tap water has no stabilizer.

So here is the cheapest combination.
Ferment a hand full of whole corn meal in a quart jar for three days.
Combine this with the 26-6-6 fertilizer, the HFCS, cheap one a day multivitamin, pinch of Epsom salt, solar dechlorinated water, rain water, or well water.

Hint. if you want cheap fertilizer year round buy lots in the spring (USA). It becomes unavailable in the fall and winter or it is very expensive then.

Fertilizer discussion
Since this is for the new distillers, a small discussion on some non-food grade ingredients. First of all, don't drink this wash. An occasional taste won't hurt. I taste everything I ferment and sometimes the wash is worth bottling, such as a nice apple or grape wine. This wash won't hurt you but ingesting some organic salts will give you diarrhea, especially Epsom salts.

The US government has become quite strict on fertilizer manufacturers. Chemically produced fertilizers are pretty much limited in available ingredients to organic and inorganic salts. Heavy metals and volatile chemicals are strictly controlled because of environment controls. There has been a lot of focus on ground water contamination lately. Such chemicals are not included anymore at least not officially. I will not include it here, but a Google of fertilizer regulations will show you more than you could read in a month.

I have stated this many times on other forums and I hope there is no argument with this physical fact. Salts do not evaporate at the temperatures we distill at. It is impossible for the organic or inorganic salts in fertilizer to end up in the spirits provided there is no foam or puking into the condenser. The salts remain in the wash.

Because of the remaining salts and nutrients, I have reused the wash many times just by adding sugar to the hot slop and pitching yeast after the stuff cools. This is the true economic advantage of the Econowash. Most of the time there will be enough nutrients for about three rounds. Each round will be slower than the last. The yeast depletes the B vitamins quickly and ties them up into the cells. Boiling seems to release the protein but not the vitamins. The autolysing of the yeast eventually makes the stuff smell like sewage. The smell has not carried over into the spirits yet.
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Post by HookLine »

Good stuff, Pinto. If I may add a few comments:
Phosphoric acid is hard to get hold of except in hard candy and soft drinks but this is the magic sucrose inverter and adds a hint of soft drink to the spirit.


You can buy small quantities of food grade phos acid at hydroponics stores and sometimes at agricultural suppliers. A little bit goes a VERY long way when adjusting pH, so be careful.
Maltose is a yeast favorite. Yeast is a super producer of maltase so it readily cleaves the maltose.


The reason yeast love maltose is that it is composed of two glucose molecules.
Glucose and dextrose, which are nearly identical but for some reason the chemists in the world love to qualify them by the source, ferment directly and easily.


Glucose is dextrose. Or more accurately, glucose comes in two forms, or stereoisomers, a left and a right handed version of the same molecule. Dextrose (D-glucose) is the right handed version. The left handed version, L-glucose, is biologically inactive.
Lactose isn't fermented too well by bakers, brewers or wine yeast. Wild yeast will eat this stuff up. The trouble with lactose is that so many bacteria will also eat this stuff up too. Every time I have gotten hold of a quantity of whey it was already sour.


Lactose is dextrose and galactose, and needs the enzyme galactase to cleave them. This is mostly obtained from the yeast Kluyveromyces fragilis. But that only frees up the dextrose for fermentation, the galactose still can't be fermented by standard yeasts, you need the yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus to ferment galactose. Lactose itself is a by-product of diary production and is used in bulk by some commercial distilleries, and apparently gives a very clean ferment. But can be pretty expensive for retail buyers. I checked the price once and it was several times that of table sugar.
Additional nutrients for the pure sugar fermenters are B vitamin supplements. These can be pharmacy B mixes, complete one a day or the yeast nutrient kind from the home brew shop. I have never found any difference in these except that most of the pharmacy types have coloring and give the wash a tint. I grind all the pill type with a mortar and pestle.
Vitamin B complexes can also be found in very large amounts in Vegemite, Promite, and Marmite, which are made from yeast sludge from breweries (true fact). Use a tsp per 25-30 litres. Or you can just boil up a cupful of the yeast sludge from the bottom of your last ferment and throw that into the new ferment.
I did back-to-back fermentations of high fructose corn syrup, HFCS55...


HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) has almost the same proportions of glucose and fructose as sucrose (normal table sugar). Standard (low fructose) corn syrup is mostly glucose and so is better for fermentation than HFCS. The reason they add fructose to standard corn syrup to make HFCS is that it increases the sweetness a lot, as fructose is much sweeter than glucose.

(Incidentally, eating or drinking anything containing high levels of fructose, as either sucrose or HFCS, is not good for you. Fructose is roughly equivalent to ethanol in the amount of damage it does to your liver. It also causes a bunch of other serious long-term metabolic problems. The best natural sweeteners are xylitol, and stevia.)
A tip for using tap water. If you can set the tap water out in the direct sunlight uncovered in a shallow container, you can dechlorinate it in about 4 hours. This is cheaper than boiling. The UV from the sun causes the chlorine to combine with the free hydrogen in the water and it gases off really fast. My pool will dechlorinate 15000 gallons from 10ppm to nothing in a day without stabilizer. Tap water has no stabilizer.


Alternatively, you can add 1/10 tsp of vitamin C (as either sodium ascorbate or ascorbic acid) per 50 litres of wash, which will dechlorinate virtually instantly. You can buy them cheap from health food stores and a small pack lasts forever. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Don't worry about putting in too much as it is hard to overdo it.

As to fertilisers. Hydroponic fertilisers are very clean. They are also complete fertilisers and contain all the fert salts you listed (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, iron, zinc, magnesium), plus a bunch of other trace elements that are useful if you a continuing on a yeast cell line indefinitely (according to The Chemist).

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... hydroponic
Last edited by HookLine on Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by pintoshine »

I was hoping someone would add the Australian yeast extract products. The USA does not get these regularly. Very good information.

I also get my pH measurement liquid from the hydroponics store. Mine carries a broad range pH indicator. It goes from 2 to 9. Good stuff for getting you in the ballpark.
Yes the additional explanation on the sugars was great.
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Post by HookLine »

You're welcome. Glad I could add something to it.
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Post by gordohigh »

Very good info, would have never guessed these ingredients would make a good wash but happy to learn something new.

Phosphoric acid may also be purchased at a pool supply store. Check the labels on the dry acid and/or pool stain treat.

Also, a lot of municipalities are using chloramines in the water which is chlorine tied up with ammonia because it lasts longer. Not sure what effect that may have, but it will react a little different than just chlorine (bad to have in your pool).

Thanks for the info.... :)
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Re:

Post by ratflinger »

pintoshine wrote:I was hoping someone would add the Australian yeast extract products. The USA does not get these regularly.

See if you have a World Market near you, they usually always stock Vegamite. I have seen Marmite in various supermarkets, you have to look hard for it though, usually the smallest jar and hidden on a top shelf.
pintoshine
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by pintoshine »

This is a bump for those who look for new posts.
There is a lot of discussion about sugar washes and the first post in this one has nearly everything you need to know and later it gives sample recipes.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by eternalfrost »

very good info in here. glad you bumped it, never came across it before.

everything you said has agreed with what i have found with my experimenting.

1. sugar of some sort to make alcohol.
2. dry yeast to provide protein. i use tomato paste for this in my neutral washes
3. multivitamin to provide b vitamins
4. a nitrogen source
5. magnesium
6. acid.

but damn 32 hours for a ferment! ive never gotten anywhere near that. looks like i have some more tweaking to do...
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by rad14701 »

Yeah, I revisit this post quite regularly and should have already had it bookmarked... I like the way it is broken down with multiple options for each major criteria... Definitely a "must read" for anyone attempting a sugar wash...
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by ZAXBYC »

Nothing to add, great thread, just watching incase some new stuff crops up! :)
Been Stilling since October 2007
I operate a 20ltr, 2m LM Reflux Still, based on the Bokmini Photos http://s391.photobucket.com/albums/oo358/ZAXBYC/
I use the head part of this unit for stripping and as a Pot Still- produces LOTS of flavour :D
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by desertdweller »

Read through this thread (also picked up the tomato paste in a few other places) and
thought I'd give it a go. One of my washdrums has never ever bubbled visibly. The runs
go off without a hitch, and the product is pretty good, but I was always worried about
the lack of activity. I recently started a new batch of plain sugar and yeast, and got a
bug up my butt about it, and mixed in 2 boxes (+-200ml) of paste - It went postal!!

Thanx to all for posting this info. I'm sold!!

DD
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by Trapperjones »

Very Interesting with loads of useful info. Any new guys should read this before experimenting with sugar wash recipes. Wish I would of known this years ago...would of saved a whack of cash trying to get a plain sugar wash without any flavors. Have never been fond of tomato paste and have used molasses for years but want less flavors. The key really is adding all the nutrients and creating the perfect environment for your yeast. They are growing living organisms that unless happy will produce some bad cogeners and off tastes. The epsom salts and DAP are critical for fast ferments. I have also used organic hydroponic fertilizer with great sucess just have to watch for excess foaming. It's full of trace elements plus the essentials. The general purpose 20-20-20 is perfect and after using it for atleast 40 washes this year I can say no off tastes are carried through and doesn't seem to put any additional wear on my still. About 1/2 tsp for a 6 gallon wash.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by HookLine »

I've been dealing with fertilisers for years, and I have never seen one with an N-P-K ratio of 20-20-20. That level of P would kill almost every plant species. The highest level of P I have ever seen in a full NPK mix is 15, and it is usually about half that.

I have used some liquid hydroponic fertiliser for nutrients and can confirm it works very well. I used an inorganic version, which did not give any foaming problems and is certainly very neutral.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by Trapperjones »

These are the two fertilizers I use. For the fruiting stage I use the bloom builder. I add the fertilizer to the boiling water before I add the sugar. The middle number is P2O5 or Phosphoric acid. It will invert some of the sugars pretty fast. Both fertilizers also contain magnesium so using epsom salts may be not necessary. I'll be finishing my tests using the various mixes and post them after the holidays. They're based on 100 washes I did this year.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by HookLine »

Which part of the world you in, Trapper?
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by Trapperjones »

Canada eh!
You should see the fertilizers we have up here. These are the only two I could find that weren't chalk full of 10 to 20 different trace minerals like boron, copper, iron, molybdenum, manganese etc. The other day I mixed up a bottle of old recipe neutral with the experimental fertilizer one and couldn't tell the difference. The acid content makes it a powerful sugar inverter and cuts the time required. They add no taste and only work to speed up fermentation and allow you to grow stronger yeast capable of high alcohol without being stressed. When they get stressed they starting adding off tastes. Just smell the top of your airlock you can smell when they're stressed.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by HookLine »

There are different systems for calculating (representing) nutrient levels, but I think most places are going over to the one standard. The manufacturer of that particular fertiliser might still be using one of the old systems.

Nothing wrong with those trace elements, that will not hurt your yeast or ferment. In fact if you are going to do ongoing yeast farming at least some of them are probably necessary.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by chefdaniel »

Maltodextrin?? Anybody tried this?
http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/maltodextrin50lb.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by Ray8abit »

My first batches I ever made were in 5 gallon milk bags using white sugar, tomato puree, and bakers yeast. It used to finish give or take a few hours three days. Finding this board this evening and seeing that with some nice tweaks, I could bring that down by half? You folks inspire me to step back almost thirty years and make some more, hmmmm and won't have to bubble thru soda water to keep from getting busted. :)
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by rad14701 »

Ray8abit wrote:My first batches I ever made were in 5 gallon milk bags using white sugar, tomato puree, and bakers yeast. It used to finish give or take a few hours three days. Finding this board this evening and seeing that with some nice tweaks, I could bring that down by half? You folks inspire me to step back almost thirty years and make some more, hmmmm and won't have to bubble thru soda water to keep from getting busted. :)
Welcome to the forums, Ray8abit... I'm currently working on confirmation of a 36-40 hour wash recipe... Hope to have confirmation and distillation results by the end of the week... Good luck...
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by pintoshine »

So this has bee a couple weeks. How did it work out rad?
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by rad14701 »

pintoshine wrote:So this has been a couple weeks. How did it work out rad?
Second run didn't finish as quickly and I'm not sure if it was due to extremely cold temperatures or another variable... The second batch finished in about 72 hours... I need to get more ingredients so I can do a third test... In fact, I haven't even run the wash yet but expect the same final product... The only major difference was that I was using a new jar of wheat germ...
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by pintoshine »

Ah damn, those cold temps will kill it every time. I use a heating pad on the small fermenters in the house and a heater band on my 55 gallon poly's.
I keep my house at about 72 so ferments usually are fast.
Wait until July and then you can see one go in 36 hours if it doesn't kill itself from the heat generated.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by muckanic »

A couple of remarks:

1. In the beer world, I have proved to myself that inverting sugar doesn't achieve much, as fructose is responsible for the cidery flavours. Even if this was not the case, the question arises why yeast would have more trouble splitting sucrose than maltose, and AFAIAA no-one has ever addressed that issue. Folks also differ over the ease with which this inversion (which is really just hydrolysis) is supposed to occur. One school of thought suggests substantial inversion occurs in a normal brew boil anyway because hydrolysis is normally a thermodynamically favourable process. Others claim for some reason that it won't work at all without aggressive mineral acids.

2. Beware of the salt content in breakfast spreads, although I guess the amount needed to get some Vit B may not be a problem in practice.

3. Beware of urea-based fertilizers and nutrients due to the possibility of ethyl carbamate formation. This stuff is sufficiently volatile to be a concern.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by HookLine »

muckanic wrote:2. Beware of the salt content in breakfast spreads, although I guess the amount needed to get some Vit B may not be a problem in practice.
Don't know about Promite or Marmite, but Vegemite contains 8% salt. Half a teaspoon dissolved into 20 litres gives a very low concentration of salt, just a few ppm, well below anything we have to worry about

In fact:

"...salt is required for proper yeast growth. ...By adding salt to your solution, you provided the yeast with a factor that it requires."
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/no ... .Gb.r.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Indeed, yeast contains a salt tolerant gene:

"The HAL1 gene, an halotolerance gene isolated from yeast,..."
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/k ... 1/00172456" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

This gene is being engineered into tomatoes and melons to increase salt tolerance.

As far as I can tell, Vegemite is a very safe source of B-vitamins for our purposes. I have never had any obvious problem with it.
muckanic wrote:3. Beware of urea-based fertilizers and nutrients due to the possibility of ethyl carbamate formation. This stuff is sufficiently volatile to be a concern.
So, use only use ammonium or nitrate sources for nitrogen?
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by Ethanol Al »

Hello all, have been reading here for a few weeks and thought I wold join in the discussion. I have been messing around fermenting things and playing around with small stills since I was a kid but I really don't know much beyond the very basics. I built a C-803 fuel still a few years back and am just now getting around to operating it for the first time and I have a question about fermenting white sugar. I can see from this thread that there is a lot of things that go into a good white sugar ferment for drinking purposes but my interest is in making fuel for now so I was wondering if I need to follow all of the steps in this thread to get a good ferment for making fuel or if I could cut some corners and still have a good end result? I was honestly wondering since no one is going to drink this stuff if I could take a leak in the fermenter to provide a lot of the stuff that the yeast need to thrive? :shock: Well any way would love to hear what you guys may have to share on this topic, Thanks! Al
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by rad14701 »

Welcome to the forums, Ethanol Al... Regardless of whether fermenting for fuel, neutral spirits, or flavored spirits, yeast still need the same basic nutrients... Nutrients for neutral spirits would be what you're looking for... Depending on your situation it might actually be cheaper to use grains as nutrients than commercial nutrients... You're just shooting for the lowest price per gallon/liter cost you can replicate run after run...
Ethanol Al
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by Ethanol Al »

Thanks for the reply rad, so you think maybe I should just crack and convert some corn and thrown in the fermenter and that should provide all the needed nutrients too feed the yeast? Then am I correct in thinking that I can save some of the spent wash from the boiler and add that to the next ferment as well? Thanks again for the help.
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Re: White Sugar Nutrients Informantion

Post by gravy »

I do sugar washes in a 200 litre barrel. Each batch contains:

60 kg White Sugar
2 l Molasses
120g Urea
80g DAP
100g Skim Milk Powder
60 mls Sunflower Oil

For yeast I use 50g of L2226 (Lallemand).

The lees from the previous batch are left in the barrel for the next batch and about 90 litres of dregs from the still is backset. Fermentation takes 4 days at 28 degrees with plenty of aeration required to grow a kickass yeast colony. It ain't a clean ferment, but its cheap and a good still will tidy it up.

I finished a distilling a batch today and got a total 34.5 litres of alcohol (including nasties that get redistilled next batch). This represents an output at 82% of the maximum theoretical yield which is pretty damn good by commercial standards.

I have documentation on L2226 detailing fermentations up to 21% so I'm upping the sugar to 70kg next batch to see what I get.

Good luck,
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