Home Distiller

This is a simple, tried and true recipe for sugar shine.
It works for potstill runs and even better for making a neutral with a column.
I use cheap bakers yeast. As in $5 for 2 pounds from Sam's Club

Rule #1 don't stress the yeast

My fermenter holds 20 gallons. So the recipe is based on that.
Since it's a sugar wash, I'll start with how much sugar to use
With bakers yeast, 1.5 pounds of sugar per gallon of wash is close to the upper limit.
For 20 gallons that means 30 pounds or less of sugar.

Rule #1 don't stress the yeast

Yeast needs neutients
I use yeast that has been boiled, epsom salt, multi-vitamins and DAP
Bring 1 gallon of water to a rolling boil, turn off the heat and stir in 1/2 cup of bakers yeast.
You can try heating the water to boil after adding the yeast, but that's likely to cause drama.
Add the boiled yeast, 8 crushed multi-vitemins and a big pinch of epsom salt and 3 tbs of DAP to the fermenter.
Top the fernenter off with water to the 20 gallon mark

Rule #1 don't stress the yeast

pH control can be a problem with a sugar wash
A cup or two of crushed oyster shell/coral that's normally used as chicken feed helps for pH control.

I use a drill and paint stirrer to whip the fermenter into a tornado for aeration
Let it settle down for a minute
Then pitch a 1/2 cup fresh bakers yeast on top

Bakers likes to ferment at a constant 85F ish temp
Heating the fermenter from the bottom is best.
That helps the yeast keep the fermenter actively stirred up.

Figure 4 days to a week for it to finish fermenting and settle.

Rule#2: listen to shady. Good write-up. Simple and to the point, no extra B's to deal with.

I like it too, Nice write up and direction. Simple, to the point, no nonsense recipe

Boiled yeast makes an excellent yeast nutrient
First time I heard about using it was PUGIDOGS Rum

viewtopic.php?t=5994

Some place suger shine is anythang you
add Suger two. Apple or peach or corn or rye so on an so forth.

So I'm tole

goose eye wrote:Some place suger shine is anythang you
add Suger two. Apple or peach or corn or rye so on an so forth.

So I'm tole

Yeast loves a balanced diet
PUGIDOGS "yeast bomb" helps to supply that
Adding extra "Apple or peach or corn or rye so on an so forth"
Just makes it better

pfshine wrote:Rule#2: listen to shady. Good write-up. Simple and to the point, no extra B's to deal with.

Couldn't agree more , it refreshing to see a couple of new recipes put up in the last few days that are minus all the BS that some people go on with in the pursuit of a good drop.

Nice one shady will give this a crack up the column through 5 plates......

Nice one. Made a nice neutral with this. finished product came out sweet and smooth. Used it to make a berry schnapps for the wife and a fireball whiskey for myself. Both came out awesome. Stuff infuses nicely. Drained the blend of berries I put in of all their berry goodness. I put it in about 1/3 cup and made a nice berry liquor about 100 proof in about 3 days of infusing. Filled the rest of the pint with simple syrup and the schnapps came out perfect around 60 proof. I filled another pint jar with straight liquor and dropped 4 sticks of cinnamon in. pulled them after about 4 hours of infusing, added a teaspoon of Tabasco Brand tabasco sauce. I'm gonna have to rename it and call it Hellfire Whiskey! Awesome burn. Beats any store bought I've tried. Thanks Shady!

Glad you liked it Flatlands Hillbilly
This is the recipe I use for making my baby sisters neutral spirits
I run it slowly through a 4" packed column that's 9 feet tall

Copperhead road wrote:Nice one shady

I got tired of reading about failed sugar washes
Based on what I've learned here, the combination of boiled yeast and crushed oyster shells with coral.
Really helps with nutrients and pH control

Well, you sure got it figured nicely. Am infusing some mint in some right now for a mint schnapps for my sister for Christmas. Although if it's really good. Christmas might come early this year. lol

shadylane wrote:

Copperhead road wrote:Nice one shady

I got tired of reading about failed sugar washes
Based on what I've learned here, the combination of boiled yeast and crushed oyster shells with coral.
Really helps with nutrients and pH control

Most of these fails are on birdwatchers and generally can be put down to a failure to scale the recipe correctly of the fact the amount of sugar called for is a bit on the high side where pH and high ABV issues are found.

Most of these fails are on birdwatchers and generally can be put down to a failure to scale the recipe correctly of the fact the amount of sugar called for is a bit on the high side where pH and high ABV issues are found.

Makes sense, when I scaled mine down to a 5 gallon run, I scaled the sugar a little lower, rounded down instead of up and it came out nice. It's nice to find a solid recipe though when starting out. Been doing a lot of infusing with it and does nicely. Came out with a nice 50% ABV. Makes a right nice schnapps if mixed properly too.

After some experimenting
Deleting epsom salt and multi vitamins doesn't slow down the ferment.
Deleting the boiled yeast and/or "crushed shells with coral" definitely did.

On a side note.
What's in the chicken feed bag. Looks like crushed coral, not crushed oyster shells.

shadylane wrote:After some experimenting
Deleting epsom salt and multi vitamins doesn't slow down the ferment.
Deleting the boiled yeast and/or "crushed shells with coral" definitely did.

Thanks for the update. I feel like I pull vitamin taste/smell across in my flute, so I'd like to not use them if possible.

Anyone else been making this ?

I'm starting one this weekend. Finally picked up some oyster shells instead of the powdered chalk I had been using.

He didn't say to leave out the DAP so I still plan to use that in addition to the boiler yeast.

MtRainier wrote:I'm starting one this weekend. Finally picked up some oyster shells instead of the powdered chalk I had been using.

He didn't say to leave out the DAP so I still plan to use that in addition to the boiler yeast.

Yeast definitely likes a little bit of DAP.
Try crushing the oyster shell finer and put in white cotton sock.
It's easier to remove a sock from a fermenter than it is to clean crushed shell off the bottom
A sock full of shells on a string, can be used as a stirrer. Raise it off the bottom of the fermenter and drop it back down.

shadylane wrote: Yeast definitely likes a little bit of DAP.
Try crushing the oyster shell finer and put in white cotton sock.
It's easier to remove a sock from a fermenter than it is to clean crushed shell off the bottom
A sock full of shells on a string, can be used as a stirrer. Raise it off the bottom of the fermenter and drop it back down.

Now you tell me that.

Some time I'd like to pay a visit to some of you guys who have been doing this for years just to see all the little tricks.

shadylane wrote: Try crushing the oyster shell finer and put in white cotton sock.
It's easier to remove a sock from a fermenter than it is to clean crushed shell off the bottom
A sock full of shells on a string, can be used as a stirrer. Raise it off the bottom of the fermenter and drop it back down.

I took a pair of the wife's tights that had gotten "ruined" washed them up real good.
Cut one of the legs off & put the shells in that. tied an overhand knot on the open end and works GREAT.

I also used another piece and put it over the end of the inlet hose of my pump. Hold it in place with a zip tie ...
keeps from picking up anything like grain in other mashes.

Here's another trick
My boiler and column are SS. Everybody knows, copper helps to remove sulfur compounds.
Long story short. I throw a wad of copper mesh in the SS boiler.
And yes, my boiler has electric immersion heaters.

Nice recipe. A lot of similarities to wineos sugar wash

bitter wrote:Nice recipe. A lot of similarities to wineos sugar wash

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6782

I'd call that a compliment.
Wineo used a big dose of yeast.
I do also, except I murder half the yeast for neutrients.
And feed the living yeast, crushed oysters shells and coral

Executive Summary: This seems to be the easiest sugar wash recipe. 4 days from 1.065 to 0.990. No pH crash. No weird flavors. I was able to tell when it was done because the temp dropped. I haven't run it yet, but it tastes basically pretty clean. Less acidic than WPOSW and definitely tastier than TPW which is yucky.

Longer version.

I made two 14g batches of this with 20 lbs of sugar each. That's just about exactly what Shady prescribes of 1.5lbs/gal. I did that because I ferment in 20g brutes and like the extra room on top. I made up a concentrated sugar solution in two 5g buckets and diluted with water in the big brutes.

Into each bucket I put 1 cup of oyster shells that I rinsed first with fresh water:
Then I boiled up 1 cup of yeast with 1 gallon of water and split it between the two buckets with 1/2 gallon in each bucket:
Then I added 3.5 gallons of 150 degree water, 3tbsp of DAP, and 20 lbs of sugar to each bucket. Temp in each equalized at 128F.
I poured the 4 gallons of sugar water, DAP, and oyster shells into my fermenters and sprayed high pressure filtered water (one 1micron and two activated carbon) into it to get to 14g total volume.

continued:

I aerated by basically spraying the top off water really hard into the wash to bring the temp down and get to 14g. I didn't use a stirrer or anything.

Starting temp was 87F, starting pH was 7.68, starting gravity was 1.065. My water comes out of the filter at 7.35 pH. I know 7.68 is high to start the ferment, but I knew it would drop pretty quickly and wasn't surprised it was high because I didn't add any starting acid.
I scattered 1/2 cup of yeast on the top of each fermenter and put the lids on.
continued in next post...

Sorry for multiple posts. I wanted to put up pics, but can only do 5 in each post.

Two days later, SG = 1.010, pH = 4.33, Temp = 82
Four days later, SG = 0.990, pH = 4.55, Temp = 76.8
I'd call it done. It's pretty dry. Has a slight acidity, but not a lot. Maybe a little apple ester flavors that I'm used to seeing from bread yeast. Kind of the smell of a golden delicious apple.

Interestingly the pH went up from days 2 to 4. I assume that's because it stopped producing CO2 which is starting to leave the solution and is allowing the pH to go up a bit as it leaves. It could also be because the oyster shells are dissolving a bit more.

Anyway, super easy wash. Took about an hour to do for me because my filters don't put out water very fast and I futzed around trying to figure out what I was doing for the first time doing this recipe. Next one will probably be a half hour for two fermenters full.

I think you have a winner here for easiest sugar wash, Shady.

Excellent photo write up, MtRainier (and of course, Shady).
Just a suggestion, put the oyster shells in a brew sock for easy retrieval and that bag will last a long time through re-use.
Again, nice write up. I love pictures. It's left over from my Playboy Magazine days.

fizzix wrote:Just a suggestion, put the oyster shells in a brew sock for easy retrieval and that bag will last a long time through re-use.

Hah, Shady said the same thing after I'd already started it. I'll have to see what the gravel looks like at the bottom when I empty it.

Biggest surprise was how well it went starting at such a high pH and also I guess how fast it fermented without lots of extra stuff. No vitamins, no lemon or citric acid, no Epsom salt or gypsum or whatnot.

Great write up, MtRainier.