What happened ???????????

[mr M]

I made the whisky mash recipe of home distiller using the 4kg malt and 18L of water. I added 4kg of pale malted barley to the water, heated it for an hour then pouring it into my fomenter (with grain). When it cooled the next day I added 20g of brewers yeast and the airlock was bubbling rapid for the first night. The next day it slowed down bubbling every 1 minute' know it stopped all together' theirs no compression of co2 on the airlock’ also the container is quite cold. What’s wrong can someone please help me

[Aidas]

also the container is quite cold. What’s wrong can someone please help me

Maybe that's your problem. How cold is the room in which you've got your fermenter? Too cool, and the yeast is going to go to sleep.

Aidas

[mr M]

The room is about 20c but last night I opened the top and their were bubbles rising from the bottom is this a good sign?

[pyrobrewer280]

Sounds like you have a sealing problem. If you can see bubbles rising fermentation is working. Check the Lid seal and airlock grommet.

[Bujapat]

Hope for you brewing process was complete... Did you test with iodine?

[bourbonbob]

Hope for you brewing process was complete... Did you test with iodine?

What does an Iodine test tell you, and how do you do the test?

[Harry]

Errrm...Lemmesee...4kg pale MALTED barley...that lets out brewing processes, conversions, iodine tests. It's already been done. This grain is MALTED. All that's required now is to crack the malted grain to allow the yeast & enzymes to do their thing on the remaining starch in the malted grains. Use a food processor or hand meat grinder or similar.

4kg malt in 18lt water gives a nominal OG of around 1.050 (give or take, check the homesite http://homedistiller.org/yield.htm#typical" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow).

Now the burning question...when you say you 'heated it for an hour', why did you do that? & exactly what temp did you heat it to? It's already MALTED, so heating should not have been necessary. All that will achieve is to KILL the enzymes, or most of 'em. That would account for the rapid finish of fermentation, not enough active enzymes to convert the remaining starch to sugar.

Of course I may have misunderstood your post. Did you use OTHER unmalted grains & try to do a conversion? Or was the malted grains the only source of starch to convert?

.

[Bujapat]

Errrm...Lemmesee...4kg pale MALTED barley...that lets out brewing processes, conversions, iodine tests. It's already been done. This grain is MALTED. All that's required now is to crack the malted grain to allow the yeast & enzymes to do their thing on the remaining starch in the malted grains. Use a food processor or hand meat grinder or similar.
.

Sorry Harry... It isn't allready done!

To convert starches into sugar, EVEN in malted grain, you've to brew it!
The iodine test was describe by UJ in this post :
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=926
It allows to check if all the starch is converted.
No fermentable sugar... No fermentation! Starch isn't a fermentable sugar!
See also this post :
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2327
Read the 7th message to see picture of iodine test.

Malted grain is used for his enzymes not for fermentable sugar...

[Harry]

Yep. You're right of course. I thought I was starting to lose me marbles, now I'm certain. Call it a 'senior moment'.

I'm still interested to know at what temp the mash was done. It appears there is very little sugar in this.

.