Sharing First Experiences, ARC, 11k sugar, bentonite slurry

[Pervy Sage]

Just wanted share something different... for my second wash i followed suggestion (from the Fermentation section) to avoid shocking my turbo by slowly adding sugar
26L water/11k sugar/one sachet Turbo Yeast Classic/ambient temp 20C

* started at 30C with only 6k sugar,
* when gravity dropped to 1.01 added 3k sugar,
* when gravity dropped again to 1.01 added another 1.3k sugar,
* was supposed to add the last kilogram sugar when it dropped to 1.05, but was impatient and did it early when it had only dropped to 1.01
ferment stuck at 1.01 two days later (9 days total at temperatures of 16-20C).
I wanted to force it to settle quickly, and didn't have turbo clear, so...

added 4 teaspoons PolyClar
made a slurry from 3 Tablespoons bentonite in 1 pint boiling water, shook until smooth and creamy, added 9 tablespoons of that to the wash

everything settled and clear after 16 hours - Wow

that's a lot cheaper than turbo clear but have to try that next just to see

i kept my sludge - added a couple tablespoons of sugar and shook it up really good to oxygenate and put it in the fridge - any sense in trying to pitch it again though since it's mixed with the PVPP and bentonite? I have some WRP-099 high gravity ale yeast on order - hope slowly increasing the sugar will work better with that (should I be adding the sugar after first mixing it with water? - oh , and i didn't have problems with boil over when adding it slowly because i had split it into two pails, but added it slowly after adding just one tablespoon to de-gass it a little)

after it settled a bit i drank a couple glasses - pert'powerful stuff that is, hehe
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Turbo Yeast +8k sugar took a couple of weeks to settle...
.990
16-17% ?
copied Riku's ARC with the internal tube - 1.5M overall column packed with SS scrubbers.
Cheap little hot plate under a 22L SS wort pot took 3-4 hrs to heat up and start.
25 cm coil of thin copper with a medium pond pump into a 22L bucket of water, occasionally tossed in ice, but while the coil never felt hot and the water never got warm I think I was still venting a lot to atmosphere (only collected 2L instead of 3.5). I didn't realize I needed ptfe tape around the slip joints - there was loss/dripping down the outside of the column under the insulation.
tossed the first 50ml as heads, took 12 hours to collect the hearts and no tails - it just stopped producing
Product was 95% the entire time (96% around the middle)
I was very happy with the taste - friend said slightly sweet w/hint of vanilla
- I'm starting a second wash with Turbo but will step-up fermentation by starting with only 6k sugar but will add another 5k over the next weeks as suggested on this site. And will try the WRT 099 yeast next batch.

I will try to post pictures but don't know where to place them - i'm kind of paranoid

has anyone found a good and easy way to attach strip heaters and has anyone used a band heater? band heater seems cheaper than 1500 watt hot plate (scared of using gas).

Cheers!

[Skymeat]

Put pictures on PhotoBucket, or Picassa. Whichever one you don't use for family portraits.

[HookLine]

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