Birdwatchers sugar wash recipe

frynturn · Post by **frynturn** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 3:03 pm

I think the health food stores in NZ must be the same as in AUS - different to a health food store in the US.

The only place I could find 'fresh yeast' was from the home brew shop (Lavlin EC1118) which was only $2.95 but it's a bit of a hike from where I am so I've stuck with the supermarket ingredients instead:

25L wash
1 Lemon - free from over the fence

250g tomato paste - $1.59
5kg bag white sugar - $5.59
pinch of epsom salts - $1.71 for 500g
75g active dried yeast - $3.99 for 130g

Mixed everything up and ended up with a SG of 1.08 (was going for the 1.06 but added too much sugar initially!). Sprinkled yeast on top @35Celcius and left it overnight. This morning room temp is currently 19C and fermenter is 26C. Something must be working because my loosely fitted lid kindly allowed some of the froth to drip onto the floor.

All up it's cost around $9.50 for what I think will be around a 11% wash (??). Being a beginner I've been using turbo yeasts at $6.95-$8.95 a shot plus finings @ $4.95 and either 'turbo sugar' @ $3.59/kg or dextrose @ $2/kg, sure it's given a quick easy clean product but now I've got a little bit of a stockpile built up so I can spend some time on this little experiment. Hopefully Santa will get that 23L carbouy down the chimney next week so I can siphon this of to settle while I crank up another batch.

Looking forward to doing my first stripping run and then a reflux run to see what the end product is like

Post by **HookLine** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:57 pm

Wow. My tomato pastes washes never foam like that, and I have almost the same ingredients. Might have to try adding a pinch of epsom salts.

birdwatcher · Post by **birdwatcher** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:48 am

Yes, I would say that's an active wash. Keep it covered loosely to keep nasties out and follow the recipe to completion.

Best wishes for the holiday season.

G

frynturn · Post by **frynturn** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:36 am

Not so much froth now - more like surface foam.

Is there any harm in having it under an airlock at this stage? I'm guessing that there is no O2 getting to the wash anyway even with the lid sitting loosely on it.

SG has gone from 1.08 -> 1.06 -> 1.05 after 2.5 days.

The colour is now a dull pink rather than the tomato paste red so the yeast must be doing a good job on that. Does the colour end up going clear at all? I'm thinking it may all fall out in the sediment? Will rack it off tomorrow and wait and see!

Already 'borrowed' the next lemon from the neighbour for the next batch

birdwatcher · Post by **birdwatcher** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:19 am

Don't kill your wash with kindness. It sounds like everything is fine.

Racking into airlocked carboys was my original procedure after three days, however I have since taken my washes through to completion i.e. SG.995 in the same loosely covered container.

If you feel more comfortable racking, go ahead.

I keep my temperature between 30-35 C throughout the process.

Because you started at SG 1.08 you might find completion will be higher, say SG 1.00 or a touch higher. Be satisfied with that.

Many on this sight including the late John Stone start their wash as low as
SG 1.06. This gives you a more rapid fermentation and insures completion to SG .995.

The end result will not be clear and this doesn't matter.

Keep us posted.

G

Ozark Shiner · Post by **Ozark Shiner** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:40 pm

I also started this recipe for the first time over the holiday weekend. Original SG was 1.076. 8lbs sugar / 12 oz can tomato paste / lemon juice / epsom salts / 5 gal water. Did not get any krausen at all but still a good fermentation going. Drops about .010 per day.

My question is also about the clearing. Mine is defintely opaque. It looks like a thin tomato soup....

Birdwatcher you said it isn't a problem.... I understand that it will clear in distilling but I am concerned about burning on the heating element in the boiler. Is this not going to be a problem ???

Thanks and Happy Holidays to all !!!

Post by **HookLine** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:26 pm

My tomato paste ferments always end up with a distinct red/pink tint to them, but they are also quite clear, I can see to the bottom of the fermenter after they have cleared. You not trying to get rid of the colour, it is the solids (yeast, vegetable matter, etc) you want to settle out.

birdwatcher · Post by **birdwatcher** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:07 pm

When my washes have fermented they are opaque. Everything goes in the boiler, other than the crud that has settled on the bottom of the fermenter(s).

I only run it through my pot still once, then into reflux. Boilers are converted water heaters.

Never had a problem with fouled heating elements.

Drain when the dregs cool and wash your boiler with hot water

Cheers,

G

PS I will be adding epsom salts to my next batch

petes · Post by **petes** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:09 am

bw,

Thanks for your pm on how to.
Working like a beauty - now all I have to do is let it ferment out and learn to drive my PDA 1.
Have had that in storage for a couple of years but finally hooked up the electrics and cooling for that yesterday for a test drive and all seems okay there so here's hoping.
Meanwhile, reading, reading. Cheers.

petes

birdwatcher · Post by **birdwatcher** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:11 am

Keep us posted and good luck.

G

Post by **rad14701** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:55 pm

big worm wrote:
belialNZ wrote:I don't see any reason to throw away your turbo wash if its already completed. It should keep till your still arrives.
do tell how long can you keep a wash. will the ethonal evaporate if not kept air tight? the first wash i ever made was transferd to a garbadge can with a lid....dipping it out of the fermenter it nearly floored me from the etoh vapors,but a week later it seemed to have lost its kick.

I doubt that the smell was the ethanol scurrying away... It was most likely just some off smells from the yeast... You have a better chance of the wash turning to vinegar than evaporating... If you keep it covered it should last just like a sealed bottle of wine... It'll definitely last long enough to get your still and get it ready... I have some sugar wash that's several months old that's just fine... Heck, I even pour myself a glass every now and then, as it's already filtered, and it tastes like Thunderbird...

Ankh Watep · Post by **Ankh Watep** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:08 pm

can i use ketchup instead of tomato paste?

Post by **Dnderhead** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:42 am

I do not thank ketchup is a good idea to many spices yeast do not like,
yeast need vitamins and minerals look threw your cabinets see what
you have (maybe some kind of cereal , old vitamins ) stay away from
spices - preservatives

Post by **rad14701** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:25 am

Ankh Watep wrote:can i use ketchup instead of tomato paste?

Ketchup contains vinegar and could potentially cause the whole wash to turn...

wineo · Post by **wineo** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 7:04 am

If you keep it sealed with a airlock,and make sure to rack it off the yeast,a turbo wash will keep for years.The alc % is high enough that no bad stuff can grow,and over time it will clear completly which will make it taste better when you run it.I dont use turbos anymore.I just make low % sugar washes with plain or raw sugar,and a large amount of distillers yeast.The tomato paste provides neutrents,B vitimans and minerals for the yeast in birdwatchers recipe.You wouldnt want to add any to a turbo{or anything else}because they already have too much neutrents by them self.

smokerscully1 · Post by **smokerscully1** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:58 am

I've run at least 10 batches of Birdwatchers Sugar wash. The tomato paste is there for nutrients but one time I couldn't find any but did have some tomato sauce. It worked but-- there was some kinda left over leaves or skins or something in the sauce--they scorched in the boiler and left an off taste.
I have switched to poatoe sugar wash and it makes a really clean neutral and works off justa little faster.

trthskr4 · Post by **trthskr4** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 4:21 pm

I'm having a hard time not tasting the wash. For some reason it smells like peach wine to me. Maybe a little stronger alcohol smell, but that's ok makes me feel like less of sissy for getting aroused by peach wine.

Emmett · Post by **Emmett** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 10:38 pm

I have no tomato paste but a whole lot of vitamin pills. Would these substitute? Are there any other sorts of household ingredients that could be used in place of tomato paste?

trthskr4 · Post by **trthskr4** » Mon May 19, 2008 2:42 pm

I think it actually needs the tomato paste but tomato sauce will work also, not ketchup though. There are some that feel there are acceptible substitutes but I can't remember what they are. You may have enough questions and problems following the recipe to the letter so I wouldn't go too far outside the box.

hairysteve · Post by **hairysteve** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:50 pm

Just tried this after recently buying a pure distilling still and doing 2 turbo washes.
Much less aftertaste then the turbo washes and it turned out well.
I started off with about a 25 liter ferment using the ajusted recipe for 25 litres on page 3 of this thread (plus a little bit of of a multivitamin tablet).
Alcohol content before I ran it (if I was reading my alcohol meter right) was about %10.
I was pretty sure it had finished - the yeast had settled and it was more then a week fermenting and the hydrometer had a reading of about .995.
I collected 200 mils of foreshots - maybe a little excessive??
Better safe then sorry
I collected about 1.7 litres of 92% strength (I had maybe 5 litres left over that I didnt run so there would have been more if I ran it all), and maybe .3 litres of tails (could have collected more but it was getting really late).
I think that I might keep on doing this recipe and not bother doing any more turbo washes - sure you get a higher % alcohol with them but it isnt that neutral tasting.
Posted just in case someone wanted to know what sort yield you get out of birdwatchers recipe (hopefully I didnt mess anything up by doing it wrong)
Stephen

krusty · Post by **krusty** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:23 pm

Hi folks,

Been a homebrewer for years and now moving on to fermenting everything else!

Just pitched yeast tonight on 10G of this recipe. My first time at anything like this and hopefully I will end up with some nice liquors. Not much of a hard alcohol fan.

I ended up using EC1118 cause I have alot for making mead and it is cheap by the pound....but there have been alot of questions on optimal fermentation temps i see in this thread. Generally hotter = faster fermentation but you will get more esters based on yeast strain. Not really an issue if you are distilling.

I started out at 1.082 OG and we will see how fast it ferments out. EC1118 is pretty quick of a lower gravity. Problem is my house is cool this time of year unless I am home and the fire is going.

Will let you know how it turns out!

Thx for all the posts to edumacate me

ArcticTern · Post by **ArcticTern** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 9:41 pm

Yo BW;

this has been working great for me. I appreciate your succesfull theory, thesis, and application..(something like that; cuz i woulda never got started in this hobby if not for your recipe; simply put, i aint got much access to ingredients such as DAP, grains, and even epsom salts, tomatoe paste i sure have tho, many thanks sir

)
question; why do you check the SG daily? (i am awaiting my hydrometer and alcohol meter, and will be extending my knowledge of the works); is it to ensure that the ferment is a "happening" and not sticking? or just to realize the ferment is complete?

Also, doe's anyone out thar know how many ml. are in a 250 gram can of paste? I's only have milliliters marked on the cans...i.e.; the cans i purchase are 156 ml. or 5.5 fl. oz.

thank you
ArcticTern

trthskr4 · Post by **trthskr4** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 5:29 am

ArcticTern wrote:Yo BW;

Also, doe's anyone out thar know how many ml. are in a 250 gram can of paste? I's only have milliliters marked on the cans...i.e.; the cans i purchase are 156 ml. or 5.5 fl. oz.

thank you
ArcticTern

@260ml if the calculator on the main site is correct.

ArcticTern · Post by **ArcticTern** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 6:23 pm

Much much appreciated.

I've been short changing the tomatoe paste..

and i have some epsom salts on order (3 weeks to get here...

) Maybe the next batch will be around 11% abv; and hopefully 10 days.

seems no prob at 24 deg. celsius. I've prolly made bout 50 gal. of wash over the last year. Moderate yes, but adequate for this chap

I'll check the calculator you mentioned; i've only been trying a metric conversion site on the net.

thanks trthskr4 (whats that mean btw?)

ArcticTern

chickenstrangler · Post by **chickenstrangler** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:24 pm

HI, i have my first batch of BW going and seems to be going along just fine. I am now doing a 2nd batch but have question about water. I am doing half of BW original 80 litre recipe... Mine will be a 40 litre wash in 50litre SS keg fermenter i made.
My question is ...... For a "40 litre" wash, do i use a total of 40 LITRES of water OR bring the overall level of wash in the fermenter to the 40 litre MARK? It makes a difference of about 6 litres less water if i take it to the MARK. Does this make any difference to the wash or outcome?
Thx in advance

myerfire · Post by **myerfire** » Fri May 29, 2009 2:47 pm

For my first wash, I decided to follow the recipe, but only make 1/10 of the total. So I used 8 liters water, juice of 1/3 lemon and 1/3 cup of tomatoe paste and one cube of Fleishmans fresh active yeast. I mixed everything as per the directions and put it in a sanitized fermenting bucket with an airlock. Fermentation and bubbling started slowly and after two days it had stopped. I checked the SG and it was 1.052. I kept the temperature at 32C On the 5th day I added three packets of Red Star dry bakers yeast. It is now day 6 and nothing is happening. My plan is to simply dump it out and start over. I'm just curious as to what might have gone wrong. Thanks for your help.
myerfire

myerfire · Post by **myerfire** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:44 pm

I'm so happy now! I decided to just throw out my failed wash, but just for the fun of it, I would check SG. Well it read out at 1.000. I must have had an air leak, as I didn't see the airlock bubble. Now I have something to distill.
myerfire

acetate · Post by **acetate** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 4:08 pm

I just did my first run of of this wash in my laundry tub fermenter and got an odd result. I was checking SG daily as the ferment progressed. It started at about 1.070 and finished at 1.002 about 7 days later. Before I dumped it in the still I wanted to check ABV. My reading for ABV is 0%. I am totally confused on how this can be possible. While it fermented it definitely smelled more acidic than a plain sugar wash but nothing too vinegar-like. I am assuming that is due to the lemon. There was around 14lbs of sugar in about 10 Gal of water. The alcometer has been used on other washes and it seems to be functioning fine. Anyone have any ideas on how this could happen?

cuprum · Post by **cuprum** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:04 pm

Im about to try this wash after only previously using turbo yeasts and will be doing it through an air still - will only be doing a 25l wash also.

I know I wont need to run the distillate through a carbon filter with this wash but will I still need to add cooper in the still with this wash ?

Post by **HookLine** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:36 pm

Yes, you need some copper somewhere in the vapour path.

Home Distiller