Clarifying Questions

[MT Wildrye]

I have tried several different things in recent days as far as sugar and turbo yeasts. My experience so far has been that turbos can give plus or minus results?

For example:

A while back I made a 5 gallon batch of approx 12 lbs white sugar, and a jar of grandma's molasses. I used red star Pasteur champagne dry yeast (1 pack) this fermented well, seemed to clarify O.K. and the distillation was nice and clean without a huge problem adding back a lot of heads and tails. It aged out very nicely in an Oak Barrel and is pretty good.

I tried a similar recipe with a little more sugar (14 lbs) and an off-the-shelf turbo. The batch took FOREVER to clarify and the distillate had a distinct "meaty" displeasurable flavor, that appeared very quickly into the tails, and a relatively low yield of hearts.

Does anybody have a good explanation? Am I getting off-flavors due to cell lysis caused by poor clarification (cooking the yeast)? A yeast byproduct, or what are your thoughts?

Do fining agents help (turbo clear for example)? When and where should one use these, if ever??

[Jimbo]

There's a trillion posts on here about how bad turbo yeasts are. Go to the fermentation area, or do a search. The 'meaty' flavor is from the turbo, not from distilling some yeast in the wash. Boiling yeast is not something you want to do in general but Ive run very cloudy unsettled washes before and it turned out fine.

Bottom line: Stay away from turbo yeasts.

[Dnderhead]

turboes was started to make fuel. some one came up with a bright idea you could ferment to a high percent like 20+ use a bunch of clearing agents and drink "as is" no illegal distilling nesasary.so no mater how you look at it its not made to distill with.

[MT Wildrye]

There's a trillion posts on here about how bad turbo yeasts are. Go to the fermentation area, or do a search. The 'meaty' flavor is from the turbo, not from distilling some yeast in the wash. Boiling yeast is not something you want to do in general but Ive run very cloudy unsettled washes before and it turned out fine.

Bottom line: Stay away from turbo yeasts.

I have seen several posts that say turbos suck. I also have read some posts from people who like them.... go figure?? So, I thought I would give it a go. So my results are consistent with yours: GREAT!!

I am glad to hear that distilling a little yeast is no biggie.

CONCLUSION: TURBOS SUCK (going back to champagne strains)

[MT Wildrye]

turboes was started to make fuel. some one came up with a bright idea you could ferment to a high percent like 20+ use a bunch of clearing agents and drink "as is" no illegal distilling nesasary.so no mater how you look at it its not made to distill with.

Agreed: learned by experiment!

Thanks for the reply!!