butterpants wrote:Gypsum
Epsom Salts
DAP
Fermaid K
Crushed B complex vitamin
Really ?....Epsom Salts yes ...........but why all the rest ...crushed grains are nutrient enough themselves.
50+ gens of UJ and Ive never added more than Epsom salts and Grain......Still working fine for me ..and no complaints about the end product as yet.
butterpants wrote:Gypsum
Epsom Salts
DAP
Fermaid K
Crushed B complex vitamin
Really ?....Epsom Salts yes ...........but why all the rest ...crushed grains are nutrient enough themselves.
50+ gens of UJ and Ive never added more than Epsom salts and Grain......Still working fine for me ..and no complaints about the end product as yet.
Want vs Need. If you finish out totally dry in 36-48 hours, well then don't mind me or my suggestions. I thought it fermented too slowly without additions. You might be ok with the speed.
I have all that stuff on hand normally so why not kick it in right? It adds no deleterious effects to flavor like some turbo crap would (eventhough you're kind of making something like it). Makes my ferments happy (except when I put too much backset which was only saved by a chalk bomb).
HDNB wrote:go back to the root cause of the stall. from all the descriptions (save the estimate of 4+ on PH), it sounds like bacterial stall.
acetic acid in small doses is toxic to yeast. lots of bacteria produce it. the high dose of backset may have slowed the yeast and allowed the bacteria to over run the ferment.
i'd bet with a meter your ph is 3.3 to 3.5. anything less than 3.8 indicates an acid forming infection to me. i run hot and dirty all the time and have stalled more mashes than i care to recall.
my suggestion? what i did... toss it all clean the hell out of everything and start again. you gotta really try to stall a UJSSM, that big dose of backset will do it everytime. no more than 10% volume if you want to stay safe.
practice clean fermenting and you won't lose as many.
ps: are the slow bubbles nice and big?
pH is slightly higher today. SG is 1.034, so a little better there as well. Bubbling has increased, but I would describe them as small not large bubbles. The wash certainly isn't at a boil. Is there a way I could tell if my wash was infected? Possibly by smell or taste?)
You could have a brewing microbiologist examine it. Streak it out on WLD media, gram stain and observe isolates under 1000x oil immersion microscope. Gram positive rods + yellow halos around plate colonies are a good chance lacto-something. Pediococcus grow in tetrads (4 circular little balls) also gram pos but grow much slower and often make your wash smell buttery/butterscotch (Diacetyl). Diacetyl is quite difficult to remove via pot still distillation as it's boiling point is close to ethanol. Lacto can produce Diacetly but in my experience that's fairly rare.
You can scrub out a significant amount of lactic and acetic acid from a wash by adding calcium carbonate (powered chalk). Sprinkle in a bunch, stir, wait.
If you're following the directions as posted on Home Distiller for making UJSSM, your wash is contaminated with lactic acid producing bacteria (LAB). 100%. If you disagree, you're uninformed. Send me your sample and I'll show you just how wrong you are. BUT that's perfectly fine. Corn or any other bulk produced grain is covered in LAB and lots of other random bad things. The LAB is beneficial in rapidly lowering the fermentation pH to below 4.5 which is a good general guideline to prevent enteric bacterial growth (think poop, vomit and cheese smells). It only goes bad if your sacchromyces (ethanol producing yeast) pitch isn't strong enough and takes a while to chew through the sugar, basically giving the LAB time and opportunity to drop the fermentation pH so low that yeast are no longer happy (low 3's).
I'd get the pH to a proper range. See if it finishes. If it doesn't dump everything and start over fresh, heeding everyone's advice.
HDNB wrote:go back to the root cause of the stall. from all the descriptions (save the estimate of 4+ on PH), it sounds like bacterial stall.
acetic acid in small doses is toxic to yeast. lots of bacteria produce it. the high dose of backset may have slowed the yeast and allowed the bacteria to over run the ferment.
i'd bet with a meter your ph is 3.3 to 3.5. anything less than 3.8 indicates an acid forming infection to me. i run hot and dirty all the time and have stalled more mashes than i care to recall.
my suggestion? what i did... toss it all clean the hell out of everything and start again. you gotta really try to stall a UJSSM, that big dose of backset will do it everytime. no more than 10% volume if you want to stay safe.
practice clean fermenting and you won't lose as many.
ps: are the slow bubbles nice and big?
pH is slightly higher today. SG is 1.034, so a little better there as well. Bubbling has increased, but I would describe them as small not large bubbles. The wash certainly isn't at a boil. Is there a way I could tell if my wash was infected? Possibly by smell or taste?)
big slow bubbles indicate bacteria fermenting. 1/4 inch and smaller never worry me. the 1" burps are always telling me i'm screwed.
taste is tough for me. it's all sour.
smell, for sure. the really putrid ones are easy.
acetic producers a little tougher. smell and taste like vinegar but a light hint can stall the ferment and not smell all that bad...need a good sniffer for them in the beginning but by the end when you're screwed it's easier to figger out why.
lacto's smell like baby milk burps to me, not awful but not may favorite thing either, i never worry about this one though i like how it finishes.
The wash made it down to 1.006 or so when I ran it on Saturday. In total, I guess that fermentation took 3-4 weeks, due to the acid crash that you guys described. When I refilled my fermenter, I took a pH reading before adding the backset. It started around 6 or so. Adding 20% backset brought it down to 4.5. I did have the crushed shell in up front this time, so hopefully that'll help as well. The bubbling did slow after the addition of the backset but I would assume that's a pretty normal occurrence given my pH change.
