Tale of two washes

[jon1163]

So my plan is to document my latest two sugar washes. While back I scored about a hundred pounds of dextrose for almost nothing and did a little modified birdwatchers. My plan was to run to washes side by side, one dextrose one sucrose and see how they both did.

Both were done at near the same time and both were kept side by side while fermenting. I tried to control as many variables as I could. This will be an ongoing thread to document the taste and procedure and for anybody who might be interested in comparing the differences that I've found.

The plan is to take my 50 gallons of wash after taste testing for my notes on the difference between dextrose and sucrose and combine them. I'll run them through a pot and thumper several times. Of the final hearts cuts, one-third will be vodka 1/3 will be gin and 1/3 will be flavored panty dropper stuff and lemoncello. Lots of work ahead of me.

Recipies: I tried to achieve a 1.09 starting gravity for each wash although I may have gone just a bit higher on the dextrose by mistake (I didn't take into consideration the temperature of the wash when I took the gravity reading). My water comes in at 7.6 ph. I filter it as well.

Dextrose wash:
25 gallons water
65 lbs dextrose
30 oz tomato paste
4 lemons
1.095 SG

Sucrose wash:
25 gallons water
50 lbs sucrose
30 oz tomato paste
4 lemons
1.09 SG

For each wash I brought 24 gallons of water to about 110F and mixed in the sugar. I mixed the four lemons, juiced, with the tomato paste and whisked it with one gallon of water then poured it in my barrel. Because I had not worked with dextrose before I poured a little bit more dextrose in to try to bring my starting gravity up to 1.09. I overshot by . 05. I brought each wash down rapidly to 85 degrees and pitched my 280 grams of bread yeast.

Note : I can't remember exactly but I might have taken the starting gravity of my dextrose wash at a warmer temperature. I did a calculation on a brewing website with the ingredients listed for dextrose and it said that I might have been as high as 1.11 starting gravity.

Day 1: bubbling away each at around 4 hours. The dextrose had a thick red foamy cap that was beginning to develop. The sucrose had a bubbly Red Cap that appeared extra bubbly. Not bready like the dextrose cap. Nice smell on both.

Dextrose 1.09, 85 degrees
Sucrose 1.08, 85 degrees

Day 2: both smell and taste good

Dextrose 1.085, 80 degrees
Sucrose 1.06, 80 degrees

Day 3: both smell and taste good

Dextrose not tested bubbling nicely
Sucrose 1.03, 74 degrees

Day 4: both smell and taste good

Dextrose 1.08, 74 degrees
Sucrose not tested

Day 5: the dextrose wash has been bubbling loudly with large bubbles for 5 days now. It seems extremely healthy and still has a thick bready cap period for sucrose wash is bubbling furiously but with many small bubbles and it has no cap. The bubbles just rise to the surface of the liquid. The bubbles are noticeably smaller than the dextrose wash. Both washes still smell and taste nice.

Dextrose 1.08g, 74 degrees
Sucrose 1.025, 74 degrees

I'm guessing my dextrose wash might have actually been a bit higher than 1.09 starting gravity.

Day 6: both smell and taste good

Dextrose not tested
Sucrose 1.01, 74 degrees

Day 7: both smell and taste good. The dextrose is still bubbling hard and the sucrose a little bit less so. The dextrose still has a foamy bready cap but some of it it's starting to fall just a bit. The entire top of the liquid is still completely covered however

Dextrose not tested
Sucrose 1.00, 74 degrees

Day 8: dextrose is still bubbling well. Sucrose is tailing off and finishing.

Dextrose not tested
Sucrose 0.995, 72 degrees

Day 10: dextrose is bubbling away

Dextrose 1.06

Day 12: dextrose is bubbling away and small patches about the size of a quarter or dropping from the cap. Cap is thinning considerably.

Dextrose 1.05

Day 13: dextrose is still bubbling. The dextrose wash smells very good and there is still much of the cap left and the bubbles are fairly strong. The sucrose wash is fairly dormant smells and tastes good for a sugar wash but somewhat less refined than the dextrose. I'm not sure if that is just the sugar in the dextrose that I'm tasting though.

Dextrose 1.048, 74 degrees

More to come...