Sugar wash clearing - is it necessary?

[shinywombat]

Hi guys. I'm a newby to the art and finding this site very useful.

I run a T500 unmodified still. I have had good results from the Allbran sugar wash posted here. It starts & ferments vigorously & quickly, but in the 25 litre (6 gal) tub I use for the wash, it takes a long time to clear (without any clearing agent added).

My question is, does it matter if it isn't completely clear when added to the boiler for a run? Is there any effect, apart from perhaps carry-over flavours, of a cloudy wash compared to a crystal clear wash?

I don't like leaving the wash for a couple of weeks to clear after it has finished fermenting. There's maybe a risk of infection, and it gets in my wife's way in the laundry. So if I must clear it, what should I use for this purpose?

TIA for your help.

[Salt Must Flow]

Clearing a sugar wash is absolutely not necessary. I've fermented in my boiler and stripped it in my boiler, I don't know how many times. That means I stripped it with 100% of all yeast from the ferment with absolutely ZERO clearing. I don't think there's a more exaggerated example of ZERO clearing that can be achieved. I'd often ferment in my fermenter and pump everything over into my boiler and only leave any settled solids in the fermenter without ANY clearing at all. I never once waited for a sugar wash to clear on its own.

I have only recently started clearing my sugar washes with Bentonite Clay because it's easy to do and makes a noticeable difference. All solids drop out of suspension. The low wines have significantly less odor and when you do a spirit run, it appears as though there are less tails. What I mean by that is your tails are significantly cleaner. Everything is just perceived as cleaner if that makes sense.

I say try it with both ways and see which you prefer. If you don't clear a wash, your tails cut will be more important because your tails will be vile. A bad tails cut will taint the entire blend. I've done that before a good number of times and decided to toss it all back into the boiler and do another spirit run just to get those tails out. By the way, there are multiple types of materials that can be used to clear a sugar wash. Bentonite is cheap as dirt (because it literally is dirt) so that's what I have been using.

Clearing using Bentonite Clay is a rabbit hole to go down. Search this site, search YouTube, even search Google. You'll fine a lot of different recommendations of how to use it. Many recommend using it different ways, like different ratios of water to use to hydrate it first. Different lengths of time to let it hydrate. Some say to use boiling water. Some say to add Bentonite to the wash in the beginning (before or after pitching yeast). I've been testing different ways of using Bentonite and this is a pic of a clearest wash I've done to date. To do that, I hydrated it, added it to the wash after fermentation, waited 24 hrs, racked it and cleared it a 2nd time. I'm still testing with Bentonite because I really want to get more efficient with it. I'm not trying to talk you into clearing your sugar washes. I'm only sharing my personal experience and the results of the rabbit hole I'm currently going down.

[jonnys_spirit]

For wine’s it’s common to use bentonite during fermentation and a chitosan/kieselsol treatment after fermentation. It makes a very clear wine and many folks opt for natural clearing over time to minimize forced clearing which strips flavors.

Once cleared a polishing step or steps for increasingly finer filtering with filters is an additional fining stage which also strips some flavors.

For a very clean neutral sugar wash you might enjoy some of these approaches but it is additional handling and processing which takes time and vessels - and pumps.

I don’t fine or filter wines anymore but i do allow them to clear naturally and bulk age for 18-24 months racking off sediment approximately every three months.

Cheers,
J

[Saltbush Bill]

I don't like leaving the wash for a couple of weeks to clear after it has finished fermenting. There's maybe a risk of infection, and it gets in my wife's way in the laundry.

Keep it sealed with a tight lid and you can leave the wash there for a year and it will be fine......wife? .....there is a reason why my last one no longer lives here.
Another option is to put the washing machine outside in the yard and keep the laundry area for distilling purposes.

[jonnys_spirit]

Dryer doesn’t work? Hmmm. Lol!

-j

[buchrob]

Both clearing and de-gassing, as Still Spirits recommends, are not absolutely necessary. They are holdovers from beer and wine making, where there is no further processing after fermentation. If you skip these steps, you end up with carbonated wine or cloudy beer.

I suspect these recommendations are designed to assuage folks moving from those hobbies. It's also fits the business plan to charge for clearing agent that may only be necessary when using turbo yeast that incorporates added accelerators.

The trapped CO2 in your solution and whatever solids remain will not be passed into your distilled product. I regularly use a brew bag when making TFFV and Uncle Jesse's SSM without using any clearing agents. When ready to transfer, slip off one corner of the bag and place your siphon pickup in the space between the bucket and the bag avoiding the sludge at the bottom.

What goes into the pot is certainly not crystal clear, but more like lemonade, and quite serviceable.

[shinywombat]

Great, thanks for all your replies. Well-informed & very useful to a newbie like me.