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G'day Rad,

I'm only a newbie to this art. I thought I would give your 'Baby Food Wash' a go. I had to use a different baby food as I
couldn't find any Gerber. The ingredients I used were:

4kg sugar inverted with 4 gr citric acid and a pinch of epsom salts in 3 litres of water
75 gr instant dried bakers yeast (approx 8 tbsp)
125gr organic baby rice (1 3/4 cups)
De-chlorinated water to bring the total volume to a bit over 16 litres.
OG: 1.096

I covered the carboy with cling wrap and elastic band instead of using a lid with airlock.

Within an hour there was activity. After about 2 hours the wash looked like it had a sponge cake sitting on top. When I
put my ear close to the top of the carboy, I hear a sound that resembles a steak sizzling on a hot plate. Been going about 24 hours now.

How do you think it will go?

Cheers

alcodemon, that recipe should be fine but with a starting SG of 1.096 you may need a bit more Gerber for the wash to fully ferment... With the generous amount of yeast pitched you may not have any problems... From your description it sounds like the wash is doing just fine so I'd just wait and see how it progresses... Keep us posted...

rad
im making 4 gallons of gerber, here is what i did
14 cups sugar
4 gallons water
4 cups gerber
8 tbsp dry bakers yeast
cooked per your instrucions
ingriedants sound right for 4 gallon recipe?
thanks DCT

DCT, that recipe has a potential yield of 12.3% which should ferment fairly quickly...

thanks buddy
will try my sugar meter 1st, then at the end....training purpose, never used one before....having a blast making wash, and a little drinking on the weakend....cant wait to fire the GIANT!!

dont think im reading my hydrometer but cam up with a starting reading of 1.73.....it floated at the mark area that says table wine, three lines below the 70 mark....is this reading of 1.73 correct?

mines marked by2s most are unless you have a close range hydrometer.
that reading is 1.076 , if you look down the tube you will see 1.100 ,that is wear the next decimal place starts.
you go 1.0xx by 2s until you reach 1.100 then it is 1.1xx by 2s

(now I have you confused Ill fix some lunch)

lol....yes you do....is that a good starting point? hmmm going to take some brain scrambling o get this figured out

DCT wrote:lol....yes you do....is that a good starting point? hmmm going to take some brain scrambling o get this figured out

Depending on your Final Gravity reading, you should end up with roughly 10 - 12 percent, give or take... A wash with that potential should ferment out fairly well, without slowing, unless it gets too cold...

at the top you have .999 next is 1.000----all the way to 90 witch is 1.090 (they leave off the 1.0)--next is 1.100 from there it is 1.1xx but they leave off
the 1.1 and just use double digits . sort of like your trip meter on your car. when it reaches 100 it starts over and you have to add 1.0 or 1.1 in front of it.

now going to confuse you more
take your first reading ( that is OG/original gravity) and the the reading when it stops (FG /final gravity) subtract .
then divide by 7.55 that will give you the % of alcohol.
example,,,
OG--1.076
FG--1.001
drop of 075 divide by 7.55=9.93%
(this is done because only water/alcohol will read correctly, anything in your wash/mash,, grain/turb etc can effect the reading)

I've been using OG-FG*129 to determine my estimated alcohol content. I guess they both get you in the ball park at 9.5-10%.

my gerber has been going strong since friday night, still is still not ready, after the fermentation is done how long can it sit before it goes bad?

A long time as long as you keep the bugs out, and best in a fermenter with an air lock. Just treat it like a wine or beer, as thats what it is until you distill it.


OD

yep like dog said.. if your going to keep wash its best done under air lock, and don't open, it will keep several months that way.
once you open then it has a chance for contamination,and then it mite not keep. open ferments are good for short ,fast ferments.
(like primary in wine/beer) but for long term you need it closed. if it is in a open fermenter you can keep it by placing in a closed one
be for it stops fermenting. (that way it has a chance to form a barrier of co2)

rad14701 wrote:alcodemon, that recipe should be fine but with a starting SG of 1.096 you may need a bit more Gerber for the wash to fully ferment... With the generous amount of yeast pitched you may not have any problems... From your description it sounds like the wash is doing just fine so I'd just wait and see how it progresses... Keep us posted...

G'day Rad,

The wash has been going nearly 8 days. I can still hear some activity in the fermenter. The SG is 1.020 and the wash still tastes a little sweet. Should I still add some more Gerber at this stage? If so, should I just sprinkle it on top of the wash? Any other suggestions?

Cheers and thanks for your guidance.

I have a gerber wash that is on day 8 sg is one mark below 1.00 I am still trying to learn how to read this damn thing. but I did check my ph it was at 4.0 I crushed a couple of tums and gave em a toss. it is a 6 gallon wash. The temp of the wash is 78F. Help me out Rad. If i have a sg of 1 mak down from 1.0 sg and a temp of 78F what do I have. When say 1 mark down this is what I have 1.00 l l l l l .98 It is the first mark toward .98

Kentucky shinner wrote:I have a gerber wash that is on day 8 sg is one mark below 1.00 I am still trying to learn how to read this damn thing. but I did check my ph it was at 4.0 I crushed a couple of tums and gave em a toss. it is a 6 gallon wash. The temp of the wash is 78F. Help me out Rad. If i have a sg of 1 mak down from 1.0 sg and a temp of 78F what do I have. When say 1 mark down this is what I have 1.00 l l l l l .98 It is the first mark toward .98

Your wash has an SG of 0.998 which may need temperature correction depending on your hydrometers calibration temperature... If the wash isn't producing any CO2 then it is done... If you know the OG of the wash you can calculate your potential %ABV...

my hydromter is calibrated at 60F. what is OG

Kentucky shinner wrote:my hydromter is calibrated at 60F. what is OG

Original Gravity... Also referred to as Starting Gravity, but can be confused with the generic Specific Gravity...

(OG - FG) x 129 = %ABV

Ok Well I did not take a reading on that. I will start doing that. Like I said I am still trying to learn to use my Gravity Hydrometer.
Thanks for all your help.

rad
if i add some fresh ginger root to my gerber wash during fermentation, think i can get any flavor to come threw on my pot still or will it spoil my fermentation?
thanks DCT

DCT wrote:rad
if i add some fresh ginger root to my gerber wash during fermentation, think i can get any flavor to come threw on my pot still or will it spoil my fermentation?
thanks DCT

Good question... Might be worth a try... Another idea would be to use a gin basket...

I've seen ginger root in bottles of spirits before...

i have heard of ginger beer, so thought it might work, just didnt want to ruin 10 gallons of gerber fermentation, think i will give it a try & not got to heavy on ginger, may not get the flavor but dont think it should hurt the wash?

one other note, i notice the ginger root is kinda woody or pulpy, will this give off any extra forshots?

Hi Rad, I think ill be making some Barley gerber wash tonight.

I wanted to ask if you had anymore luck with a quick 2-3 day ferment? In some of the first posts I noticed you fermented out your first "big" gerber wash to around 10-11% in 36-48 hours and then added some sugar back to it to get it to 12-13%.

Seemed to me that the yeast worked through the low initial sugar (helped out by the lower osmotic pressure??) and had multiplied to greater numbers allowing them to easily process what you added later. I gathered this from comparing that run to the run you did that took 5 days to finish. I think you did start with a lower gravity on the earlier wash. That was the only significant difference (other than the ferment times) I could discern going by the two recipes as they both went to around 13%.

Anyone care to comment on this practise of starting a low gravity wash, allowing it to ferment out a day or so and then add more sugar again? Does it work out faster to initially use 2/3 to 3/5 of the sugar and then later add the remaining 1/3 or 2/5 compared to just using all the sugar in one go?

CaymanRumBaron, you are correct in that the faster ferment had a lower initial specific gravity due to using less sugar... More sugar just adds a bit more time simply because there is more rather than osmotic stress... As long as you stay at or below ~14% most yeasts can handle the amount of sugar...

As far as stepped sugar addition is concerned there would be little benefit in the practice for washes in this range of SG... It does give some benefit when working with high gravity washes above ~15% range,however, but you will start getting off tastes and smells as well...

Stick with what has been proven as tried and true and you shouldn't have any problems... You can always tweak the wash with additional nutrients down the road if you want to try for faster ferments...

Good luck...

Started a 6 gallon wash saturday and it is probably done now.

Boiled water and 20 cups (10 lbs) of sugar , added juice from 1 lime and half a teaspoon of epsom salts.

Let it cool down to 90 degrees, pitched one 8 oz box of barley gerber in there and mixed that in then pitched 14 teaspoons of redstar baking yeast.

On 5/01/10, starting gravity was 1.065 around midday
On 5/02/10, I pitched 6 more cups (3 lbs) of sugar in there and she started sizzling again.
On 5/04/10 at about 6:00 in the morning gravity was 0.994 and will prolly be done this evening.

Smells clean though, will see how she goes through the still this weekend if it clears by then.

Thanks Rad

Hi, want to try your Gerber recipe but have not been able find that particular barley, can get barley bran from healthfood shop, do you think this would be ok??
Stalvin

Stalvin wrote:Hi, want to try your Gerber recipe but have not been able find that particular barley, can get barley bran from healthfood shop, do you think this would be ok??
Stalvin

You can use any of the Gerber flavors as there would be very little barley in even the barley cereal... We are after the vitamin and mineral fortification more than the flavor... I have used Barley, Mixed Grain, and Rice... You could always toss some barley into the recipe and give that a go...