Home Distiller

skow69 wrote:

hoochlover wrote: I've already distilled both a turbo petrol wash and a nice slow 10% TPW so I have some good things to compare it to I think.
What is a turbo petrol wash? Is that what you plan to use to compare flavors?

I'm waiting until my stainless steel rig is ready to go before I put too much effort into doing more batches, my copper still is too small and boring.
How big of a still do you need to run a half liter wash?

I need more experience on that before I start saying anything is certain when it comes to what wash is cleaner.
More experience on what?


I'm running a 16% abv right now and it's doing pretty good. 9 hours gone and it's ~76% finished.
So that's 76% by weighing the CO2 loss, right? I'm curious about that process. Do you do hydrometer or refractometer measurements also? What do you use for a fermenter? What scale do you use that can apparently weigh up to a kilogram with 0.01 gram resolution?

I'm not sure why but this one seemed to ferment 60g of sugar faster than the 8% wash. Which seems odd to me. But until it finishes and I overlay the graphs I won't know for sure. One thing I know for sure is that the 4%, 8% and 16% washes all ferment relatively the same over the first hours.
What does that mean? The same weight loss? Percentage loss? Temperature change?

The sugar concentration seems to have little effect on performance.

How much yeast did you use? And how much epsom salt?

1. A turbo petrol wash is my name for using turbo yeast because the end result usually smells like petrol or gas as Americans like to call it.
2. I don't want to run a half liter wash as I feel I won't get enough data on the cuts. I'm mainly interested in increasing the hearts for each batch, which is an indicator of how clean the wash is. To get this I need at least 3 litres of hooch.
3. More experience on my stainless steel rig with SPP. I'm not going to do a virgin run on that and compare it to a crappy copper still. I'll run a variety of washes on that thing to get experience and used to what it can produce from different washes before I make any conclusions about my fast ferments.
4. Yes by measuring CO2 lost. I measure the hydrometer reading at the end to make sure it's at least 1.0 . If you do enough of these tests you get a feel for everything just by watching the CO2 though. Hydrometer readings to me are nearly pointless now because of how consistent the CO2 readings are. My scale is a digitech bench scale. I'm not going to say it's the most accurate scale out there but it seems to be rather accurate. I can sit a bottle on it and watch the CO2 pop off in 0.01g increments . It gives reliable consistent results unlike other digital scales I've used in the past. Here is a link to it. http://www.jaycar.com.au/Test-%26-Measu ... e/p/QM7264" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
5. The same weight loss of CO2 by time. The loss of CO2 directly correlates to amount of alcohol produced, so if the 4%, 8% and 16% washes have all lost 13 grams of CO2 by 2 hours it shows the sugar concentration has little effect on performance.
6. It's 20 grams of instant dried yeast, X grams of sugar to make the ABV you want, for 16% I used 120grams, 1 gram of epsom salts and 400ml of reverse osmosis water. Temp for my 16% abv test is 30 degrees which is my usual running temp. I have not noticed much difference on my 4% abv tests with between 0.75 and 1.25 grams of epsom salts but anything less than 0.75grams per 400 mls has an increasing negative effect on performance.

This 16% batch I am doing is still not finished and it's a bit over 24 hours now. It's losing about 0.5g/hour in CO2. It seems I have to throw away some of my assumptions from the lesser ABVs when it comes to this one. It's lost more weight than the others, percentage wise. I think the yeast are eating themselves because there isn't much activity, but there is this constant hiss sound and the solution looks different than usual for my ferments. The yeast are doing different things, sort of like spore activity is the best way I can describe it. The higher ethanol content may be breaking down the cell walls of some of the yeast contributing to this ongoing, low rate fermentation.

If this is indeed what is happening this would definitely contribute to an increase in fusels/esters in the final product and it follows what most people have already seen by suggesting you do ~10% washes. if you don't limit the amount of ethanol in the wash then the wash itself is literally going to start dissolving the yeast releasing those contents to the rest of the yeast to consume, further increasing the toxins in the brew. And it would be a somewhat long and drawn out cycle as the ABV keeps getting higher, which then kills more yeast, and on and on until there is nothing much left except the strongest yeast who will likely succumb given enough time too.

So yeah I'm not sure if I want to continue these tests with such a high ABV now. I didn't think 16% would dissolve as much as it appears to.

For future tests perhaps you should not use osmosis water, because it doesn't contain any ph-buffers. Or add some calciumcarbonate. With some buffer especially the long ferments could do better, more complete fermentation.

hoochlover wrote: I have not noticed much difference on my 4% abv tests with between 0.75 and 1.25 grams of epsom salts but anything less than 0.75grams per 400 mls has an increasing negative effect on performance.

Never thought this huge amount could speed up the fermentation.
Do you have such more detailed results with the amount of the yeast too?

der wo wrote:For future tests perhaps you should not use osmosis water, because it doesn't contain any ph-buffers. Or add some calciumcarbonate. With some buffer especially the long ferments could do better, more complete fermentation.

Good points. However I think it's more the ethanol dissolving the yeast walls than the acidity of the wash. But I guess a few tests would prove this theory. Like dumping some alcohol into a finished lower abv batch and seeing what happens.

der wo wrote:Never thought this huge amount could speed up the fermentation. Do you have such more detailed results with the amount of the yeast too?

Neither did I. I saw one patent which used 0.001% w/w of epsom salts with other things! And I was like.... really. But when they used 0.5% they saw an increase in performance over 0.001% so I'm not sure why they settle on that necessarily. I'm not really sure why such amounts of epsom salts is having such a drastic impact on things. It's like 2-4x faster with it than without it when I use such high yeast pitches.

I haven't done so many tests yet on my new gear, only about 10. Originally I was using hydrometers and not scales to measure things and timing them by CO2 bubbling activity which was not as accurate. It would be nice if other people could help out the testing, or at least verify some of my numbers. I'm not exactly lab grade quality with what I'm doing so the more tests done the more we can draw from it I feel. I'll upload a couple things I've done so far.

You can see the near linear growth "early on" with increasing yeast amounts. My 20g test for that one overblew its container so I couldn't include its numbers. I'll try to get more data out from my older tests as I run them on my new gear.

Look at the citric acid-test. The wash with acid is not as fast as the one without. This pH-mesuarements I think are before the fermentation started. Did you mesuare at the end too? If it gets very low (under 3.5), harder water would be better for sure. Such low pH does not kill the yeast, but will hinder the fermentation. Inside the yeast-cells pH is 7.2, so about 3 is not a good environment for it. We put acid in our wash not for boost the yeast but for supress other organisms.

der wo wrote:Look at the citric acid-test. The wash with acid is not as fast as the one without. This pH-mesuarements I think are before the fermentation started. Did you mesuare at the end too? If it gets very low (under 3.5), harder water would be better for sure. Such low pH does not kill the yeast, but will hinder the fermentation. Inside the yeast-cells pH is 7.2, so about 3 is not a good environment for it. We put acid in our wash not for boost the yeast but for supress other organisms.

I haven't done a high PH test yet all the way through to end. From studies I've read they think starting lower than 6 helps but from what I've seen it doesn't. Neutralish seems best. I didn't measure the end PH of those batches, but the 6.1 one would have been around 3.8 like it usually is. The other one not sure but it was definitely lower, I think the lowest I saw it was 3.5 so probably ended up somewhere between 3.2 and 3.5 . I also measure starting PH with everything in, so the yeast is in and stirred up. The sugar has no measurable impact on PH, neither does the epsom salts, the yeast slightly raises it. My PH pen is only 0.2ph accurate, so I'm just saying in accordance to my tools.

Like you said before the RO water has no buffer so even stirring it more than usual can have some impact on the PH. But never anything that has been very noticeable on my tests. All of my tests are very repeatable to me.

I think I want to get an epsom salt test on my new gear because my last one was rather unscientific and relied on bubbles. I'll try 0.0, 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75 for 4% abv so I can overlay it on my 1.0g tests.

Here is my 16% abv graph for CO2 lost. I'm not sure what to make of the fact it nearly hit 60g lost. My 4% ABV mixes only lost between 13 and 13.4, which times by 4 is 52-54g. My 8% wash lost 26g. If we factor that some of the sugar is left in the live yeast this could account for the differences. And that the 16% batch ate a lot of the yeast and reclaimed some of the sugar. Not entirely sure what the final alcohol percentage really is then, I suppose you need to distil to find that. It would seem to suggest that there is wastage in the lower abvs because they don't reclaim the sugar from the still alive yeast cells.

Starting gravity was 1.097, final gravity was 0.978 at 30C which according to calcs suggests only 15.3% alcohol. So hmm. *edit* Turns out I didn't correctly calculate final ABV, I stated it was 16% when it was actually 14.9% . I ended up with 15.35% .

I think I may have made a mistake thinking that doubling the sugar would double the concentration. When I use 0.06 on the wash calculator it states 8.1% but for 0.12 it's 14.9% . How I got 15.3% must be something to do with the large amount of yeast I use eating itself, or perhaps it being more efficient than that calculator due to higher pitching rate. Amateur hour over here not double checking that. Sorry.

Nice scale.

Is there some underlying theory that you are trying to investigate? You seem to have selected two random parameters (epsom salt and citric acid) to vary in your effort to develop super fast fermentation through massive inoculation, but you don't seem to have any interest in the things more commonly thought of as the building blocks of healthy fermentation, such as B vitamins and nitrogen.

Once one of your 8% samples is done fermenting would you please put it in the fridge over night then take a pic so we could see how well the yeast settles out please

The homedistiller-calc says, you get 14.9% with SG 1.097.
FG 0.978 is a very good fermentation. 15.35% should be right calculated.

skow69 wrote: but you don't seem to have any interest in the things more commonly thought of as the building blocks of healthy fermentation, such as B vitamins and nitrogen.

I think there is enough B vitamins and nitrogen in the yeast. They eat their buddies.

But at the end we have to talk about taste...

skow69 wrote:Nice scale.

Is there some underlying theory that you are trying to investigate? You seem to have selected two random parameters (epsom salt and citric acid) to vary in your effort to develop super fast fermentation through massive inoculation, but you don't seem to have any interest in the things more commonly thought of as the building blocks of healthy fermentation, such as B vitamins and nitrogen.

Hi mate. The dried yeast has plenty of that stuff in it. If you look at what dried yeast actually is, it's dead yeast cells surrounding live yeast cells. When you throw enough in there's pretty much all the nutrients you need. But I will investigate other supplements as time allows.

jb-texshine wrote:Once one of your 8% samples is done fermenting would you please put it in the fridge over night then take a pic so we could see how well the yeast settles out please

They settle relatively quick. As soon as the sugar is gone they want to flocculate to bottom. In about 3-6 hours you have what I would say is 90% of the yeast on the bottom, without refrigeration. The rest is hard to get out which is annoying me and why I started another thread here about other ways to clarify to speed it up and I've achieved some decent results so far.

There's 2 main issues with so much yeast, the strange coloring of the solution which is likely dead yeast contents from the dried yeast or other manufacturing impurities. And that there is quite reluctant percentage of yeast to drop out. At least for the time frame I want. I have left samples out and within 24 hours they are about 95-99% clean but when you ferment in 6 hours an 8% wash you don't want to wait 4 times that for yeast to settle out imo. It's very important to get the wash separated from the yeast ASAP to limit the flavours from more yeast dying in my opinion. Any sort of strong filtering is going to explode the yeast cell walls and lower ABV which is why I'm looking at "less heavy duty" ways to get the stuff out.

I'll try the fridge just after fermentation next time and see what happens. My next batch is 4% so I'll do that first.

I have been thinking about why epsom salts in such high amounts has so much positivity on dried yeast. Until I do my better tests for epsom salts I don't want to get too ahead of myself. But I have a feeling the epsom salts is somehow helping dissolve or break up the waxy emulsifier (E491 / sorbitan monostearate) which surrounds each granule in the packet. Which means more yeast gets into action sooner. I haven't tested more epsom salts with 20g of yeast, all my epsom tests were relating to 10g of yeast. If this theory is correct I should probably have increased the epsom salts for 20g of yeast, doubling the minimum I found which worked well.

Epsom salts is MgSO4 and sorbitan monostearate is C24H46O6 . I'm not aware of the reaction which is possible here but I do know MgSO4 in the anhydrous form has an affinity for water and sorbitan monostearate is an emulsifier that is interested in "binding" with water. Any chemgeeks want to say whether it's possible this is doing something?

Since the concentration of magnesium is too high to be purely for "yeast purposes" it has to be doing something else to speed it up. And I have noticed that without epsom salt supplementation the foaming is worse. I'll try to do more tests on this in the meanwhile but hopefully someone with a bit more chemistry knowledge can look into it.

Ok I've just finished a 30g sugar epsom salt test. It seems my initial results using my less scientific methods had some holes in it. I was quite bored by this test as I thought it was going to merely prove my earlier tests but I was wrong.

I spent 2 and a half hours watching this yeast in the 4 batches, yes, that's how boring my life is right now. They are in the fridge so I can see how fast they can settle. After that I will do a hydro test and put the data in.

The epsom salt increases the bubble size of the foam. This allows the foam to collapse more easily which results in more yeast in the solution doing its work. In my earlier tests I was using airlocks to count bubbles and the ones with little epsom salt and 10g of yeast bubbled into the tubes, I suspect this influenced the results I saw quite dramatically and I didn't stir them. THIS time I was watching them the whole time and any time I stirred one to be sure it wouldn't overflow the container I did it to them all to be more fair. I think this is more an indication of the results but the foaming is a problem that somehow needs to be contained if accurate results are sought.

I tested 0g 0.25g 0.5g and 0.75g and the 0.25g test was the best. It seems the more epsom salt the worse performance achieved, by about 15%, but I'll have to wait until the numbers are in the computer to know for sure. The one without epsom did fairly well but it had to have its contents stirred every 5-10 min to not overflow. The 0.25g test was the second worst foamer. 0.5g and 0.75g were very similar. I'll post some pics soon. All finished before 2 and a half hours, and seemed to contain at least 0.75g of dissolved CO2. I forgot to add this number to my other lost amounts before. But the carbonation of the solution obviously affects the weight and I need to remove it before getting the final weight.

My theory about epsom salt somehow affecting the emulsifier don't seem to be true, outside of the possible bubble impact. The reason I know this is because all 4 have that emulsifier sitting/floating on top in equal amounts. So that stuff at low alcohol concentrations doesn't dissolve. On my 120g (15.35%) test the surface of the solution was liquid, no foam, no bubbles. The emulsifier definitely has an impact on the foaming as it's floating on top and catches yeast quite easily. Most of the foam is the white emulsifier, not the brownish yeast.

Initial graph of the epsom salt test. Both 0.25g and 0.0g epsom get started quicker than the other 2. I suspect the main reason 0.0g did a bit worse is simply because it foamed so much. I only stirred it back in when it got close to the top. If there was a constant stirring mechanism it perhaps would have been similar to 0.25g epsom. All of these tests would have improved with constant stirring though.

Here is a pic of them after they have settled a bit for 2 hours. Part time fridge, part time just out. The color of the wash difference is interesting. The epsom concentration seems to affect the color of it. You can see the emulsifier floating on top too.
Here is a picture showing the break down of the foam contents. Also you can see the left 2 bottles have more foam at the same point of time, this is prior to any stirring, about 15 mins into fermentation. The left bottles at this point have released more CO2 so more foam is going to be there, the bubble density affects it more the longer the test goes on. The leftmost bottle needed constant stirring to avoid overflowing, the next bottle just needed it a couple of times. The right 2 just once.
And here is the bubble difference in the foam. Contrast and brightness changed to make it more visible. About 30 mins into test.

Here is a video showing about 60 minutes of settling compressed into 15 seconds. This started after 30 minutes of them being in the fridge. And about 60 minutes after they had finished. You can see the emulsifier just sitting on top like nothing is happening.

Not to sidetrack you at all, just thinking out loud, I have to wonder how the huge pitch would work with something like 20-20-20 orchid food, which has the salts along with a good bit of nitrogen and other yeast-happy nutrients.

Interesting stuff. I wonder how much difference the freezer would make when trying to clear.

raketemensch wrote:Not to sidetrack you at all, just thinking out loud, I have to wonder how the huge pitch would work with something like 20-20-20 orchid food, which has the salts along with a good bit of nitrogen and other yeast-happy nutrients.

Interesting stuff. I wonder how much difference the freezer would make when trying to clear.

I would assume 20-20-20 would have little to no impact on it, but I've been wrong before! When you pitch so much yeast there is little reproduction, so little nutrient requirement. Dried yeast already contains enough IMO, dried yeast essentially contains everything yeast need because it's yeast itself. But you could start some tests if you want. I'm also not sure yet if pitching so much yeast is good for final product, so until those tests are done it might be pointless.

As for the freezer... yeah don't know. The fridge or freezer don't seem to help the "last phase" of settling, which seems to be the yeast colony coming together instead of repelling each other. The yeast cake itself takes a long time to compress even when the other elements have fallen down. I suspect this is the yeast repelling each other like they would when "active", or perhaps tiny bubbles adhering to their surface making it difficult. My heatsink approach seemed to speed this up.

Just my opinion but I think you need to be running larger volumes for your experiments... One gallon or four liters might yield more accurate data... Using 450ml of water sounds a bit unusual... Perhaps one liter at the very least...

Have you done any in depth research into yeast and fermentation, or are you just heading off on your own tangent...??? Just curious because I dabbled with yeast research decades ago... Geez, I'm getting old...!!!

Epsom salts are most likely buffering the acidity of the wash, bringing pH up to something the yeast like better as a starting environment.

In beer brewing, I have had very fast ferments when pitching a yeast starter while it's at high krausen. When the starter is adequate size for the batch, there is no noticeable lag phase when pitched and it just gets down to business. Of course in beer, the product would be unpalatable at that point. It takes some time after reaching FG for the yeast to clean up fermentation byproducts and flocculate out.

rad14701 wrote:Just my opinion but I think you need to be running larger volumes for your experiments... One gallon or four liters might yield more accurate data... Using 450ml of water sounds a bit unusual... Perhaps one liter at the very least...

Have you done any in depth research into yeast and fermentation, or are you just heading off on your own tangent...??? Just curious because I dabbled with yeast research decades ago... Geez, I'm getting old...!!!

It's hard to know what in depth research is to a specific person. But I've been reading a lot of papers/studies about yeast, a couple books and doing my own experiments. Basically I'm just trying to fill in the missing data about yeast, answering questions I have.

In regards to container I agree. I started with 400ml because that was the limit I could keep in the bottles without constant stirring early on. But it's changed now since at 20g yeast they all overflow at some point. I'm on the fence as to what path I want to go down. Obviously 20g and beyond will yield faster results, I know that much, but it's just a crap load of yeast to use in a real batch so I'm kinda wondering if that's the path I want to go down at this stage. I could see myself using 500-600g yeast for a 25L batch but 1.2kg and beyond seems a bit expensive/excessive. That would cost me about $22 to get 2.5litres of ethanol, and if I get 75% hearts that's only 1.875L drinkable total and ~4.5L once put down to 40% . So $22 for 4.5L if I'm lucky. I guess compared to buying it from a store it's a lot better but most people seem to be liking what they are doing at probably 1/5th that cost so yeah. The hearts increase from this, if any, needs to be up to make it worthwhile because in a proper still you can get nearly anything stripped quite well.

You could easily make a well sanitized wort: run an aerator through a cheap solution of a super cheap nutrient source and sugar (think grain byproducts, germ, bran etc). This will get you a lot of yeast very fast which you can then pour into future fermentations.

MDH wrote:You could easily make a well sanitized wort: run an aerator through a cheap solution of a super cheap nutrient source and sugar (think grain byproducts, germ, bran etc). This will get you a lot of yeast very fast which you can then pour into future fermentations.

Good point. I thought about this but I'm just not sure yet if that's what I want to do personally. After discovering the potential negative of running so much dried yeast in a batch though I'm also questioning direct use of that in my brews, which would mean I'd have to wash it first, then breed it to get something better.

Having little experience with growing yeast colonies for production what sort of container size would I need to get 1.2kg of yeast? How dense can it get? Wouldn't I need a fairly large vessel, I'm guessing at least 5 to 10 litres because the yeast will reach a cell density limit? If I took 100g of yeast, and assume 50% of it is live, it would take a minimum of 15 hours to get there right?

I suppose I could do it in the final fermenting chamber itself, breed the yeast then just dump more sugar in. It's a lot more mucking around certainly. I'd spend more time breeding yeast than actually fermenting with it.

I guess I could try finding a cheaper source of yeast too, quick look suggests I can halve my current price if I buy enough in bulk.

Or you could find a high-reproducing strain and make starters, split them, make starters, etc.

You know how to make them reproduce, just farm your own....

raketemensch wrote:Or you could find a high-reproducing strain and make starters, split them, make starters, etc.

You know how to make them reproduce, just farm your own....

If I don't clean it afterwards there's no difference between just having a longer lag time on a normal brew. To get them quite clean you need some equipment and experience.

Making them reproduce is easy but doing it in a way which is going to achieve the results I want for lowering reproduction and fusels/esters in the final brew means it has to be done a certain way.

I like the testing that's going on. But - for myself - there are a few things I'd like to take into consideration before pitching so much yeast:
1. The amount of foam up would mean you can only use a small part of your fermenting vessel;
2. Bigger ferments create more heat, yet have less side cooling, so the faster the ferment, the hotter it will get when you increase total ferment batch size;
3. Above 37C the yeast will start to die, giving off flavours;
4. Stirring won't help, since it will add new oxygen and affect total reachable ABV;
5. Product versus sediment ratio is low;
6. Add that to the already low fill rate of the fermenter and the short potential fermenting time in a bigger batch (yeast death above 37c) and you even less total output;
7. I wouldn't call your product cleared, by looking at the pictures, Hooch;
8. More yeast & faster ferments means ... more yeast and more CO2 so clearing will be a bitch;
9. Meaning any time advantages you may have found ... will translate in having to distill twice at least to get rid of yeast taste in the low wines;
10. Esterification takes place more in longer ferments, so this procedure (or parts of it) may only work when one wants to reach a more neutral drink. Then again ... see point 9.

What I find interesting is the low pH drop. And I am curious to how that comes. Any sugar wash I did immediately crashes to pH 3.0 when fermentation reaches + 30c temperatures.

My experience with rum ferments is that I have to struggle (or temp control fement with double boiler) to keep temp below 35c. That's on a 50 gallon ferment with 0.5 to 0,75 grams of yeast per liter of fermentation. And the amounts of BiCarb I have to use to keep pH above 3.5 are impressive but not to my liking. Think 1 to 1.5 grams per liter of fermentation.

Call me traditional, but I will keep on fermenting with 0.5 to 1 gram of yeast per liter.

Regards, Odin.

Odin wrote:I like the testing that's going on. But - for myself - there are a few things I'd like to take into consideration before pitching so much yeast:
1. The amount of foam up would mean you can only use a small part of your fermenting vessel;
4. Stirring won't help, since it will add new oxygen and affect total reachable ABV;

You can have a stirring paddle inside the fermenter. Or a pump. Beer guys use them. Both will remove the foam to a non problem. As will a pressurized system. I have seen some talk about pressure systems being able to reduce toxins.

Odin wrote: 2. Bigger ferments create more heat, yet have less side cooling, so the faster the ferment, the hotter it will get when you increase total ferment batch size;
3. Above 37C the yeast will start to die, giving off flavours;

Yeah good point. It's relatively cold where I am so this is not as big a problem, heating is. But for a lot of people it would be.

Odin wrote:5. Product versus sediment ratio is low;

Why? The yeast will reproduce to hit the same density , if not more, if they can. 50g dried yeast per litre is not the speed limit. I got linear increases in production from 5 to 10 to 20g per 400ml. If 20g was near the limit it wouldn't have been so linear. What I mean by that is reproduction will likely occur to hit or exceed the same cell density in the solution regardless of start pitch. Only if the starting pitch of yeast contains enough live cells to overwhelm the desired cell density is it overpitching. All other amounts, including the huge amounts I use is not overpitching, it's actually under pitching. The yeast will hit the same density regardless, provided it can (ie enough nutrients), all I'm doing is giving that "base of yeast" a much higher starting count.

Until I hit the point where adding more yeast does nothing to speed you can be sure I am currently underpitching. It seems bizarre especially due to beer/wine guys who can say even small amounts is overpitching, but they are under a different set of rules. They need lag time, they need reproduction, so without it you are under/over pitching to hit a beer/wine ferment of a particular type.

Odin wrote: 6. Add that to the already low fill rate of the fermenter and the short potential fermenting time in a bigger batch (yeast death above 37c) and you even less total output;
7. I wouldn't call your product cleared, by looking at the pictures, Hooch;
8. More yeast & faster ferments means ... more yeast and more CO2 so clearing will be a bitch;
9. Meaning any time advantages you may have found ... will translate in having to distill twice at least to get rid of yeast taste in the low wines;
10. Esterification takes place more in longer ferments, so this procedure (or parts of it) may only work when one wants to reach a more neutral drink. Then again ... see point 9.

I am working on a system to clear a finished ferment within 2 hours. If you had to wait 48 hours to settle a 10 hour 10% wash I would agree, it's ridiculous, who would care about fermenting so quick in such a situation?

My belief is getting the wash separated from the yeast as soon as you can will reduce the toxins, as will lowering reproduction rate. It's not even personally proven to myself yet as I haven't done all the testing I want, but it's where I'm headed to see if it is the case.

Odin wrote: What I find interesting is the low pH drop. And I am curious to how that comes. Any sugar wash I did immediately crashes to pH 3.0 when fermentation reaches + 30c temperatures.

My experience with rum ferments is that I have to struggle (or temp control fement with double boiler) to keep temp below 35c. That's on a 50 gallon ferment with 0.5 to 0,75 grams of yeast per liter of fermentation. And the amounts of BiCarb I have to use to keep pH above 3.5 are impressive but not to my liking. Think 1 to 1.5 grams per liter of fermentation.

I'm only interested in sugar washes and neutrals so you have to take where I'm going with that in mind. Brown spirits need flavor, ie yeast reproduction, lag times, long settling, etc, to get the flavor they have, just like wines and beers. My experience on that front only relates to beers, wines and cidars, I have little interest in rums, whiskeys, etc so haven't learnt much about that process.

As to low ph drop, once the dried yeast is placed in the wash it starts to "reenergize" itself which lowers the PH. I have done about 5 tests on this for the first 30 minutes of the fermentation. It's pretty interesting. At my reverse osmosis/sugar/yeast start PH of about 6.1 the yeast drop the PH to 4.6.If you start PH higher they don't drop it as low, if you start lower it goes lower, the acidity should be a fixed amount based on number of yeast "rehydrating". However I have seen some contrary evidence to this in my tests, but nothing I can replicate yet. I have a suspicion yeast have some way of prematurely stopping their "building up" for conditions if the acidity hits optimal range. For highest speed fermentation of glucose obviously being in ~4.5ph to 5.0ph is where you want to be due to the enzymes involved operating best in that range.

Some excerpts from Chris White's yeast book.

Upon inoculation into wort, the cells first utilize their glycogen reserves and any available oxygen to revitalize their cell membranes for optimal permeability and transfer of nutrients and sugars. The cells rapidly absorb oxygen and then begin to pick up sugar and nutrients from the wort.

When you pitch yeast into wort, it begins acclimating to the environment. Although you do not see any activity, the cells begin the uptake of oxygen, minerals, and amino acids (nitrogen) from the wort and build proteins from the amino acids. If the yeast cannot get the amino acids they need from the wort, they produce them.

This is why the PH lowers, and it lowers very quick in my tests that have low lag time. My lag time is usually 10 mins at 30C and by 10 mins the ph 6.1 drops to 4.6 and that is when the foaming begins. It takes another 30-45mins to drop the PH again, which I think is caused by carbon dioxide. RO water doesn't have a PH "buffer", but the dried yeast I use does increase PH slightly. Probably not enough to care about, but I always measure with the yeast in and dissolved to be more accurate with it. Usually increases it by .1 or .2 depending upon amount. I thought my 15.35% ABV test would have a PH in the 3.5 to 3.8 range at end but it was 4.1 . This was surprising to me given the length of time compared to others, but it is what it is. PH 4.1 is still in a relatively good range for production.

If you use tap water.... its variable quality could be a reason why you are experiencing low PH issues. Not sure, but I do know with just distilled/RO water, sugar, yeast and/or epsom salts, in the range of 2% to 15.35% ABV the PH is never lower than 3.8 in my testing by end of fermentation. If yours is with same ingredients maybe your dried yeast is different than mine or the water is different. Can't see what else could be causing it unless the fact it's a larger batch is somehow making it more acidic? More toxins produced due to higher temps like you mentioned? Many things to look into for that problem. I know some dried yeasts have acids in them to "help" with fermentation, turbo yeasts have a bunch of rubbish too.