Home Distiller

Day 4. Gerber Barley still bubbling and going well. I hope its ready by Thrurday. Here is a couple of pics. One is with a flash and the other is without.

I ran my 15 l Gerber wort through my reflux still yesterday and can finally understand first hand the wonder of this simple recipe. I didn't really try anything radically different from what other people have done. I used Rad's recipe from a while back but with less water (because I didn't add a proportionate amount of water rather than topping up to the volume of water intended). I added the epsom salt and 20-20-20, but did not add any other vitamins like c or b. I think I will try adding some marmite for b vitamins on my next go, and am debating a c vitamin pill to insure against chlorination in the cistern water I use. I think I need to improve on the water quality more than anything, and this includes PH. I only added a little lemon juice during the sugar inversion.

So, my original gravity was 1076, and my final gravity was 993. That puts the ABV at 11%, or just shy. I was surprised at how long the fermentation took, since I started 17 days before distilling it. There was only minimal activity on the 17th day (airlock pressure differential, CO2 release every 10 minutes maybe, but irregular), and I decided to run it anyways. The slow ferment is undoubtedly due to my cold Canadian basement, which is consistently about 18c. I have heat belts but wanted to go without for this batch; I'm not sure if speed is my aim because a slow ferment seems to be preferred in terms of quality. I might just start a new batch every week if I want to run my still that frequent.

Now, the quality of the product is far superior to the Alcobase Pure Brew turbos I have used several times. The difference is noticeable to me in more than one way, but taste and smell are the most obvious and important improvements. I had a lot of hearts, probably just over 1 L of 88%. Keep in mind I am trying to go by my senses and this is not easy for me yet. What I believe were heads and tails was not all that much, and the still started producing nasty stuff much later than I would have guessed based on my turbos experience. I think I will try a turbo one more time for comparison's sake, but it may be my last turbo run. Anyways, I love the recipe and am excited to try it again with some small changes, and instead of the barley cereal I am going to use a 12 grain mix I picked up from a bulk store.

18C is about 65F... You are correct about why the ferment took so long... I would try to keep the ferment in the high 70s to low/mid 80s. This will triple or quadruple the ferment speed (down to 3-5 days). Dont worry about off flavors with this recipe as long as you dont push the ABV, which you are not...

Once its done bubbling, then put it down in that cold basement to clear!

Sounds like your ferment and run was very successful! It doesnt sound to me like you need to worry about pH... BUT, I like to measure and record everything! I've found that a starting pH of 5-6 is good...

Congrats E.D.

bgrizzle

@cannonman

Looking good... Gerber washes stay fairly clear throughout the ferment... Keep us posted...


@EscarpmentDew

You and bgrizzle is right about the temperature... It does sound like you managed to wait for it to totally ferment, however... I get a lot of extra hearts out of my Gerber washes also... Glad you had success and see why it is such a good alternative to turbo washes...

bgrizzle wrote:Sounds like your ferment and run was very successful! It doesnt sound to me like you need to worry about pH... BUT, I like to measure and record everything! I've found that a starting pH of 5-6 is good...

Yes, bgrizzle. I like to know everything as much as possible. I think I can improve my Gerber recipe by focusing on the water I use, perhaps even by using distilled water to rule the water out as a problem at the very least. I have not as of yet purchased a PH reader in order to rule out PH as an area of improvement. There is some chlorination in the cistern I am on, and the PH is slightly off of neutral. I only mention this because the potential alcohol content based on the sugar alone (and not considering whatever sugars are derived from the barley cereal) is enough to make a wash of almost 12%. Then again, the wash didn't taste sweet. Well, this is a problem unique to my water source and not to the recipe everyone seems to enjoy.

Also, I was under the belief that a slower ferment was more ideal for the yeast, even in non-stressed situations, and beneficial to the product made. I will definitely try to keep my wort in the mid 20c range the next batch I ferment, and I will be paying close attention to quality more than anything and post back if I believe the product is different. Thanks for all of the responses.

EscarpmentDew wrote:I was under the belief that a slower ferment was more ideal for the yeast, even in non-stressed situations, and beneficial to the product made

Indeed.
However this recipe started as an experiment for use as a substitute for turbos.
A fast ferment was part of the original mission plan.

LWTCS wrote:A fast ferment was part of the original mission plan.

It is definitely fun tweaking things to see what effects the time, and I can see from the posts that indeed people were looking for something in the range of 3-4 days. I can understand that, but, somewhere in the mission plan there was talk of quality too. I guess this is a matter of what people like about the Gerber recipe and what they want to improve on. The increased fermentation time is a drawback to this recipe, but can it be overcome without trade-offs? And if trade-offs are necessary for a faster fermentation, who will opt for it? What is more important to the Gerber distiller? For me, time is less important than making something without turbos.

E.D. the whole point of Gerber and All Bran is that it can run fast WITHOUT any compromise... thats the beauty my friend!!! For that matter, same with WPOSW... If you want to experiment a little, thats ok... just dont stress the yeast by pushing the ABV too much...

AND, I would add anything else that could add flavors, as your goal here is neutral spirit...

I really dont think there is anything to perfect here... the point of this recipe was a fast, neutral spirit, with ingredients that ANYBODY can easily find...

You can fiddle with it by substituting nutrients, or yeast, or type of sugar... but really your good to go by following the recipe on this one...

good luck man...

bgrizzle

Once I got my stock built up, it became so much easier to not care how long the ferment lasted.

I got my universals confused with my particulars on this true statement: slow ferments are best for a cleaner wash. But, I should have said slow ferments are best for a cleaner wash if the yeast is being stressed (typical of turbos and possible of any yeasts). Alright, hopefully I'm on the same page as you guys now. I'll speed it up a little with my heat belts (and bring it out of the basement) and see if I'm good to go in under 6 days. I just won't stress the yeast by adding near fatal amounts of sugar . . . got it. Thank you everyone.

You are in a really good place with your approach. It seems clear that you cannot be seduced by the greed factor.

I bet your on your way to make some good likker.

I have not run a Gerber wash in a bit (been off experimenting), but finally broke into my oaked 1 month old tonight for a drink and I got to say, I loved it white, and I love it with a little age on it. This has got to be one of the simplest, most consistent recipes ever. It started this hobby for me, and I have to say thank you to Rad once again, this has taught me a lot.

Thanks!

Can anyone post the nutrients listing from the Gerber's box so I can find something similar? We dont have Gerber's here.

athiril wrote:Can anyone post the nutrients listing from the Gerber's box so I can find something similar? We dont have Gerber's here.

first run of some gerber oatmeal, and the wet spot on the concrete below the parrot is water from cleaning out the worm prior to running,Just in case anybody's wondering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3rjs-Gs ... er&list=UL" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

corncooker69 wrote:first run of some gerber oatmeal, and the wet spot on the concrete below the parrot is water from cleaning out the worm prior to running,Just in case anybody's wondering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3rjs-Gs ... er&list=UL" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Starting to see more and more youtube videos at the forum, great to see everyone sharing what's going on!

I just wanted to show a run of my new setup and see if anyone thought she was running fast enough for a stripping run,the product had a good bit of flavor first run,I plan on running at least 1 or 2 more times since this is a neutral wash after dilutting back to about 40%,those with more runs of the gerber than me please chime in, any feedback is appreciated.

the video is unpublished so the only way to get to it is through the link on here.

I have a question: How long can I keep the batch before it goes bad?? I can not run it till this week end and It was done running this past Sat. It will be a week between finish and run time. I have Included two pics. One with a flash and one with-out. There is floaties on top. I am guessing that this is the gerber baby food floating??? Or the yeast??? Any Ideas?

I made up a small 1 gallon test batch and when it was done it tasted pretty good.
I added some real lemon juice to taste and some sugar.
I am sipping on some real good 12% lemonade. Hehehe

cannonman, keep it covered, don't fuss with it, and it will be fine until you have a chance to run it... If it was going to be several weeks you would want to rack it into another container to get the wash off the trub...

rad14701 wrote:cannonman, keep it covered, don't fuss with it, and it will be fine until you have a chance to run it... If it was going to be several weeks you would want to rack it into another container to get the wash off the trub...

Thanks rad14701. Can you believe that after it sat on the counter for a few minutes I saw that it is still moving on it own. What a trip man. I will keep it covered till then. Thanks again... I will let you know how it comes out after i run it...

I am pleased to say that on my second Gerber batch I achieved exactly the same results as my first, even though I made several changes. My original gravity was 1076 and my final gravity was 993 (corrected for temperature). So, I am looking at a wash of just shy of 11% again. I was advised to bring the fermenter out of my basement and maintain a higher temperature, which I did. Keeping the Gerber at 18c (64F) took 17 days to finish, and my most recent Gerber at 30c (86F) took just under 7 days to finish. However, I seemed to have a very long stall period before things really went crazy. Could this be due to the fact I am using a 23L ferment bucket and am only using a 15L volume recipe? I might have to scale up this recipe a little, to 18L or so. The stall period was more than a day, and only showed slight pressure in the airlock until I gave it a good shake. Maybe CO2 is getting trapped in the thick mash and shaking it lets it escape and the CO2 keeps things circulating after that?

The differences I made on this Gerber were only slight.

• I used 1 tbsp of lemon juice to invert the sugar with a 20 minute simmer (instead of 3/4 tsp with 20 minute simmer)
• I used tbsp of recycled trub which I collected from a honey lager, which I boiled with the cereal
• I used a 12 grain concoction instead of my previous barley cereal
• I added additional lemon juice to my Gerber (vitamin C plus acidity a desired addition for my cistern water)
• I did not boil the fertilizer as I can't imagine any good coming from it
• I aerated more heavily (every 20 minutes for an hour or so)

As you can see, and it has been mentioned in previous posts, there is probably more nutrients in this recipe than is needed. For the sake of experimentation, I am going to use more lemon juice in my next run and see if it negatively effects the activity, as well I am going to introduce a little marmite (because I am not actually using Gerber and need some vit. B I think). Has anyone tried to scale down the amount of cereal used? I would bet there is a lot of unused nutrients provided by all that cereal.

EscarpmentDew, I have tried scaling the Gerber down to 3/4 cup per gallon but it isn't fortified to the extent that All Bran is so it didn't perform as well as with 1 cup per gallon... I actually like adding a bit of extra Gerber to my washes... Your 12 grain concoction is a whole different animal...

This question is for rad14701,on my first gerber run I used the oatmeal,I got 11 pint jars after tossing out 400 ml. of foreshots,I had roughly 11 gallons of wash in my boiler.
jars 1 thru 4 were 117 down to 113 proof,
jars 5 thru 7 were 110 proof down to 80 proof,
and jar 8 was 60 proof,
jar 9 was 50 proof
and the last 2 pints were from 40 to 30 proof before i stopped the run.
do these numbers seem fairly common for a stripping run thru a pot still.
I know there are alot of variables such as collumn height,reflux and temperature but I think these numbers seem fairly correct .
Should I be getting more from a 10 to 11 gallon charge?

corncooker69, those numbers don't sound out of line when the variables are considered... The %ABV of the wash and take off rate are what make the biggest difference in the dispersion of alcohol throughout the run... What the %ABV of each collection jar is means little, aside from appeasing our inane curiosity... What really matters is making fairly accurate cuts, airing, and blending... Only then does the resulting %ABV have real meaning because then we know our starting point from which to dilute down to drinking or aging strength...

You're doing fine... The only suggestion I have is that with a boiler charge of that size you may want to double the number of collection jars, at least until you have a good handle on your cuts... The reason I say that is because the cuts take off isn't always in a linear fashion... For example, early tails might be awful yet mid tails might work well for blending in flavor... Same basic theory goes for heads where one or more of the jars might help impart some great flavor without having off smells and hangover potential...

Thanks rad14701,I saw that on this run,I am working on getting some 250 ml. babyfood jars for cuts so I dont have to use so many pint jars,I had a couple of the heads jars that had a little more bite to them than I wanted but after blending and finding the best mix I am planning on taking my blended 100 proof from my first run and running through a second time,not sure if anyone has done this,probably so but I have aired out my blend for 2 and half days and plan on dilutting it to 40% with clean spring water and running it thru a stripping run.What would you suggest?

Re-distilling will smooth things out and remove a bit more flavor... If you're shooting for something a bit more neutral, go for it... This won't be your last batch of hooch so don't hesitate to experiment...

Thanks rad14701 thats what I was thinking since this is more of a neutral wash,I like the taste but I have a few buddies that like more of a neutral taste such as vodka,I prefer single runs on most of the stuff I do if it is blended properly.

Well Rad, the Gerbers turned out great. No problems with it at all. It tastes just like alcohol, 57% abv. Not sure what to do with it. Sits airing out.
Throw a vanila bean in it along with a couple of wood chips? See where it goes in a couple of months?
ArkyJ

great recipe! I just whipped up a 4.5 gallon test batch!! I did change the recipe a little to see what happens. Recipe below

4.5 Gallons of Water
5 lbs. White Sugar
4 lbs. Dark Brown Sugar
1-Box Gerber Barley
3 pack of rapid raise yeast

process.. inverted the sugar in half the water on the stove, mixed the other half of the water with the box of gerber, mix the two and let cool.. pitch the yeast and gave it a stir, airlocked...

I'll be running a different batch off this week and will post my results from this tweaked gerber recipe!