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It's been a while since I've whipped up a Gerber but as I recall I have progressed to boiling the cereal in a separate pan to help extract nutrients... I'd have to look at my notes to see whether or not it makes any difference...

primary fermentation in bucket, then secondary to let it clear after it ferments dry. racking it to the carboy would allow younto see it clear better. it is waht i do. buckets are also better as they provide a dark environment for the yeast. less issue with light sensitvity just i case there are windows nearby. i have read about it never experimented.

"less issue with light sensitivity just i case there are windows nearby""
mine gits dressed in a old T shirt

ever come home and think you were getting robbed by midgets?

on my gerber was of 5 gallons I added something to it that I was wasnt sure to add or not.
AHH what the hell I threw it in.

Its called Polycose..its a nutrient suppliment for people who need to gain weight. It was out of date and was for my disabled son.

Heres whats in it per 100grams in a 350gram container. All measurements grams

Carbs - 94
Calcium - 30
sodium - 110
potassium - 10
chloride - 223
Phosphorus - 12

Glucose polymers derived from cornstarch.

Well this wash has hammered for 5 days except for today we had a cold snap and come home from work and the back door was open...damn kids and it was quite chilly in the house.

I used the original recipe and 2 vitamins and the polycose.

Grainhopper

i would think that this wash would be slowing a bit by now...but it isn't.
From what I can tell it ok ,smells good havent tasted it. It sill has major fermentation going on. it has the tiny bubbles but it also has bubbles a lil bigger than BB's. I have shook it more than a few times to see if just releasing from the sludge.
Guess I will try and find my thief and taste it.

Grainhopper

grainhopper, resist the urge to fuss with the wash, sit on your hands, and wait it out... It's hard, I know, but it's for the best...

grainhopper wrote:i would think that this wash would be slowing a bit by now...but it isn't.
From what I can tell it ok ,smells good havent tasted it. It sill has major fermentation going on. it has the tiny bubbles but it also has bubbles a lil bigger than BB's. I have shook it more than a few times to see if just releasing from the sludge.
Guess I will try and find my thief and taste it.

Grainhopper

My daughter informed me that I was mistaken on the day I started this wash, guess thats why it seemed to be on the 3rd and 4th day...because it was and not the 5th. It is now on the 5th day and is slowing down.

Was just watching Swamp People( Ithink). The show where they hunt gators. In one of the guys home it showed 4 or 5 fermenters in the background and a couple of them looked to be Gerber.

Grainhopper

In the recipe amount people are listing, is everyone talking about dry cups of the gerber mix, or of the actual cereal once it's made? I assume dry, but Rad mentioned early on that his 8oz box made 3ish cups of cereal, so I'm a little confused.

slartibartfast wrote:In the recipe amount people are listing, is everyone talking about dry cups of the gerber mix, or of the actual cereal once it's made? I assume dry, but Rad mentioned early on that his 8oz box made 3ish cups of cereal, so I'm a little confused.

Dry measurements... An 8oz box contains ~3 cups of dry cereal flakes...

well i made my wash and pitched yeast about 5 hours ago and i am getting a bubble about every 30-40 seconds.

Im sure I did everything 100% correct

inverted 17 cups sugar in 2 galons water and 1 1/2 tsp citric acid for 40mins turned a light straw color

mixed up 4 1/2 cups of cereal in boiling water

mixed invert, cereal mix 1/2 tsp epsom salts and water to = 4.5 gal h2o

aerated lots for a hour and a half while it cooled to 95f

proofed a package of ec-1118 in 50 ml 104f water as per package

pitched yeast and stirred it in well and aerated a few more times

starting 1.068 sg and is being kept warm at 80f

put the lid on with airlock and this is all the bubbling I am geting out of it.

Any ideas what might be going on as I thought it would be going a lot better by now??

CH3CH2OH, can you see any visible activity in the wash...??? An improper seal, perhaps...??? Unless your EC1118 is slow to start you should be seeing a lot more airlock activity than that... Keep us posted...

its looking pretty quiet, maybe a bad package of yeast??

should I pitch another package in?

i could transfer it to a glass carbouy and see what it does

i dont like to rehydrate at that high of temperature,, more like 80-90f..
if the yeast has been in cold let it warm to room temps first then sprinkle on top of water,,leave it set about 1/2 hour.. add this to wash (wash and yeast should be about the same temperature) or,,, .. if you have time you can add a small amount of sugar,,swirl
to suspend yeast,swirl this several times..now you have made a starter from your dehydrated yeast.(this can be made a day or so ahead)

hydrated a new package of yeast and pitched it in about an hour ago and now getting a bubble every 6-10 seconds.

This seems a little better!!!

Thanks

Running like a champ!!!

This morning bubbling every 3-4 seconds now and seems back on track

For those of you who have been using ec-1118, how long have your ferments taken??

Will a 5 gallon ferment with one package of ec-1118 take considerably longer than with regular baker's yeast?

I am worried I got some bad packeges of ec-1118 due to the results below

The reason I ask is after I repitched the ec1118 I checked the progress after 3 more days and the sg went from 1.068 initial to only 1.058. My frustration kicked in and I proofed and pitched in 3 tablespoons of baker's yeast and it took off like a rocket, i thought it was going to shoot the airlock right off. In three days the sg has now dropped to 1.002.

I would rather use the ec-1118 because of how clear it finishes.

Please let me know your experience with ec-1118. Thanks

in my experience it is definitely not as violent of a yeast in fermentation like active dry bakers, but it still does the trick. I have been able to ferment clear in 5 to 7 days, and if I rack to secondary and let it set for a few more, it clears very nicely, very nice compact lees and easy to rack off.
as long as it has plenty of nutrients it makes a great wash.

thats the results I was expecting so I really think I bought some bad packages of yeast.

II'll get some new packages and get another batch going.

Thanks for the reply

yes could be bad yeast. did it smell off at all? if you had let it go and it did not ferment down like you say, then I would suspect the same. should have been fizzing good by then and dropping SG. this last batch i did took 8 days to drop from around 1.09 to .992. when I checked it at day 5 it had only dropped to about 1.3 so i put two tsp of fermax in and voila, it was cooking.

overall EC1118 is very good yeast in my opinion. I just started another batch and went back to bakers as I had a new jar that needed to be used and it is still hanging around 70 or so in the house consistently. so i want to use this before it gets too cold. the EC1118 experiments I have been running have all been in preps for cooler weather. need to get one of those wraps for my fermenters, they sell them at the wine store.

CH3CH2OH wrote:well i made my wash and pitched yeast about 5 hours ago and i am getting a bubble about every 30-40 seconds.

Im sure I did everything 100% correct

inverted 17 cups sugar in 2 galons water and 1 1/2 tsp citric acid for 40mins turned a light straw color

mixed up 4 1/2 cups of cereal in boiling water

mixed invert, cereal mix 1/2 tsp epsom salts and water to = 4.5 gal h2o

aerated lots for a hour and a half while it cooled to 95f

proofed a package of ec-1118 in 50 ml 104f water as per package

pitched yeast and stirred it in well and aerated a few more times

starting 1.068 sg and is being kept warm at 80f

put the lid on with airlock and this is all the bubbling I am geting out of it.

Any ideas what might be going on as I thought it would be going a lot better by now??

also, to speed up the process of cooling, i buy a gallon of spring water (88 cents) pour a little out and freeze it before i do my prep work the following day. I boil my water, add sugar and invert in one pot, then use another pot of boiling water to add in gerber or whatever other adjunct i am using. i take the pot off the eye onto a cool eye and let it sit for a minute before i add in the cereal. I have found this helps with preventing sticking to the bottom and constantly stirring...still works good. i let that steep while stirring and letting the sugar invert in the other pot for 30.

when it is time, i use a razor and cut out the ice block and put it in the bucket. I pour in about a gallon of water, less if you are making a smaller batch of course, gotta think measurements. then in the water and ice i add the sugar water, then the gerber mix, stir good. begin to add more clean water, toss my hydrometer in and top off to 1.08. The ice block cools the wash down to around 90 really quick. I aerate for an hour, proof the yeast while I am waiting using wash warmed up to 100, no more. Then an hour later i toss it in and seal her up. By this time by wash is usually 86 to 88F...I have had terrific results this way.

I never really even measure my water as i have graduated my fermenter to gallons. I know that if I run a 6 gallon wash, I add 11 lbs of sugar, and top it off to around 6 gallon total volume in the bucket, it yields around 1.08 every single time.

good luck, hope this little write helps to share some knowlege.

sure this has been asked but is gerber ready brek?

Tutu wrote:sure this has been asked but is gerber ready brek?

What is "ready brek"...???

Gerber is baby cereal flakes that gets mixed with warm water before feeding... It was chosen because of the nutrient fortifications... Flavor was a secondary consideration... Just think of it as cheap yeast nutrients...

Ready brekkie cereal, maybe?

Yeah, after looking those cereals up on http://www.weetabix.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow it looks like any of the basic unflavored cereals would work... Couldn't hurt to try them and I'm fairly sure someone else has tried Wheatabix...

okay Rad14701 i have been trying to make my way through this entire post and i think i got through 18 pages worth of reading.. what i want to know is what is your final recipe that you decided worked the best or did you just wind up staying with the original one? also if i want to speed things along i can throw in a pinch of epsom salt and 1/2 tsb of 20-20-20.

thanks for input and sorry if you already answered this and i just over looked it.

Hi Garry,

You are actually asking for the ... summary, right?

Odin.

garry90 wrote:okay Rad14701 i have been trying to make my way through this entire post and i think i got through 18 pages worth of reading.. what i want to know is what is your final recipe that you decided worked the best or did you just wind up staying with the original one? also if i want to speed things along i can throw in a pinch of epsom salt and 1/2 tsb of 20-20-20.

thanks for input and sorry if you already answered this and i just over looked it.

I experiment a lot... I'd have to read the entire topic to find that answer so I guess it isn't too much to ask you to read it yourself... You might learn more than just what you're looking for in doing so anyway...

yea i was just wanting to know if you came up with on that you thought that really worked and got to page 18 and was like why not just ask Rad14701 lol, but yea ill just have to finish going through it. also does the epsom salt and 20-20-20 trick work for all mashes as in to speed them up?