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i does smell as if it is working..as of last night (havent been out there 2day) i did take 3 Tbs of yeast,2 Tbs sugar and cup or so of water with 1 crushed Bcomplex and heated to about 115* to make a small starter...then added it to the wash ..will report back later with results for 2day...may have blown the top off bucket by now on grandpa sitter duty till the parents get home this afternoon...thanks for the reply Rad

errr dumbass attack...the seal was missing out of the bucket lid...all is good....still not sure why it took off slow...but its kickin ass now!

New to the board.... been "hobby" ing for some time!

Stuck in Saudi Arabia.... need to get creative! Been making a fairly good rum... oaking it too!

Just tried this "Gerber"....

1.5 cups of NESTLE CERELAC 'Wheat & Honey' flavor.

5 cups sugar

inverted in 5 cups H2O

Filled jug to 5 liters..........

Bakers yeast.

Will see????

KSAguy, I'm not familiar with the CERELAC line but checked the nutritional information and it looks good... Keep us posted on how your wash turns out, as well as the resulting spirits...

New to the forums, awesome place with a wealth of knowledge. currious about using moist bricks style active yeast and how much to use in this particular recipie or if there is a direct conversion for dry active to moist active.

Ok, i decided to take the conversion from online of 1 to 1/3 moist to dry. My recipie went like this.

boiled 10 gallons of water, once boiling added 140 cups sugar. continued boiling for 30 minutes. ( can i invert sugar for this recipie using lemon juice? if so how much for a batch this size.

after done boiling mixed 10 boxes cereal in hot sugar water mixture. mixed then added to fermenter. brought total volume up to 40 gallons. mixed 5 lbs fresh yeast with 2 gallons water and mixed till proofed and added to mix. ran circulating pump for 20 minutes to aerate.

SG after mix was 1.062. at 31* C not sure how you figure abv.

Does everything look right? could i add more sugar?

rad.... my small 5 L is milky white with creamy looking cereal at the bottom, an interesting creamy white cap w/ CO2 lifting small particles to the top. It is bubbling quite well and smells so sweet & wonderful! So far it is looking GOOD! The taste test will tell?

Just started two 6-gal washes of Gerber Multi Grain, couldn't help myself = added extra stuff =
Basically, is a Wino's plain ole sugar wash with 8-oz of Gerber thrown in each = started yesterday = one has stalled, the other
is bubbling slowly (distillers yeast= new) = white milky lookin with cereal on the bottom.......
Threw some more yeast into stalled one = no bubbling, however, both are sizzling,
doing something, on surface when I sneak a peek under the lids, etc.............
I'm lost ............

Ha !
Went out there today and tested the PH of the one that stalled.= 4.2
Put a little baking soda in it, stirred = PH still 4.2
Put a little more in, stirred = 4.2
Noticed it did seem to form a lot of bubbles as I stirred.....
Got pissed and dumped a BUNCH of baking soda in = stirred = put top back on.....
My God ! !
C02 bubbler started going off like a runaway steam locomotive, lid started to buckle upward ! !
Bubbler took off like a spaceship, followed by an "Old Faithfull" geyser eruption.
I quickly threw a towel over it and eventually it subsided = quite exciting ! ! ! !
She seems to be bubbling now after all that, but, might be just residual stuff bleeding off, etc..
The other one = still going along = don't know what happened to this one ......

pumpman wrote:Rice apple is what I started with and it works good.

Good to know, have not been able to find original yet but have seen the rice apple.

Stalled wash = now (this morning) bubbling along nicely ........

Oxbo Rene, I have had one Gerber wash suffer an unexpected drop in pH as well, but it was WAY low... An ample amount of baking soda was all it took to get it back up and bubbling happily...

Gave it 6.5 days and the bubbling was very slow.

Slowly poured off the creamy liquid, left some in the bottom with the solids. I am drinking this on ice, call me CRAZY - but I like it!

Collected about 800mL of clear & very sweet - strong - alcohol!

I will use the backset in the next batch.

The Nestle's CERELAC Wheat & Honey is OK!!

Thanks RAD for the recipe.

Alrighty !
Both washes done !
Checked this afternoon = .999 each
Finished in four days.....
Fishing Sat, runnin Sun = life is good .......

Ran 6 gal wash = (4ft x 2in col) (ran boka)
2.5 hours run...
threw away first 375ml fores = collected down to 50% (started @ 75%) = .65 gal of 65% = not too shabby .......
Was much milder/nicer smelling than my usual WPOSW......
SSG = 1.076
FSG = .999
Predicted ABV = 10%
Came out bout right



(I think ).........

So you ran the Bokakob in pot still mode...???

Kinda Rad.
As you know it's a combo LM/VM with a Crossflow condenser on top (see avatar)......
I haven't ever been really impressed with the VM part so generally leave it cut off and just use the slant plates for take off....
Yeah, I'm doing stripping runs so take the packing out, etc.... but am running the crossflow condenser so am surely
getting some passive reflux going on.......


I would think, that to run this one in pot still mode, one would not use the crossflow condenser/plug hole in top, and take off product through the VM Lebig takeoff ???

I started a ferment of Gerber about a month ago and got busy, at the end of the ferment it went to the garage to slowly finish it has been resting around 40* will this still be a viable wash?

Fly By Night wrote:I started a ferment of Gerber about a month ago and got busy, at the end of the ferment it went to the garage to slowly finish it has been resting around 40* will this still be a viable wash?

It should be fine if it hasn't become infected... I've left washes for well over a month before running them...

rad14701 wrote:

Fly By Night wrote:I started a ferment of Gerber about a month ago and got busy, at the end of the ferment it went to the garage to slowly finish it has been resting around 40* will this still be a viable wash?

It should be fine if it hasn't become infected... I've left washes for well over a month before running them...

The air lock has remained on, I sniffed it today and it smelt just like it did while it was fermenting fast so I think Im all set. Thanks

Fly By Night wrote:I started a ferment of Gerber about a month ago and got busy, at the end of the ferment it went to the garage to slowly finish it has been resting around 40* will this still be a viable wash?

Started my first Gerber yesterday fermenting great. Just wanted to know what temp do most of you use for fermenting. Mines betwwen 75 - 77.

Peanut151 wrote:Started my first Gerber yesterday fermenting great. Just wanted to know what temp do most of you use for fermenting. Mines betwwen 75 - 77.

Perfect... 75F - 85F is good for most strains of yeast other than ale yeasts which can work at lower temperatures...

rad14701 wrote:

Peanut151 wrote:Started my first Gerber yesterday fermenting great. Just wanted to know what temp do most of you use for fermenting. Mines betwwen 75 - 77.

Perfect... 75F - 85F is good for most strains of yeast other than ale yeasts which can work at lower temperatures...

Well got home today and wife must have unplugged my heating wrap and temp in fermenting bucket drop below 65F. Will this have any ill effects for my wash ?

might slow it down a bit ...plug it back in and tell her to keep her mitts off! lol

Can't find barley in the states. Can find wheat, oatmeal and rice...any thoughts about whether these will work? Hate to waste my time and resourdes

OBG wrote:Can't find barley in the states. Can find wheat, oatmeal and rice...any thoughts about whether these will work? Hate to waste my time and resourdes

Any and all will work...

Ok and thanks for the fast come back. Have been doing this since 2008 but always using the mile high distillers yeast, carbon filtering, turbo approach, etc. see that others use bottled or distiller water. Have always used tap water for my mash, even though is reverse osmosis in my city, probably carries some chlorine additive. Any recommendations about water sources that might improve my final product? I see adding vitamin c for example...thanks again.

OBG wrote:Ok and thanks for the fast come back. Have been doing this since 2008 but always using the mile high distillers yeast, carbon filtering, turbo approach, etc. see that others use bottled or distiller water. Have always used tap water for my mash, even though is reverse osmosis in my city, probably carries some chlorine additive. Any recommendations about water sources that might improve my final product? I see adding vitamin c for example...thanks again.

You really need to know exactly what has been added to the municipal water in order to make effective attempts at removal... That information has to be made publicly available to you and it would be well worth checking into... Vitamin C might be enough, depending on the additives... I just use the municipal water as it comes out of the tap and haven't had any real problems...

A new question for the forum...at least for me. Since I usually ferment with turbo yeast, I never have problems turning a predictable abv....so I decided to try the gerber recipe, scaling up to a 21 l mash, followed the directions.......etc. this was yesterday afternoon. Never got a tremendous output of bubbles thru the airlock, but 1st time, so I waited til today...barely a bubble coming through the airlock now. I have aerated the mash again and pitched another 5Tbps of yeast hoping to get it to jump. Very sweet taste to the mash. What to do now?

Temp is 74 degrees F and steady.