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Was thinking of a neutral wash and Googe's Goo came to mind... makes good stuff...

Happy Stillin

FS

In the end mine turned out ok, but had something there that I noticed more than any side tastes I get with BW. Does it work as a nutrient? HELL YES! My favourite recipe not so much, BUT if I had a proper reflux column, quite possibly.

I read this post through and absolutely had to try it out. I've had some fairly unusual things happen though; at least unusual to me.

Using 100 grams of kale (ran through the magic bullet) and 7 pounds of sugar (the usual for my 5 gallons for corn) I just whipped it up and went. I think it has got to have spoiled or something though because it has never once cleared and still appears to be fermenting. 6+ weeks later.

It just seems crazy to me. Two weeks in I threw another batch on, except this time I separated the solids from the mixture. It is still going as well.

Both got going within a few hours and certainly had a point at which they slowed down, but the afore mentioned "champagne buubles" are still bubbling away.

Anyone have any similar experiences at all with any kind of fermentation?

not for me... what does the hydrometer say?

not for me... what does the hydrometer say?

Unfortunately I've yet to get a hydrometer for this purpose....

Lazarus post - Googe's kale sugar wash is my favourite recipe for neutrals; cleanest freshest flavoured final spirit and cheapest and easiest recipe too.

This recipe makes a cleaner fresher neutral than TPW/ BW. We're all struggling to describe the taste of the final spirit, there is something there, it is very subtle but you'll understand what I mean by clean and fresh. I liken it to drinking raindrops from a leaf

This is the version I use for a 25 litre fermenter.
50 grams of kale (about 3-4 leaves) pureed in a blender with about 1.5 litres of water
5 kg raw sugar
80g bakers yeast

The ferment kicks into gear rapidly, in less than one hour. The really active phase of the fermentation is usually all over in 5-7 days. I really really like this recipe, thanks Googe!

Any one else trying this, feedback good or bad?.

googe wrote:Any one else trying this, feedback good or bad?.

Hey google. Not sure how I missed this post before, but glad it came up again in new posts. I will have to give this a try after I finish my backlog of projects, maybe three weeks. Where I'm at, Kale is king. Salads. Dried and flavored for snacks. Face creams. Smothies. Thanks to the damn hippies and granolas, it's not hard to find. ( no offense to granolas and hippies intended).

I know this topic has not been active since last year but am doing a big wash of this at the moment , 175 litre (44 u.s gallons) as a first ever wash to distill on my 3 inch CCVM, thought it would be best to have plenty for the sacrificial runs and learning how the still drives as a CCVM and potstill . I was going to try and do birdwatchers but this recipe sounds better so I took the plunge when I saw sugar was half price and bought 30 kg , I am following what Kimbodious wrote but have multiplied everything by 6 and am using granulated sugar instead as I read that the 2 same amounts can be interchanged in recipes

kimbodious wrote: This is the version I use for a 25 litre fermenter.
50 grams of kale (about 3-4 leaves) pureed in a blender with about 1.5 litres of water
5 kg raw sugar
80g bakers yeast

it all got thrown together last night after spending a few hours rinsing and scrubbing my big plastic drum that used to have vinegar in it and sterilising with bruclens . it has an aquarium heater keeping it warm and I have been stirring it with a plastic broom handle . have got it raised up a bit so I can siphon it out when its ready , the cap has risen today and the sugar seems to be mixed in pretty well , there was a bit at the bottom last night even after stirring but a lot less today

I have a question or 5 though , got some lees left at the bottom of an apple cider ferment , is it worth me throwing them in? .Or making them into a ''yeast bomb'' like in the shady's sugar shine or pygirum recipes by boiling the leftovers? . also would it be worth throwing in any oyster shells as it seems everybody who has tried to use them liked the effect they had , is there anybody who does not like the effect they have? any replies would be appreciated , would like to know what the pro's think

Re oyster shells, I have had kale washes slow up when its slightly cooler. I tried adding oysrer shells and the washes completed in shorter than usual time. There was a noticeable erosion of the oyster shells. I now add 1/3rd cup shell grit to the above 25 litre recipe. I bought the shell grit from a animal feed store.

kimbodious wrote:Re oyster shells, I have had kale washes slow up when its slightly cooler. I tried adding oysrer shells and the washes completed in shorter than usual time. There was a noticeable erosion of the oyster shells. I now add 1/3rd cup shell grit to the above 25 litre recipe. I bought the shell grit from a animal feed store.

sounds like a plan and thanks for the advice . I threw some in earlier after reading you'r post . it is pretty cold here at night and in the mornings .my aquarium heater is now broken so have put a fan heater next to the fermenter and going to wrap it up as well . this ferment is bubbling away like freshly poured lemonade at the moment . really sweet taste to it and either the smell of the ferment has grown on me or it has changed to a nicer smell . it has been in the fermenter mixed for about 34 hours so far

Freshly poured lemonade is a good reference, sounds like its going well. I've always viewed it like a snow globe with the kale flakes rising and falling lol.

googe wrote:Freshly poured lemonade is a good reference, sounds like its going well. I've always viewed it like a snow globe with the kale flakes rising and falling lol.

Hi googe . thanks for sharing the recipe , will keep the thread updated with anything thats relevant , nothing much to say today except I am going to buy a new aquarium heater later because I think the mix was doing better when that was in and it will definitely save electric over a electric fan heater pointing at the barrel

Todays SG is right in the middle of 1.060 and 1.050 . it was 1.060 yesterday . expecting it to be at 1.050 at the end of the day ,

have been playing around with different settings on the aquarium heater to get it right , and I now know why the other one cracked when I took it out , apart from me being heavy handed . the reason was that you have to let them cool down before you take them out of the water for 15 minutes or they crack and also let them acclimatize to the liquid for 5 minutes , I did not know this as my last one was bought from a car boot sale / swap meet and it had no instructions with it , seems obvious now though . live and learn . Think I now have it at the perfect setting of 28 c for the allinsons dry active yeast I used , its actually set to 32 but the temp is 28 in the whole fermenter when its wrapped up in 3 blankets . will check the temp again later on to make sure its not getting too hot

tried my ABV hydrometer and no sign of alcohol yet but it is still less than 4 complete days in the fermenter

Boozewaves wrote: tried my ABV hydrometer and no sign of alcohol yet but it is still less than 4 complete days in the fermenter

seems this is a rookie mistake . I checked again today and the ABV hydrometer was still zero , did a search and found that the only hydrometer reading that matters at the moment is the specific gravity which is now just below 1.05 . When I made cider I checked the abv with a hydrometer every now and again so thats what threw me off

I set up a kale wash yesterday including 1/4 cup of shell grit. I was reminded that the ferment with shell grit added behaves differently. It does not start up so explosively but still manages to complete quicker. There is no noticeable difference with the product.

kimbodious wrote:I set up a kale wash yesterday including 1/4 cup of shell grit. I was reminded that the ferment with shell grit added behaves differently. It does not start up so explosively but still manages to complete quicker. There is no noticeable difference with the product.

handy for a newb to know , I think fermentation has sped up for me . it has got to the stage where the s.g drops from 1.050 to 1.040 in one day

I had to move the fermenter from where it was . I syphoned it into different containers that I had until there was 60 litres in the biggest fermenter which I moved with a bit of help , I had to leave it in 6 containers from the 16th to the 20th , after throwing them all together its still giving off C02 after 2 days , although less vigorous of a bubbling than before . my SG is still on 1.040 , still plenty of shells in the sock tied up at the bottom ................wait and see I guess . will order PH strips tomorrow to see if thats an issue .

" still plenty of shells in the sock " Was the sock a clean one? wouldn't want that to be an issue...

Happy Stillin

FS

FullySilenced wrote:" still plenty of shells in the sock " Was the sock a clean one? wouldn't want that to be an issue...

Happy Stillin

FS

haha yes , it was double clean , right out of the washing machine then rinsed well ,

an update : my s.g is now close to 1.03 , fizzing like there is no tomorrow , tastes a bit bitter now . I got some P.h strips and the p.h is 5 . I'm hoping it will be ready to run before the holidays , its been 21 days now , highly doubt it will get infected , it got cleaned and sterilised , I think I should hedge my bets and make some backup washes of shady's sugar shine

Hi everyone , happy new year , its been 2 months and 2 days since I started the wash and I think its starting to finish , fermentation has slowed right down but it still bubbles when I nudge the fermenter barrel .the smell has changed to more of a wine smell and the taste is still sweet but getting more bitter . SG is now close to 1.02 , I am not sure what the original gravity was but I posted here that it was 1.06 on day 3 , if that was the original gravity and I do finish at 1.02 then I apparently have 175 litres of 5% ABV , I would be prepared to bet O.G was more like 1.07/8 (I really should have checked on the day I threw it all together)

I'm definitely going to leave it a bit longer to be sure it has finished completely , I have waited this long , a bit longer will not make a difference ,

The suspense is killing me....

I finally did it as a first ever run with my 8 foot CCVM still that I put together as I figured the gravity was not going to drop past 1.02 , it was drier like cider from apples than it was to begin with so I guess it was worth waiting , did 2 vinegar runs first and then a sacrificial run without packing , I measured it and it was 40% , I added 18 inches of lava rock packing , I do have way more but this amount seemed the easiest to put in , got a great result in my opinion , unsure of exact strength as I didn't have a high proof hydrometer with me at the time , I would guess it was about 70% as it seemed comparable to some absinthe I had before which was around that strength , it actually seemed similar to absinthe in its aftertaste , guessing I did not get a pure neutral because of not using enough packing . was good though , had some over the easter weekend , shared quite a bit with friends and family that were there , some did not like it but others did , i'm proud I actually distilled something , I do have quite a lot left to run when I have the time but it may be a while

so all in all it was a interesting experiment , I learnt a lot about what to do and what not to do and its definitely a good cheap recipe i'd reccomend although its the only one I have tried so far I like googe's goo

Googe’s Goo is my go to recipe for neutral spirit! I have recommended it to heaps of people.

I found that I can get by only using half the recommended quantity of kale, this was after running out of kale one time. I always use raw sugar. The other variation to the recipe is to add 1/4 cup of crushed oyster shell for pH buffering of the wash (low pH domestic water supply) I don’t use the stalk material. I puree the kale using a stick mixer in 1.5 litres of water to make a green slurry.

This is such a great recipe

Definitely trying this as the base for my next gin.

I've got some cavelo nero in the garden - anyone used that particular type of kale? It's a bit different to regular kale, but I'd imagine it should still work

Hi gonna give this a go, any updates on the recipe
Thanks

Same process as doing any sugar with added grains for flavour.. cook the kelp some, then add to a sugar wash..

I've have done this recipe some years back, and did not like the kelp taste carried across in neutral..

Mars

No need to cook the kale. I just whiz it in the blender with 1.5-2 litres water until it looks like green soup. 50 grams (or about 4 kale leaves) for 22 litre wash

Never cooked it either, dunno why you would, makes an excellent base spirit for gin in my opinion.

Just curious, are you guys using the green or purple leaf kale? With smooth or curly shape?
I kind of wonder if the different results people get are due to using different types of kale.
Even in food I don't like some types while I do others.

Any of you guys ever try any other cruciferous veggies (ie cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, Brussels sprouts)?