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Re: Gerber

Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 5:45 pm
by HookLine
rad14701 wrote:the high level of Sodium Manganese (epsom salt)
Epsom salts is magnesium sulphate, which is what you are after, not sodium manganese.

Re: Gerber

Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 6:29 pm
by rad14701
HookLine wrote:
rad14701 wrote:the high level of Sodium Manganese (epsom salt)
Epsom salts is magnesium sulphate, which is what you are after, not sodium manganese.
That's it... It didn't look right when I typed it... Previous post edited...

Re: Gerber

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 10:24 am
by myerfire
I'm finally reporting back on the last wash I prepared where I added the B-comples vitamin by mistake. I let it ferment for 6 days, didn't need to wait that long, I just didn't have time to distill it. Original gravity was 1.072 and final gravity was .993. The spirit came out crystall clear and I am very pleased. I love this recipe.
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:01 pm
by rad14701
myerfire wrote:I'm finally reporting back on the last wash I prepared where I added the B-comples vitamin by mistake. I let it ferment for 6 days, didn't need to wait that long, I just didn't have time to distill it. Original gravity was 1.072 and final gravity was .993. The spirit came out crystall clear and I am very pleased. I love this recipe.
myerfire
So, have you tried any of your spirits yet or are you letting it age...??? I'm on hiatus for the summer myself and it's killing me...

Re: Gerber

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:27 am
by myerfire
Rad,
The last wash I distilled about three weeks ago came out with a slight off taste to it, just like the previous one. But now that it has been about three weeks, I can't find that off taste anymore. I just tastes fine. I started another Gerber wash a few days ago and it is still bubbling like crazy. It should be ready to distill by Tuesday.
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:10 am
by rad14701
myerfire wrote:Rad,
The last wash I distilled about three weeks ago came out with a slight off taste to it, just like the previous one. But now that it has been about three weeks, I can't find that off taste anymore. I just tastes fine. I started another Gerber wash a few days ago and it is still bubbling like crazy. It should be ready to distill by Tuesday.
myerfire
Did you let the spirits air for those three weeks or were the spirits sealed...??? I've had a batch or two that also had just a light smell that went away after a short time with a coffee filter rubber banded on top of the bottles instead of capping... I also had a batch that ended up with poor cuts due to trying some settings changes after a column modification but I dumped that in with a subsequent run and it cleaned up nicely...

Re: Gerber

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 8:53 pm
by grunger
members agree that Gerber is the best.

What a great recipe for a tried and true wash. .
Glad this is in Tried and True!

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 2:54 am
by XXXX
grunger wrote:members agree that Gerber is the best.

What a great recipe for a tried and true wash. .
Glad this is in Tried and True!
A thread for each nutrient tried in a sugar wash, I guess odds are one of his would have to make it in here. :lol:

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:55 am
by pumpman
rad does a lot of work trying new things to help the noobies in this craft. I'm glad it finaly made in here.

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 12:31 pm
by rad14701
Many thanks to those who see the benefits of this recipe and have taken the time to at least give it a try... It's obvious by the posts here, as well as in several other topics within these forums, that it has been well accepted...

For those who think this recipe isn't deserving of the Tried and True classification, consider the following:

The recipe is dead simple and almost fool-proof for beginners.
All ingredients can be purchased at your local grocery store.
The recipe scales up and down easily.
It's hard to mess up on recipe proportions.
It doesn't stall - at least not at normal temperatures.
It can be tweaked for turbo-like ferment times, for a fraction of the price, without the need for fining, carbon filtering, and whining about how it still tastes like crap.
It makes very clean neutrals.
It's well suited for casual home distillers with limited space and resources.
It doesn't require messing with grains, malting, enzymes, etc.
It's about the cheapest fool-proof wash you can make.
No offensive smell during fermentation.
It will even ferment without inverting the sugar or boiling the cereal.
Apartment dwellers can flush the leftover solids (yeast and cereal) down the toilet.
It can be pot stilled or run through a reflux column.

Need I say more...??? Nope, that pretty much covers it... The recipe performs as expected and presents few if any surprises, aside from being so darned simple... Personally, I don't have the time, equipment, space, or money, to tinker with grains these days... Nor can I deal with the smell or the byproducts due to current living conditions... While it may not be "traditional" it supplies me with more neutral spirits than I can drink...

Re: Gerber

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 5:34 am
by moose
Started a bach last week....10 gallons, so check my math :)

40 cups sugar
40L water
10 cups cereal
20 tsp yeast (distillers)

followed the instructions as listed...init. SG 1.06 final SG .97 (took about 5-6 days...we were out of town, so don't know exactly when)

racked it straight to the boiler (man was that stuff clear!! :) )

started the strip run but had to stop early (had to fix dinner for the fam. they have no sense of priorities :wink: )...2.5L high wines so far, will finish the rest tonight...

Re: Gerber

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 6:18 am
by scarecrow
Can I ask what Gerber is?

It looks like rolled oats or rolled barley, but the "looks like potato flakes" has got me stumped.

You guys have all the good stuff over there.

Congrats on a great recipe.

scarecrow

Re: Gerber

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:15 am
by moose
Gerber=baby food

comes in tiny thin flakes that turns to yummy mush when milk added for the little squealers to gum up

Re: Gerber

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:19 am
by moose
couldn't fine the "edit" button for my previous post, but wanted to add that I had to use gerber rice...all they had

Re: Gerber

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 7:38 am
by pumpman
Rice apple is what I started with and it works good.

Re: Gerber

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:43 am
by myerfire
I looked all over Recipe Development and couldn't find this, finally check Tried and True and here it is. I did a four gallon wash before and it turned out great and rather than go from my notes, I wanted to recalculate for a 6 gallon wash from the original recipe. This recipe is great.
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:11 pm
by myerfire
Wow!!! I heated up 6 gallons of water to 95 degrees, added 10.5 lbs. of sugar, 1.5 cups of Gerber multi-grain cereal, juice of two lemons and a heaping Tbsp of gypsum to bring down my local water ph from 8.8 to 5+. I also added one vitamin C, a multi vitamin and 5 Tbsp of Liquor-Quick. After it was all dissolved and mixed up I added 13 Tbsp of bakers yeast and after about two minutes there were not bubbles, but a steady stream of air coming from the blow off tube. I started with an airlock, but it couldn't handle the volumn of air.
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 2:41 pm
by rad14701
myerfire wrote:Wow!!! I heated up 6 gallons of water to 95 degrees, added 10.5 lbs. of sugar, 1.5 cups of Gerber multi-grain cereal, juice of two lemons and a heaping Tbsp of gypsum to bring down my local water ph from 8.8 to 5+. I also added one vitamin C, a multi vitamin and 5 Tbsp of Liquor-Quick. After it was all dissolved and mixed up I added 13 Tbsp of bakers yeast and after about two minutes there were not bubbles, but a steady stream of air coming from the blow off tube. I started with an airlock, but it couldn't handle the volumn of air.
myerfire
Did you add 5 tbsp of Liquor-Quik turbo yeast AND 13 tbsp of bakers yeast, or Liquor-Quik essence...??? :shock: The amount of Gerber sounds low unless you are using turbo yeast, which would negate the need for the bakers yeast... Could you clarify,please...

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 3:26 pm
by HooBilly
Sounds like ya got a homemade jet engine going there... Thats a lot of yeast.. Let us know how that works out for ya

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:01 pm
by myerfire
The Liquor Quick is some sort of nutrient designed for sugar washes. This is the first time I used it. The only yeast was the usual bakers yeast. The wash ended up, after adding all the ingredients to the water at 90 degrees, but after adding the yeast, I looked the next morning and the temperture had climbed to 98. It is about 60* in my garage, so I had wrapped a blanket around the fermenter to keep it warm, but after seeing 98, I unwraped it and it has since cooled back to 89. Still producing a lot of CO2.
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:06 pm
by myerfire
One more thing, on the can of Gerber, it said that it promotes "brain and eye development". Do you think this will come through for me when I distill? I can use all the help I can get.
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:34 pm
by rad14701
myerfire wrote:One more thing, on the can of Gerber, it said that it promotes "brain and eye development". Do you think this will come through for me when I distill? I can use all the help I can get.
myerfire
One could only hope, but doubtful...

Do you have a link for the Liquor Quick nutrient...???

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:04 pm
by myerfire
I got it from Mile High http://www.milehidistilling.com/Yeast_Nutrient_s/64.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:14 pm
by myerfire
Oh, there was one more thing that I did, and that was to charge the wash, I gave it a 60 second shot of oxygen http://morebeer.com/view_product/16604/ ... ial_System" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:43 pm
by rad14701
myerfire wrote:I got it from Mile High http://www.milehidistilling.com/Yeast_Nutrient_s/64.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Thanks... Found that one and several others but haven't been able to find the manufacturer, which is what I'm most interested in finding...

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:53 pm
by myerfire
I don't know if this is any help, but it says on the package that it is a product of Canada and packaged by Winemakeri, Inc.
www.winemakeri.com
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:04 pm
by rad14701
myerfire wrote:I don't know if this is any help, but it says on the package that it is a product of Canada and packaged by Winemakeri, Inc.
http://www.winemakeri.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Perfect... Thanks...

Re: Gerber

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 2:25 pm
by LWTCS
Gerber expensive???
It costs the same cost as any typical box of cereal.

Also, IMO Gerber is the best choice of the cereal washes to render a neutral. Certainly not to “add flavor”. Any flavor carry over is pretty negligible.

All Bran, Cheerio, Cornflake, Graham Cracker have far better carry over flavor.

Gerber is here because:
Its easy, its safe, it works, it gets used and continues to get more popular.

Just an observation.

Re: Gerber

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:18 pm
by myerfire
I just finished distilling two 5 gallon washes, one Gerber wash and one other sugar wash. The Gerber wash came into hearts quicker and lasted longer. From now on, I'm going to stick with the Gerber wash.
myerfire

Re: Gerber

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:25 pm
by LWTCS
Yet another testimonial.