Ted's Fast Fermenting Vodka

[Garouda]

the small amount of tails collected gets tossed under the lemon tree.

Well, I killed an orange tree doing that too...

[NZChris]

the small amount of tails collected gets tossed under the lemon tree.

Well, I killed an orange tree doing that too...

If it wasn't in a pot, you must produce a lot more liquor than I do.

[Garouda]

the small amount of tails collected gets tossed under the lemon tree.

Well, I killed an orange tree doing that too...

If it wasn't in a pot, you must produce a lot more liquor than I do.

It wasn't in a pot... I usually make three 70-litre TFFV batches, so three stripping runs for one spirit run, boiler size 98 litres.

[NZChris]

the small amount of tails collected gets tossed under the lemon tree.

Well, I killed an orange tree doing that too...

If it wasn't in a pot, you must produce a lot more liquor than I do.

It wasn't in a pot... I usually make three 70-litre TFFV batches, so three stripping runs for one spirit run, boiler size 98 litres.

My largest ferment is 180l and multiple stripping runs, but uses far less bran than Teddy uses, 8% target abv. The 50 year old tree is doing very well regardless of how much distilling waste and urine goes under it.

[Kareltje]

Hey guys, loving this recipe, been doing it a few times. A question: what would the effect be of letting the bran/rye simmer for just 5-10 minutes instead of 30? I'm getting impatient with the bran/rye sometimes and proceed faster than the 30 mins but I don't want to continue doing it if the 30 mins are needed to lock the nutritions up for the yeast or something. Thanks!

Good question! I always let the bran simmer for only a few minutes and let it cool. Never get the very fast fermenting, though. But I am satisfied with the result after about four weeks.
I will make a comparison: next time I will make one ferment with 30 minutes boiled bran and one with a few minutes.
All the rest the same, of course. See what happens.

But maybe someone has done this comparison already and is willing to share?

As promised I did a comparison. Simple science: if you want to know something, do a test.
I made three ferments based on Teddy's basic recipe.
Standard I use:
1) 3 kg sugar, about 66 ml lemonjuice and 1.5 litre of water, boiled to inversion.
2) 1 litre of bran, 1/2 spoonful nutrition, 1 pinch of MgSO4, a pluck egg shells and 3 litres of water.
Bring both to a boil and let it cool about one hour. In the meantime I rinse a vessel of 30 litres, put in 5 litres of water with a showerhead, including much air.
Then I pour the still hot mixtures in the verssel and add up with cold water till 20 litres. Makes a nice 30 to 35 dgr C. Then I add a pulverized tablet of multi vitamin and I sprinkle dried bakers yeast on top of the fluid.
After about 5 days I invert another 1.5 kg of sugar with about 35 ml lemon juice and 3/4 litre of water. This I add, after about an hour and I rinse the pan with 1/2 litre cold water.
I leave it until it is clear and quite. That, by the way, is not very fast: it took about one month to sink under a denstity of 1,000!
I distill with 14 litres of beer in my 15-L boiler, put another 5 L beer in my first 10-L thumper and the remainder (about 3 to 4 litres) in my second 10-L thumper.
Throw away the first 100 mL, put the next 300 mL in my heads collector, distill till about 90 dg C and collect the tails in my tail-vessel.

I made three ferments:
A: according to NZChris's suggestion: about 1/4 th of a litre of bran added to 3 litres of boiling water. In stead of 1 L bran brought to the boil in water.
B: My standard recipe.
C: Brought 1 L bran (with the salt and egg shells) to the boil and kept it there for about 30 minutes.

The other parts of the procedure I kept of course as standard as possible.

First: The ferment A was inspired by NZChris's remark about his treatment of bran as a feed. This ferment got a froth on top, which stayed there until the end and the fermentation was very slow: it took about twice the time to finish to a rather misty beer. I guess I did misinterprete the recipe, but I will not do this again.
So I go on comparing B and C: bringing to a boil and boiling for 30 minutes.

Ferment C fermented a bit faster than B. I would say about 4 weeks compared to 5 weeks. Both had a smooth surface during fermenting and resulted in a clear beer, that was easy to take from the deposit.
Both resulted in about 2 L of about 67 to 70 %ABV. Taste was rather clear and smooth, but I think I will run both one time again. There was a small difference in taste, but I think that is more due to the stripping run than to the ferment or the preparation.

At the moment I run second comparison, as in science one experiment is no experiment.
Now I noticed that at the start of the boiling of the bran soup, there was a thick froth almost rising out of the pan (B). Keeping it boiling for 30 minutes resulted in a more clear soup (C). Shortly after starting the fermentation, the ferment B (brought to a boil) had a froth on top, while ferment C (30 min boiled) was rather flat. After 5 days both were flat and I feeded the final 1.5 kg sugar. By now, 5 days after feeding, the ferments both seem to stall, but C is leading.

I think that sums it about up. Speaking for myself: I will stick to my standard, although I might skip the feeding as it seems to slow down the ferment.

[NZChris]

My wheat bran is slower than TFFV because it isn't supercharged with nutrients, but it's never taken four weeks in my shed.

[JimSmithy75]

I must say, this recipe looks very interesting and is getting solid reviews from almost everyone.
I started with the awful turbos and found I had to run it several times through my T500 to make it bearable. But was still really harsh.
Moved on to TPW's with a bit of variations to make a Frankenstein TPW which has turned out WAY better than my turbo.
I do find that using raw sugar instead of white seems to assist the bakers yeast which takes from a 1.070 start point to a .990 finish in 6 to 7 days.
But this recipe looks insane to go from start to finish in 3 to 4 days.
Gonna give it a crack!
Cheers to all!

[Yummyrum]

But this recipe looks insane to go from start to finish in 3 to 4 days.
Gonna give it a crack!
Cheers to all!

Never happened for me . More like a 7-10 days best effort but some manage to get it done faster .
Regardless , it makes a clean wash .

[Garouda]

Never happened for me. More like a 7-10 days best effort, but some manage to get it done faster.
Regardless, it makes a clean wash.

Same here, 8 days on average...
About boiling the bran, just pay attention, it overflows swiftly.
No need to cook it too long, compare with your breakfast porridge (oatmeal), it takes only three to five minutes in boiling water/milk...

[Garouda]

Just one remark, a sugar wash does not need to be completed as soon as a grain wash (whisky, whiskey, bourbon), where the limit should be 96 hours to avoid unwanted esters.
The small amount of bran cannot ruin your batch and anyhow, the purpose of this recipe is a vodka, which by definition is a neutral. You need a reflux still to make a decent vodka, or two runs in a fractionating still. Pot stills are not an option here.