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nomad4749 wrote:Is this the reason I can't get to an SG of .0980 ?

The amounts of cereal and suspended yeast are what is keeping the SG from dropping below 1.000... Or even wash temperature... It's done...

Thanks guys.

I have been reading on here and noticed that the rice cereal has been used in replace of the barley cereal but could you use the gerber oatmeal cereal if so would you have any different outcome? BTW I am new to this and this will be my first time making any

shineman wrote:I have been reading on here and noticed that the rice cereal has been used in replace of the barley cereal but could you use the gerber oatmeal cereal if so would you have any different outcome? BTW I am new to this and this will be my first time making any

The Gerber is used primarily for the fortification of vitamins and minerals as nutrients so any flavor would conceivably work... The flavor component is just an added benefit, in my opinion...

Ok I've read this topic all the way and saw only one mention of using the gerber with banana. So I started some. Rice with banana apple. 5 one gallon jugs. After they started they burped the mash into my airlocks and made a huge mess. It has a thick foam cap and and the mash itself looks like syurp. I dumped one and it poured out like snot. I have had good luck with other flavors of the cereal. What would cause this to act like this way?

Ok so I'm not sure I'm going to add the cereal during the invert process. My wife is still complaining as she walks through the kitchen. It foamed up pretty well I'd say. Its all together now. I followed the recipe except I used Gerber oat because it what I had on hand. Problem I'm having now is I'm getting a bubble every 2-3 min. I've not seen anyone else go that slow unless I missed a page. I'm using red star ADY with a good date but is there any way it could have gone bad. If so can I salvage it? I haven't had time yet to search for saving a mash from death yet. That's my next search task for this evening. Thanks for any advice

I made 13.5 gallons of this, last night. This morning, the house smells wonderful. I inverted my sugar first, and that was a pain. Only because I have a 8qt, and 6qt stock pot. A little too cold to break out the turkey fryer. I had no problems with foam-up, during the simmer. As soon as my pots started boiling, I turned down the heat, and stirred the sugar in. 1lb for every quart. Once the sugar was dissolved, i poured in the lemon juice. I probably used too much lemon juice, and was worried about this. Instead of 1oz per lb, I accidentally used double... But, the ferment is going strong. While the sugar was inverting, I added 2 gallons cold water to each bucket, and 3.5 cups cereal. 8qts inverted sugar/water brought the total volume up to 4ish gallons. Topped off with cold water until it was about 3-4 inches below rim of bucket. Then, I let the buckets come down to just below 90, and pitched 8tbs of baking yeast in each bucket. I used approx 6lbs is sugar for each bucket, and got a starting gravity of 1.06, in each bucket.

Just a little update. Wash is still going well. After 1.5 days I'm getting a good bubble every second. The house doesn't smell as strong, as when the wash first started. I love going up and smelling the air coming off the airlock. I want to open it up so bad. I put my ear up to each bucket, and can hear it fizzing away nicely. Once the bubbles stop, I'm going to wait one more day, and check the Specific Gravity.

Holy $hi+... Stillin' ain't easy! Just got done racking off my first wash, for the sacrificial. Took me about 2 hours. Three 5 gal buckets. Granted, it was my first time, and I have learned a ton of ways to cut down my time, for the next one. All three buckets finished off at under 1.00, and tasted dry. Started this last Thursday. Stopped bubbling Sunday evening. Wanted to rack it last night, but couldn't.

Let us know how the distillation goes... I was just eying the Gerber today when I ran to the store quick to grab a 3-pack of yeast because I had run out and the last of my yeast was old and crapped out before my experimental wash fermented to dry... I'm overdue for another batch and hope to put one down soon...

Here's how I made mine:

Batch size: 23 Litres
15 Litres of water
4 kg Sugar
3 Tbs Lemon juice
Simmered for about 30 mins
Transferred to fermenter and added about 5 Litres of water (went up to the 23 Litre mark on my fermenter though)
Took gravity = 1.065
Added cereal and allowed to cool to about 80*F
Added 10 Tbs of baker's yeast

Questions:
1) Total water seems to be 20 Litres, but fermenter says 23. Can the sugar and lemon juice take up that much space?
2) Am I throwing it off by taking the gravity before adding the cereal? I thought I read somewhere that the cereal would skew the SG.
3) Should I bump the sugar up to 5 kgs?

Sugar can take up a good bit of space. In my 8qt stock pot, I had 6qts of water, and after sugar was added it came almost up to the rim. 1lb sugar, for each quart. This was during inversion of the sugar, for this recipe.

The KYChemist wrote:Sugar can take up a good bit of space. In my 8qt stock pot, I had 6qts of water, and after sugar was added it came almost up to the rim. 1lb sugar, for each quart. This was during inversion of the sugar, for this recipe.

So if I read you right, then 6 lbs of sugar took up 2 qts?

My 4 kgs = 8.8 lbs, so it could account for 2 / 6 * 8.8 = 2.9 qts or 2.7 litres... There's the mysterious ~3 litre difference.

Thanks friend

Yeah... While it may not have been an exact 2 quarts, it was at the very least, about 1.8 quarts of volume.

We are having trouble locating the Gerber barley, so can any of these wrok?

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Quaker-Quick- ... z/11994394" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Eagle-Distrib ... ethod=p13n" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Times-Who ... B004QCAWEM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

http://www.bobsredmill.com/rolled-barley-flakes.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Any help would be appreciated as we are trying to make a 35g ferment batch...

Because there was no Gerber available as they have quit making it, we are using GV Multi Grain Flakes. Here is the recipe I put together after some probably annoying of Rad by PM...

5g water
9 lbs of sugar
4 cups of GV Multi Grain Flakes
2 tbs of Red Star bakers yeast (hydrated)
1 tbs of yeast boiled with the water

Inverting the sugar, I took 2g of water with 1/2 tbs yeast and put it to boil (two different pots with the same amount of liquid and yeast). I cut it off just short of a light boil and removed from the heat to let it cool. I took 1qt of water and mix in the remaining yeast along with 1/2 cup of sugar. I let this foam to a 1.5" cap. As this was foaming, I added the remaining 3/4g to the bucket to cool the temp down along with it just sitting to 95 degrees. Once it was that temp, I pitched the yeast I had hydrating. Beginning SG was 1.090 with a potential of 14.1% alcohol. I added an aerator to the bucket for an hr, then put on the lid with bubbler. Can't wait to see how this turns out...Thanks So Much to Rad...

Looking for some feedback here:

My first sacrificial batch (23L) OG = 1.065 (before adding cereal) and FG = 0.998, potential ABV = 8.64%... this smelled way boozier when I racked it, but it was also my first try at this recipe.

Then,
I did a double batch (46L) of this and divided it into two carboys (two packages of cereal added post boil but before cooling and dividing)
I took a sample from one carboy after the cereal had settled for a while, SG = 1.065
Then I stirred up the other batch so the cereal was back in suspension, SG = 1.085
Haven't taken FG on the double batch, but I expect I'll get the same attenuation

So I'm wondering how many fermentables are actually in the cereal and which SG is more correct? The package of cereal only has about 73g of sugar and 65g of starches (not sure if the starches matter or not). My hunch is that the 1.065 is the more accurate SG, but I'd like to hear from the more experienced folks here. Thanks.

I would say that the suspended solids in your second sample would be throwing your meter out. Try another reading once it has settled again.

Doing my sacrificial run of Gerber right now. So far, so good. Its a shame its a sac run. Every jar has been crystal clear. Made up a second batch, close to the same as last time. Inverted sugar, with the right amount of lemon juice. 1oz per lb, not 2oz per pound. Difference of 2 cups Gerber, per each 4.5 gallons, instead of 3.5. And 5tbs yeast, per 4.5 gallons, instead of 8tbs. We'll see what happens, and I'll keep ya posted.

Just tried this recipe 48 hours ago:

5 cups of Gerber Rice
5 gal of water
20 cups of sugar
7 tbsp of yeast (Fleischmann's ActiveDry)

I inverted the sugar with equal parts water/sugar for quite sometime and then added 2 gals and kept cookin', added another 2 gals when boil was approaching, kept cookin', added the gerber a bit after, boiled for another 15 mins or so. Meanwhile, I created a yeast starter/bomb consisting of the yeast and nearly a cup of sugar in ~105F water. The yeast bomb tripled in size. I cooled the boil with a wort chiller and transferred and pitched yeast at ~82F. I'm used to brewing beer, I got busy and the wash was down to 82F before I knew it.

OG at 1.080

I'm using my brewing 5gal food grade bucket fermenters I use for beer.

I haven't seen any bubbles, no krausen. I was concerned, so I did another reading tonight, and see 1.040, so I guess things are pluggin' along just fine.

I wonder if I should add some more yeast to the fermenter or just give it some time?

Edit: I didn't aerate really, just swished and shook - I was tired. I didn't add any DAP, 20-20-20, epsom salt, or anything else. Slowness could be related to that...

madmattie wrote:I wonder if I should add some more yeast to the fermenter or just give it some time?

Edit: I didn't aerate really, just swished and shook - I was tired. I didn't add any DAP, 20-20-20, epsom salt, or anything else. Slowness could be related to that...

Just let it ferment as-is... Yes, it would ferment a bit quicker with DAP, 20-20-20, or epsom salt, but let this one play out and then you can do another batch with added nutrients as a comparison...

I wouldn't add anymore yeast. Sounds like everything is working okay, if SG is dropping. I don't aerate at all. But, I also don't boil all my liquid. I only boil the water used for inversion. My batches usually ferment dry in about 3 or 4 days, and I usually let them sit for another two, before I rack. You can read how I prepare mine a page or two back, in this thread.

Thanks, guys. I just checked the SG after another 48 hours -> 1.002. Looks like it's going well! I calculated that to be 10.24% ABV according to http://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I'm going to let it sit over the weekend and run it next week. I'll post on how it goes.

Last night I finished the stripping run. FG came to 0.992 ~ 11.35% ABV.

I stripped out ~1.21 gallons @ avg ABV of 49.5%

The product actually smells good and is crystal clear. Much different than my Franzia runs.

Future is looking bright....

[quote="rad14701"]W
So, what were the tweaks aside from the larger wash than usual...??? I used 2.5 gallons (10 liters) of water, 7 cups (3.5 pounds) of sugar, 5 tbsp of bakers yeast, 1/4 tsp of Epsom Salt, 1/2 tsp of 20-20-20, 1.5 cups of Gerber Barley Cereal, and 1/2 cup of Wheat Germ... Seems I was running low on the Gerber so I brought the volume up with the Wheat Germ I had on hand...




I'm not sure what the 20-20-20 is i have looked and read alot but cant find any thing. a little help on this please

I believe 20-20-20 is plant fertilizer.

madmattie wrote:Last night I finished the stripping run. FG came to 0.992 ~ 11.35% ABV.

I stripped out ~1.21 gallons @ avg ABV of 49.5%

The product actually smells good and is crystal clear. Much different than my Franzia runs.

Future is looking bright....

Sounds good... Let us know how the spirit run turns out...

Oh, and were you aware that we have a whole slew of calculators on the parent site, as well as some downloadable ones here in these forums that can be saved and run in your browser without visiting the parent site...???

Hey Rad. Yeah, I'm aware of the calculators on the site. I just banged that into the google and it came up.

Here's my post on how the spirit run went:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 15&t=49022

It's rather long winded. Overall, it went very well. I'm still learning the ropes, so I'm sure I'll improve with subsequent runs.

I started another batch of Gerber around 72 hours ago. The airlock is bubbling away this time. Here's out it went down:

5 gallons of water
10lb of sugar
3 cups of Gerber rice
1/2 cup of Gerber oatmeal
1/4 cup and 1 tpsp of yeast
1 cup of sugar for a yeast bomb

OG @ 1.100!

I boiled the sugar and Gerber similar to my first run. I ended up "aerating" this time by pouring/splashing around the wort between the bucket I use for fermenting and the stock pot.

Awesome recipe!

Rad-
Just wondering if anyone had tried the multigrain in the new available line.

Seems to have what would prove to be a pretty decent flavor profile....

Thoughts?

My first 4 keeper runs were with the multigrain. Can't testify to flavor profile, as I use a reflux still. But, it does produce a nice clean neutral. I'm doing a wash with the Gerber Rice, right now. I will say the multigrain smelled better fermenting, than the rice. Not that the rice smells bad...