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I hear a lot of bad talk about turbo yeast here but im not really sure why?
Whats wrong with it?

It was originally developed for fuel production. All the extra neutriants to push above 14% ABV add some nasty off tastes to the distillate, thus the need for clearing agents and carbon filtering. All of which is messy, time consuming and expensive.

Pretty well sums it up, Hawke.

blanik

I think a lot of us start with Turbo, its what the brewshops like to sell, then they can sell you all of the gear to get rid of the off tastes.

So is it the yeast strain, the nutrient base or both that make turbos produce inferior likker? I know first hand that is does, and it is what I started out with. The reason I ask is I was rooting around the garage the other day and found a packet of turbo 48 left over, havent used the stuff for a long time. I made a starter with a small amount of this strain and added it to a brew of inverted sugar and my own nutrient concoction. it is bubbling like hell today, but not like turbos do, I will follow up when I run the stuff.

Cheers Hawk.

You can go a long way to an okay result with a Turbo by using it at half the rate. If the pack says use it for 25 litres to get 18% abv, then double the ferment size to 50 litres, don't add any extra sugar, and you will get a much cleaner 9%.

MuleKicker wrote:So is it the yeast strain, the nutrient base or both that make turbos produce inferior likker?

Actually, as was listed in a different way by Hook, the 'inferior likker' comes from greed.

Yes, you 'can' push a turbo to 18% (or 21% or god forbid 25%), but WHY. Pushing ANY yeast that hard is what causes the off flavors. Strains on the yeast (both the osmotic stress of that strong of a sugar solution, and the stress later on when the ABV gets that high) cause the yeast to produce nasty stuff when cracking the sugars apart.

If you back off that max ABV like mentioned by Hook, then the yeast will produce a clean wash, similar to other yeasts. The turbo's do work fine for this.

The things you DO lose, when doubling the batch, are that turbos also have Ph buffers in there. I am not sure it will properly adjust the Ph when split from a 25L to a 50L wash. I guess others could comment on this issue.

Even if it does not get quite the proper Ph, it seems that people have found that in practice doubling the water and leaving the sugar level alone, does seem to produce a clean enough wash. Again, there are many recipes here in these forums which will do much better than Turbo, but if you have a dozen satchets bought when you first heard about DIY still'in, then you 'can' get decent results from them, and then later work with the recipes here to make cheaper and better booze.

H.

I set ph to about 5.0-5.5, sg to 1.080, (10%). so that takes care of the ph buffers. also added nutrients. 36 hrs to ferment out. now to let it settle. i should be able to get something decent, not to mention i only used about 1/10 of the packet, so I get 9 more batches out of 1 packet if this works out, which i think it will if I keep the yeild down.

If you can get it to ferment fully without infection setting in with 1/10 a satchet, and end up with 'usable' product, then all the better to you.

Be sure to post the results of how this works for you (whether it works well or not). Many of us will not really look at turbo's, but for someone that wishes to 'give this a shot', but does not wish to get overly involved, this might be an 'option'.

H.

i will keep you posted, the only reason i decided to try in the first place is i had a packet sitting around from when i first got into this, I havent used any in close to 2 years, but cannot let anything go to waste I dont rememeber what turbo wash tasted like but, i know well the taste of sugar/bakers yeast wposw tastes like when clear and dry, can you taste off flavors in turbo (any wash for that matter) wash before you run?

Well guys here are the results. I split a pack of turbo i had laying around into fractions, multiple containers from 6 to 10 gallons. with a total around 40 gal. All started with a sg of 1.080, and a ph around 5.5. I added small amount of likkerquik nurient (about half of what it recommended.) I inverted sugar in 2 of the containers, which didnt seem to make a difference. All were done and dry in 36-48 hrs. ran all into low wines and did spirit run last night. I have to say, not bad. I could have let ferment clear alittle longer, but i got impatient. Final product is not bad, without a hint of the token "nasty turbo flavor". I have to say this was a success. with around 3 gal of drinkable 95. i will let it mellow a bit longer and it should be superb.

ok, i stretched it alittle, so its alittle over 2gal. still very good stuff.

Sounds good, MuleKicker... I made mention of the need for more nutrients in the sticky in the novice forum just before reading this topic...

Im gonna start my next ferment with the turb from these ferments, they went fast and efficient therefore this strain should be good. And i just wanted to make mention of the term "turb". not to be confused with the other meaning, rad. lol

Yeah, not sure why turbo has such a bad name.. I have been researching raw sugar washes with different yeasts. tried a variety of turbos(generally Saccharomyces cerevisiae ), champagne and wine ( a variety but I used mainly Saccharomyces bayanus), and beer (again Saccharomyces cerevisiae ).. soon to try bread yeast. (Also Saccharomyces cerevisiae).
The worst were the champagne yeasts... nasty, and I needed to re run one of the distillations. From looking at Lallemand Inc. it appears that the turbos are just standard Saccharomyces cerevisiae selected for alcohol tolerance. (or heat) Obviously if you are only looking at alcohol tolerance and fermenting speed they will likely throw a lot of esters if stressed. especially if you try to get them to 20% plus!! But I run about 14% and they seem fine.. definately quicker..

Im doing a varity of beer yeasts at the moment will report next week.

Turbo pros:

Easy to use, just dump'n stir into sugar water
Works very fast.

Cons

Will impart bad tastes and smells.
Very expensive for what you are paying for.