second try

[prospector86]

Well, I'm new to all this, got the idea a while back, built a still from plans. I got an alchohal tester from a brewer supply store in town, tested it and it was right on. My first sugar wash I used 3 pounds sugar for every gallon of water, after about 2 weeks I figured I got what you guys call a stuck fermantaion. So I tried it agian and its still bubbleing ater 4 days, the diffrence is I put 1.5 pounds of sugar per gallon of water and 5 ounce's yeast with nutrieants. The thing is that when I test the wash it says there's no ABV in the wash, is this normal? Do I wait untill all the bubbles to stop so I know that the yeast is dead then test it? Is it suppose to read zero ABV in the wash? Thanks for all the help.

[rad14701]

Welcome to the forums, prospector86...

Is there more to your recipe than water + sugar + yeast...??? Where are the nutrients that the yeast need to survive...??? A wash with 3 pounds of sugar per gallon has a potential of ~21.1% ABV which is at the top end even for turbo yeasts... I see that your second batch used yeast nutrients, but was it separate or part of a turbo pack...???

Standard yeasts, like bakers yeast and wine yeast can only tolerate ~14% at the high side... Anything above that will cause osmotic stress and the yeast will eventually die of stress or autolysis due to lack of nutrients, whichever comes first...

What temperature are you keeping the wash at...??? If the wash gets too cold it will go dormant and wait until the temperature rises to the yeasts optimal fermentation range...

Rather than wasting more time, effort, and ingredients, why not try one of the Tried and True recipes here in the forums... Both the All Bran and Gerber recipes have been developed to help novices attain successful wash fermentations the on the first try if you follow the recipe... They can be pot stilled for flavored spirits or run through a reflux still for neutral spirits...

Good luck...

[Dnderhead]

I thinking your confused ,, a hydrometer don't work that way,,
the 3 lb was to much that whould about 21% and not many yeast will make it that far and whould be "funky" if it did.
now with 1.5 lb of sugar whould give you a OG of 1.069 or 10% alcohol . (now remember the OG)
now as the yeast "eat" the sugar the SG will change . the next day it mite go from 1.069 to 1.068
it continues to do this until it reaches 1.000 or below that is when the yeast have consumed all the sugar. now remember this number.
now take the two numbers and subtract them...(this is the SG drop) now take the SG drop and divide by 7.55 this is will equel how much
alcohol is in your wash/mash/beer or wine.

(now you say why do I want to go threw all that? first if it stops to early you can tell. and also not all washes/mashes will go to 1.00

now that is for mash/wash/beer/wine hydrometer,, the proof/tralle one works a bit different and not interchangeable.and will just bob
like a cork.in a wash. and your mash hydrometer will sink out of site in distillate.

[still crazy]

Say again what you bought.
Are you testing with an Alcohol meter or a Hydrometer?

[prospector86]

I used a proof/tralle hydrometer to test the wash thinking it would tell me the content of the wash. I bought a pound of distillers yeast from a company online as well as the yeast nutrients, I don't know what's in the nutrients are made from, they came in a small bottle, white powdery substance, and it says use 1 tablespoon per gallon of water. I keep the wash between 68-74 degrees. I went ahead and distilled the wash I made with 1.5 pounds of sugar to 1 gallon of water and got about a whiskey bottle of 120 proof, is that normal?

[rad14701]

prospector86, in reading back through this topic I haven't seen where you've made mention of the actual volume of your washes... Without knowing that it's impossible to even guess as to whether you collected the proper amount of spirits from the wash...

Also, sounds like you've made use of your proof hydrometer if you know you collected 120 proof spirits... That also means that you must not have purchased a hydrometer for measuring the SG of your wash...

Did you make proper cuts during distillation...???

Sounds like you're making progress...

[prospector86]

I start out with about 4 gallons of wash. I Have read on here to throw away about the first 3 ounces of the distilled product so that is what I have done. THe hydrometer to messure the SG ( what does that mean by the way) of my wash, do they look similar to a proof hydrometer, I'll be makeing a trip to the brew store in the next few days to get some stuff I'm seeing that i need now.

[Dnderhead]

Spacific Gravity, it is the density of X compared to distilled water. sugars tend to make water heavy,as they are consumed,it gits
lighter.so hydrometer sinks deaper.with a proof hydrometer alcohol is lighter than water so the more alcohol the lighter the
distilant is and the hydrometer sinks ferther.