Home Distiller

I have read that you do not want to go over 10-12% abv in your wash?? It said STOP the ferment before it gets too high when making corn likker. (for best results) Now the question..
How do you STOP fermentation??
Why would you want to stop fermentation??
Does the higher abv in the mash cause the nasties to appear???
I know you cats have got the right answers.. thanks in advance.

Where did you read that?

You should set your mash up to hit the ABV you want. Don't stop a ferment, ferment to completion. I assume your doing a sugar head wash just don't give to much sugar.

If for some strange reason you need to stop a ferment you can use sodium benzonate. It's used it the food processing industry to prevent fermentation.

What you may have read is don't push you mash past 10-12%. That doesn't mean stop it.

There's been a few in past whose posted that they keeps grain ferments 3 to 6 proof.Claims it gives better flavor profile.

Distilling was traditionally practiced by folks without any kind of instrumentation, zero scientific understanding of the process only folk wisdom, and no extra livestock or children to trade for insanely valuable stuff like sugar.
They frequently only had a single starch or sugar source to work with.
lots of them didn't save or pitch yeast, they made mash and set it open to "the influence of the moon" or stirred it with the family's special magic stick.

The longer their low yield mashes sat working the more susceptible they became to putrefaction.
It is also very likely that these early distillers also noticed that if the mash worked for five days they could fill the jug but if they waited ten days and more than doubled the risk that the mash would fail that they only gained a quarter of a jug.

Whether or not they noticed that longer ferments made less tasty spirit is unknown... but they were doing this for hundreds of years, its hard to imagine they could have missed it.

They stopped the fermentation by the simple expedient of putting the mash in the still and running it.

A number of scotch distilleries still do this, it was standard in the now extinct monongahela rye process and it's common practice with smaller agave distillers in mexico.

AhhhHaaa...so less sugar would make it finish sooner and therefore keep the abv down to the desired %. I understand, dont stop it just set it up right from the start. Thanks guys

you got the picture Heeler. I tend to agree with what tater said, if you have the still capacity run your mashes lower on the abv.