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i gotta admit. this whole week has been filled with "shoulda done this...." or shoulda done that...."

i got a lil somethin workin. it's 5lbs sugar, 5gal water. 1lb corn. 1/2 lb rice. pitched red star DADY. and a nutrient mix i got with it.

i didn't get the SG as my hydrometer broke when i opened the package. got another one. now it's sitting at 1.010 after 6 days

currently it's still bubbling somewhat slower than during the first few days. kinda figured it should have finished by now but it aint. the temp of the room its in is 70 so maybe that's got somethin to do with it.

i'd like to hear someone elses thoughts as to what they would have done different

Ok well a tried and true recipe until you got a feel for it, just let it go til its done

Forget a day schedule . It will finish when it is finished . Taste and smell mean more than time schedules . Truck driver philosophy : If it feels good ; do it . That advice is not always good advice .

Truckinbutch wrote:Forget a day schedule . It will finish when it is finished . Taste and smell mean more than time schedules . Truck driver philosophy : If it feels good ; do it . That advice is not always good advice .

this is my first one, so i don't really know. smells like malted liquor. tastes like a corn flavored smirnoff.

If it's still bubbling and doesn't have a dry cider taste and smell it probably isn't done .
I don't know why folks focus so much on 5 day ferments and run so much green beer because of that . That ferment is done when your taste , smell , and hydrometer tell you it is . Yeasts are wonderful little critters that do great things for us .
They don't know dick about a time clock . They finish their job when they get done .

Truckinbutch wrote:If it's still bubbling and doesn't have a dry cider taste and smell it probably isn't done .
I don't know why folks focus so much on 5 day ferments and run so much green beer because of that . That ferment is done when your taste , smell , and hydrometer tell you it is . Yeasts are wonderful little critters that do great things for us .
They don't know dick about a time clock . They finish their job when they get done .

funny you should say that. my boss keeps tellin me i don't know dick about time clocks as well.


thank's though. i suppose i should be more patient.

Try a 1:1 weight ratio between sugar and cracked grain in your next sugar head and ditch those nasty chemical nutrients. I'm an avid fan of food sourced nutrition. What size is your still? A 5 gallon ujssm seems small considering the nature of that particular wash.

If I only had a 5 gallon pot still, I'd still do a 12-15 gallon ujssm ferment. But that's me.

bearriver wrote:Try a 1:1 weight ratio between sugar and cracked grain in your next sugar head and ditch those nasty chemical nutrients. I'm an avid fan of food sourced nutrition. What size is your still? A 5 gallon ujssm seems small considering the nature of that particular wash.

If I only had a 5 gallon pot still, I'd still do a 12-15 gallon ujssm ferment. But that's me.

the amount i was doing is more than that. what i listed was simply my first try at a personal recipe. i picked up a few ideas to retweek it. i may try the food nutrients next time too.

i put some heat to the containers and brought them up to about 85. they are bubbling steadily again. definitely gonna do something different next time though.

With 5 gallons of water and 5 lbs of sugar your starting sg would have been around 1.046 giving you a potential abv of around 6%. Perfectly fine, but I might have added 2 lbs more of sugar. That would get you a potential abv of about 8.5%.

i think my ultimate goal was to create a breeding ground for the yeast using the sugar wash and letting them switch to the grains afterwards to work on flavoring it all. i know the yeast i use is rated up to 22% but i did not plan at all to aim that high. the corn and rice were boiled but not flaked. i'll remedy that next time as well.

Was the water boiled? If it was next time aerate the wash before pitching the yeast.

shadylane wrote:Was the water boiled? If it was next time aerate the wash before pitching the yeast.

it was boiled. i just never flaked the grains before tossin them. i shoulda known better of course. they are slowly working. i think what helped is adding heat to excite the yeast. i got home and the bubbles were slow coming. a grav check showed 9.90

The condition of the grain will not effect your ferment time as this is pretty much a sugar wash. What the ungristed grain will affect is flavor, They may "soften" your spirit a little but will impart very little flavor