Putting older posts here. Going to try to keep the novice forum pruned about 90 days work. The 'good' old stuff is going to be put into appropriate forums.
Okay, so i set up a 5 gal batch of neutral wash tonight. I use an airlock in which i keep a 20% isopropyl alcohol solution to kill anything that might try to enter through.
I was lifting my 5 gal plastic jug when pressure inside pushed air out of the container and through the air lock. When i put the jug back down, i saw about half of my airlock solution (maybe around 20mL) drain into the mash
Do you think this will severely effect the performance of my yeast? I am having trouble finding the effects of some isopropyl on a yeast culture.
Sheesh, I've accidentally leaned on the fermenter and sucked bugs, water, joint ash and all kinds of other junk into the drum. No biggie, I just look at it as contributing to the varied complexity of the wash..
Not wanting to burst everyones bubble, but I bet that ISO will be hard to remove. I do not know this for sure, but here is my logic behind it:
One of the "authorized" denaturants (TTB for the US govt) for fuel ethanol is, 1/8 oz denatonium benzoate N.F. and 2 gallons of isopropyl alcohol (for 100 gallons of EtOH).
When the govt authorizes chemicals to use in this manner, it is due to how they render the EtOH unfit, and how they are also very hard to separate out of mixture. Other authorized things are stuff such as 2 gallons of unleaded gas, and some other alcohols, and chemicals.
What that usually means, is that when mixed, it is VERY hard to almost impossible to remove the denaturant. I believe this falls in line with the testing results presented by pint-o a few months back, showing that chromographic results show that methanol comes across during the whole run. It was a little more concentrated in the beginning, but simply had a linear decay level of output for the whole run. I bet you will find this the same (or similar) with iso. Your run will probably start off with less, but then have a linear increase in strength thoughout the run.
However, 20ml is probably not going to cause any problems. The end product "might" be a little more hang over prone, but that will be about it. If you had 5 gallons of 15%, then you have about 2840ml of EtOH in there. 20ml of iso, will only be 0.7%. Thus, if you drink 3oz of EtOH in mixed drinks (6 oz of proof'd product, which is 4 shots), the amount of iso would be at most, 0.7% of that 3oz, or between 1/2 and 3/4 ml (and probably less). I seriously doubt that small quantity will harm you (too much).
Probably a good rule of thumb, is to not do this again. Use something which is not going to harm you, water, neutral, food grade glycerin, etc.
I agree with you husker. Safest and maybe long term cheapest solution is to just toss the batch and mark it up to experience. I am gutsy but not that much to risk isopropyl/propanol contamination. Even though it is not considered as poisonous as methanol, and twice as poisonous as ethanol, it is pretty smelly stuff in alcohol.
I try and keep all non food grade products away from still and ferment
area and mark all bottles [ bad stuff mark with red marker]
put away cleaners etc when dun
Kind of off-topic, but 20% IPA is not even a very good sterilant I don't think.
When wiping down lab counters and stuff like that, it's usually like %85 or something.
Nothing will grow in a 20% solution, but I don't think it will kill germs on contact either.
That 20ml of 20% IPA (which I'm guessing is a mixture of 1 part drugstore 75% rubbing alcohol/ 4 parts water, so it wasn't even as much as 20% IPA anyway) only equals about 3ml of actual IPA. In 20L of wash that is really a pretty small amount, and though maybe SOME of this will distill over with your EtOH, I don't think ALL of it would, so it's being diluted even further.
When I run out of airlocks and am fermenting beer or wine, I usually just crimp a piece of Aluminum foil over the carboy, then when fermentation slows, a piece of plastic held on by a rubber band.
Airlocks?? What are airlocks?
I've run off 3 sugar washes and got mollasses flavored sugar wash running now with just plastic cling wrap placed loosely over the top. After they finish bubbling vigorusly I rack into a carboy with a cork just lightly placed on top. No trouble with infection yet--knock on wood.
Next time I get to the city I'll get a couple as they are only .79 cents each but I have lots of small diameter plastic pipe here I could just run into a coffee can with water.
Airlocks. Bah humbug. More fiddly shit you have to spend money on.
I live in the tropics and ferment in the bathroom, right next to the toilet. Ideal conditions for infection. Never had one yet. Don't use conventional airlocks. Only use fresh cling wrap with a couple small holes in it, held on with a rubber band.
From what I have read, and certainly my own experience, if you start a ferment clean and quick, (and follow basic sanitation procedures after that), infection is not going to be a problem.
Excuse my ignorance, but why do you use anything else than water in your airlocks? To protect it from drying out? In that case heads or vodka wouldn't be better.
Nykter wrote:Excuse my ignorance, but why do you use anything else than water in your airlocks? To protect it from drying out? In that case heads or vodka wouldn't be better.
That was why I listed glycerin. That is what my pop uses for his wine. In that case, the fermentation goes much longer than we usually do here. Thus, the glycerin does not evap like water, and for him (more forgetful than even I am), it is safer.
heres the funny thing about this post.... uh oh I got isopropyl in my wash. if you weren't planning on getting the air lock liquid in the wash why would you care if that liquid was scummy water. you see if you didnt think it could get into the wash you should have just used water. The reason to use ethanol is if it gets in your wash you dont care.
