Forgotten wash

[Retzev]

Hi all,

So here I am clearing out the garage at home this afternoon, as we have all been sent home from work due to the virus outbreak.
In the corner of the garage I found a 25 L bucket of sugar wash that I forgot to distill a few months ago (life got in the way..) We are just finishing summer/moving into Autumn here in New Zealand, so the fermenter has been in a fairly warm, bordering on hot, place in the garage.

From memory I did previously test for alcohol content a few months ago, and it was up around 8%.

My alcometer is now reading the wash as 1%. I have tested my alcometer on my other spirits, and its looking accurate.

Do you think I have lost the alcohol from the fermenter due to temperature in the garage? Im thinking I did, and was wanting to know if I could resurrect the wash, or, start from scratch again..

Thanks guys and girls!

Paul

[cranky]

Run it and find out. No point in wasting it. I'm guessing you are using the wrong thing to check alcohol content alcometers aren't good at measuring aclohol content when it's low.

[Saltbush Bill]

alcometers aren't good at measuring aclohol content when it's low.

+1

[Retzev]

So can sealed (meaning 'in the fermenter') alcohol be evaporated if its stored in a hot environment?

[WidowMaker]

alcometer you mean hydrometer? it wont tell you anything for mash. you need to measure SG.. sugar mash as 8% abv seems way to low to start anyways.
and damn, if its been sitting for so long, all the yeast should been settled by now, take a mug, drink it, take a second one.if by the second one you start to feel something, its not gonna be below beer.

Run it and find out. No point in wasting it.

could lose energy by running it.

I'm guessing you are using the wrong thing to check alcohol content alcometers aren't good at measuring aclohol content when it's low.

agreed on this, tho.

[Retzev]

I have an alcometer (that's what it says it is anyway..) and a few hydrometers lying around. Although the wash still tastes sweetish...
So last night I gave the wash another good stir, added some dextrose sugar to hopefullyget things going again, and then a new yeast. Still not a lot of action. Its like its has stalled completely ...hmmmm

[WidowMaker]

whats the temperature of the mash?

[Retzev]

Shes sitting at 26 deg C - so 78'ish F ?

[cranky]

A few things going on here

I know of no alcometer capable of measuring that low. The standard way of measuring a wash/mash/ferment is to use a hydrometer and take an original specific gravity reading and subtract that from the final gravity reading when it is finished. Depending on what the ferment is the FG can vary widely.

You leave out some crucial information such as

What recipe did you use?
The recipe is a big deal, some finish with a higher FG than others.

What yeast did you use?
Different yeast require different temperatures. I've had 1118 quit all together at just over 80f (27 Canadian) but bread yeast and some of the others do fine at higher temperatures.

What exactly is meant by "fairly warm, bordering on hot"?
See above.

I highly doubt your alcohol evaporated, It's just not likely even if it was left uncovered. There are a few infections that could decrease the alcohol content though.

Age of a wash has very little to do with anything provided it remains under airlock and you keep things reasonably clean. I just ran a plum ferment that was just a bunch of plums mashed up in a bucket and a lid slapped on them. No sanitizing, no nothing. It was close to 2 years old, maybe 2.5, and was fine.

Since I don't know the recipe, yeast or temperature it was fermented at and I also don't know the SG or the FG we really don't have much to go on. It is possible it stalled due to heat or acidity or any number of other variables. Restarting a stalled ferment can be difficult or impossible. I would use 1118 yeast but I don't know if you have access to it or if the temperatures are cool enough for it.

All that said my original advice stands
Run it and see what you get.

[Retzev]

Good on you cranky. I appreciate your help here..really do!

This one was just a bog standard dextrose wash (8kg), with a standard Still Spirits Brewers yeast Whiskey sachet. There was nothing special about this one at all (I had a lot of dextrose to use up)
The garage probably sat around 30-35 deg C (86-95 F) for two months, as in the southern hemisphere it sits directly north, and is painted black steel.

The FG is reading 1.052 - unfortunately the OG has been wiped off my kitchen blackboard..

Like you said, I will run it and see what I get.

[LandofSunSnow]

Any chance the PH level has dropped?

[cranky]

I think if I had 1.052 left I would make up a big yeast bomb and put some sea shells in to bring the PH up and try to get it to restart. That's a lot of sugar still in there in fact it's enough to make almost 7% alcohol. That much sugar migh be more likely to burn. Do you know how much sugar and water you used? We could probably figure out what your SG was from that.

I myself don't write things down and my memory is crap so I understand not knowing.

[NZChris]

What does it taste like?

[Retzev]

Shes still 'a bit sweet', and it almost smells cidery...?
I started with 25 l of water and 8kg of sugar. It just seems a hell of a shame to waste it.

[NZChris]

8kg and 25l, or 8kg in 25l. Either way, it's still way too much sugar and I'm not surprised you have a problem.

You could try doubling the volume with water. Sometimes when a ferment stalls nothing works to restart it, but you might get lucky.

Find out who told you 8kg in 25l was ok, throw out all of the advice he gave you and start over.

[cranky]

Shes still 'a bit sweet', and it almost smells cidery...?
I started with 25 l of water and 8kg of sugar. It just seems a hell of a shame to waste it.

According to the calcs on the parent site ( https://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.php/htm/calc ... _yield.htm ) because you used dextrose that would produce around 17% alcohol, which is quite high and may have led to a PH crash. So now we know you had a starting gravity of around 1.13ish and a final gravity of 1.052 which gives you about 10.2% alcohol in your wash.

Now as Chris suggested you can try splitting it, watering it down, make up a yeast bomb and see what happens or you can try what I suggested yesterday or you can run it confident that it has significant alcohol in it. Then you can take the backset and referment that to possibly recapture the lost sugar... or not. Personally if it were me I'd just run it, carefully so I don't burn the remaining sugar and be done with it.

[heynonny]

I've left wash for months at a time, put a plastic trash bag over it & secured with a piece of string. Cooked out just fine. That sinus clearing Co2 was present in massive quantity, , , , ,

-hey-