Important: For College Project (Turbo Yeast)

[celtic_man81]

Hello everyone,
I am currently doing a research project on Turbo Yeast for my English class in college. So I thought, what better people to ask!?

My request is simple: all I need is your experiences using ANY brand of Turbo Yeast. I need to know which is best for not producing off-flavors at the recommended temperature.

Here are the following brands I have found, Alcotec, Pure Brewers, and Still Spirits. However, as I said, you may use an example of any manufacturer.

Anyways, thanks for any information you can give me; it is greatly appreciated.

***Also to note, I don't want to know experiences of distilling with it. All I want to know is your experience using it without distilling.***

 

[Yuri_Rage]

I'm sorry, I don't have any experience with Turbo Yeast. I suspect you won't find many here that do.

I'm just too curious not to ask...what does yeast have to do with your English class?

 

[fretman124]

I doubt if many here will WANT to talk to you about it, much less know what they are talking about.

Go here www.homedistiller.org and ask. Although at that site, they will probably slam you for being underage, unless you can convince them that you really are just doing a dissertation for college, and not trying to figure out how to make hooch in your dorm room.

And if you are, anything fermented with turbo yeast and not distilled will taste like the south end of a north bound buffalo. Turbo yeast is only used to make flavorless, distilled grain aclohol in the 180-195 proof range which takes some specialized equipment. And no, I won't discuss it further

 

[Poindexter]

The thing about turbo yeast is the user is planning to distill the "beer stage" -> whether to whisky or chainsaw fuel doesn't matter; so the yeast strain is not selected for off flavors.

Fusels burn just fine in my Husqvarna, but they can blind a human.

Good luck.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Damn, I wish I had that kind of reading list when I was in college. LOL

 

[denimglen]

I've used the classic turbo from still spirits a couple of times (distilling is legal here in NZ).

I've always distilled so I haven't taken a lot of notice of the pre distilled flavour but I can tell you it is absolutely ****.

 

[celtic_man81]

(Ignore this, i posted extra by accident)

 

[celtic_man81]

I'm just too curious not to ask...what does yeast have to do with your English class?

What we are doing is we have to make up a fake company; then we have to compare two products for that company. Then we have to find out whether it is worth it at all to use either product.

 

[mr x]

And if you are, anything fermented with turbo yeast and not distilled will taste like the south end of a north bound buffalo. Turbo yeast is only used to make flavorless, distilled grain aclohol in the 180-195 proof range which takes some specialized equipment. And no, I won't discuss it further

That's not necessarily true. The final product of turbo yeast can be charcoal filtered and used in some types of liquors. If it's done right, you can get slightly over 20% from a good ferment. I don't think there is any difference between brands. The difference is in the care taken during fermentation.

 

[the_bird]

You can't carbon-filter fusel alcohols...

 

[mr x]

Yes you can.

 

[the_bird]

You can? Learn something new every day! How the hell does that work?

 

[mr x]

Check out homedistiller.org for the best amateur info.

It has to be activated carbon (also called stone carbon maybe?), not the type used from burnt wood. That type is used to mellow whiskey etc. Wood charcoal may also reduce fusels, but I can't remember off hand.

Here's a quick quote, I don't believe everything I read, but the bulk of this I believe is true. It certainly works in practice. It also removes ALL flavour.

'activated carbon acts in three ways:

Adsorption - relying on electrostatic Van der Walls forces. This attractive "force" forms relatively weak bonds between the carbon and adsorbate. In theory activated carbon could release or desorb what it removed at some point, but from practical experience desorption rarely occurs.

Absorption - refers to the diffusion of a gas or compound into the porous network where a chemical reaction or physical entrapment take place. Ozone for example is absorbed into activated carbon where it oxidizes a portion of the carbon's surface. Ozone (O3) is reduced to oxygen (O2) thus "detoxified". Ozone does not accumulate or build-up in the carbon structure.

Chemisorption - an irreversible chemical bond between the carbon surface and the adsorbate. Pollutants are tightly bound to the sorbent.

The filtering of alcohol primarily involves the removal of organics via adsorption. After the activated carbon has reached exhaustion and all the adsorptive sites are filled, it can be regenerated. Chemisorption is associated with the removal of inorganic chemicals and the carbon used to remove these compounds is generally not regenerated.'

 

[RadicalEd]

You can? Learn something new every day! How the hell does that work?

I've given homedistiller a good read, out of curiosity as much as anything else. IIRC, fusels tend to be heavier, larger molecules than ethanol, so they get filtered out by the GAC (Granulated Activated Carbon). Unlike methanol, which is lighter and passes right through. Just fyi. So yeah, pouring that cheap nasty fusel-heavy vodka through a filtering tube would indeed clean it up.

Regular charcoal does have the same properties, but at a much lower rate; GAC has something like 6xx units, and charcoal has ~30 units. So really only GAC is practical. Activated carbon is produced by introducing steam to carbon at super-high temperatures; Jack Daniels barrels are flash charred and then steam quenched to created an activated carbon layer on the interior of the barrels.

 

[JeanLucD]

This makes me think 'bout the turbo yeast I got in my garage right now which has a best before date sometime in 2004 - lol wonder if I should use it or not XD. I'd second the homedistiller.com forums too, but fretman124 is right, from lurking around the forum I can see that the people who frequent that forum aren't too welcoming to new people, as you might be if you were distilling illegally. Gotta love the NZ government sometimes eh denimglen.