stuck ferment

[bracconiere]

hey @Jayjay1976 got a quick hypothetical for you....


if i were to add 25lbs of sugar and about 1lb rice bran/wheat germ tea to ~10 gallons of water with the sugar....and i only had baker's yeast or cheap brewer's yeast to ferment with..


and then they posted a thread about a stuck ferment at ~10-11% ABV...but the wash was still at 1.037...they say it's just going to get covered up with a couple jars of kool-aid mix in the keg anyway, taste ain't important...

would you tell them to run it now, and when it's done just dump the extra wash back in the ferment...all the free boiled are just free nutes....or dump it after you only get 3 kegs out of what should have been 4?

 

[bracconiere]

well i added some wine yeast...it's up to 13.4%ABV now...

 

[bracconiere]

you know i ain't trolling...it's in a 16 gallon fermenter...i could add more water to dillute it? think that would fly?...boiler is 7 gallons so could do two 6 gallons runs?

 

[El Whedo]

If ya mixed 25# sugar with ten gallons of water you should have a wash of 12 gallons that will ferment out dry to roughly 14 and a half % abv.

If ya mixed 25# sugar TO MAKE a ten gallon wash ya used a wee bit more than eight gallons of water, for a ten gallon wash that will ferment out to roughly seventeen and a half % abv.

I don't know what rice bran, or wheat germ will do to foaming levels during boiling, but a standard sugar wash is the LEAST foaming I've ever encountered, short of very oily mashes, like some organic oat mashes. So six gallons in a seven gallon boiler should be safe/fine.

I think yer idea of watering down yer wash is a good one. Let it finish, split it, run both halves, take conservative cuts, combine them. Add about 25% water to yer distillate, and run one final time slowly with very liberal cuts.

Yer finished product (with good cuts) will be better than store bought vodka. (And cheaper.)

I wish ya luck!

PS/afterthought: 8-10 %abv washes can be cranked out super fast and tend to be much cleaner. All I can tell ya is the idea that "distillation cleans up dirty product" is false. Clean wash/mash makes clean product. If ya ferment stuff to way over 10% abv ya might as well leave it on the yeast cake for a few extra weeks to clean it up a bit. An eight percent abv wash/mash ferments out like wildfire, and can be run immediately. Food for thought.

PPS/afterafterthought: This is all assuming yer using a pot still. If yer using a fractionating column, ask elsewhere.

 

[bracconiere]

If ya mixed 25# sugar with ten gallons of water you should have a wash of 12 gallons that will ferment out dry to roughly 14 and a half % abv.

If ya mixed 25# sugar TO MAKE a ten gallon wash ya used a wee bit more than eight gallons of water, for a ten gallon wash that will ferment out to roughly seventeen and a half % abv.

I don't know what rice bran, or wheat germ will do to foaming levels during boiling, but a standard sugar wash is the LEAST foaming I've ever encountered, short of very oily mashes, like some organic oat mashes. So six gallons in a seven gallon boiler should be safe/fine.

I think yer idea of watering down yer wash is a good one. Let it finish, split it, run both halves, take conservative cuts, combine them. Add about 25% water to yer distillate, and run one final time slowly with very liberal cuts.

Yer finished product (with good cuts) will be better than store bought vodka. (And cheaper.)

I wish ya luck!

PS/afterthought: 8-10 %abv washes can be cranked out super fast and tend to be much cleaner. All I can tell ya is the idea that "distillation cleans up dirty product" is false. Clean wash/mash makes clean product. If ya ferment stuff to way over 10% abv ya might as well leave it on the yeast cake for a few extra weeks to clean it up a bit. An eight percent abv wash/mash ferments out like wildfire, and can be run immediately. Food for thought.

PPS/afterafterthought: This is all assuming yer using a pot still. If yer using a fractionating column, ask elsewhere.

yeah this wasn't a smooth batch....but i'm just going to water it back down with kool-aid for alco pop....

(i just dumpped the sugar onto my last beer's yeast cake. topped up with water to the 10 gallon or so level...was thinking the yeast would mix the sugar into the water on it's own....sorta worked...but only 50%

i'll check it today see how the added water worked....

 

[bracconiere]

well there's a gallon of ~60%, another planned for today, so dilluting seems to have worked! yay!

 

[bracconiere]

got another gallon...so all worked out....just took an extra hour per at 13%, 6 gallons...

at any rate i bought myself a bit of time to avoid smoking InBev ****, ....now to use my multi use bath tub for malting, instead of cooling....(but i don't bathe, and it needs to be used for SOMETHING! )