Newbie Questions

[Spidermonkey]

Hi Guys,

I picked up a Turbo 500 at the weekend and am trying my first run of spirits. I put the sugar water mix on to ferment on Monday with the black Turbo Carbon liquid. I noticed on Tuesday that the ferment was very active and was generating its own heat and reached 36 Deg C for about 24 hrs. The next day there was still a lot of activity and the temp had droped to 34. This morning it had gotten down to 28 deg C and the activity is slow. Is this common?

The table on the back of the Turbo Yeast / nutrient pack seemed to indicate a top temp of 30 deg c. Will this affect the finished product?

[Tipsy]

Don't know much about turbo except they taste like shit so then the HBS can sell you carbon to clean it up.
The turbo yeasts were originally made for the fuel industry.

Most of the distilling community move on to different washes that taste a lot better and cost a heap less.
The only downside is the yield less.

Tomato paste wash

I'm making a Wheatbix wash I use all wheatbix citric acid and epsom salts with Lowans yeast.

Good luck with it.

[drsmurto]

I've got a 10L oak barrel full of whiskey at 65% abv from a 50/50 ale/peat brew fermented with SafWhisky dry yeast. 3 months so far. Sourced some oak dominoes and enocubes recently to experiment with different grains with the resulting spirit stored in clear glass flagons to watch the oak colour.

Never made spirit from sugar washes as they don't taste quite right to me.

[Tipsy]

Never made spirit from sugar washes as they don't taste quite right to me.

Sugar washes are usually used for making a neutral spirit. I use it for making macerations and sometime as a vodka substitute for drinks like Bloody Marys and lemon lime and bitters in summer. It's also great for making Kaluha type drinks for the missus.

The problem with the Tomato paste wash is that even though it is devoid of all flavour it tends to be a little "flat"
A lot of people are trying the wheatbix wash to try to get a bit of mouth feel.

I'd be interested in your results with the whisky Doc. I have been making an American sour mash corn whiskey. It has also been on oak dominoes for about 3 months.
I would really like to try something with peat.
How did you distill yours?

[drsmurto]

A brewing mate and I have been playing around with different peat levels, smoked malt, rye, corn etc. Mate has the still so he does most of the hard work.

Our experiments use glass bottles and oak dominoes/staves to get an idea of what does what rather than fill barrels which are costly.

Mainly whiskey, some bourbon and likely some gin soon.

Clean spirit comment was purely based on flavour additions which don't taste right. Adding fruit and other flavourings is very different.

[Tipsy]

Clean spirit comment was purely based on flavour additions which don't taste right. Adding fruit and other flavourings is very different.

Yeah, some of those essences are nasty.
I look forward to any comments on your oaking, it sounds like we are doing similar things.
A few distillers are playing around with aquarium pumps to help age their spirits quicker and are reporting good results.

Sorry for the thread hijack spidermonkey.

[CoGRedeMptioN]

Any updates on these 2 discussions?

[drsmurto]

Any updates on these 2 discussions?

I've tried 5 different recipes to date.

First was 50/50 medium peated malt/ale malt which went in to a barrel that we bought new and then filled once with bourbon (from a corn mash). It lasted 18 months in the barrel before we empited it.

Tried an all heavy peated malt which does pack a decent peat punch.

40/40/20 mix of medium peat/smoked/heavy peat

40/30/30 ale/rye/smoked

35/35/30 heavy peat/medium peat/dark malt extract

All very different but all very nice.

We've also distilled IPAs and IIPAs but each timer the resulting spirit contains quite a strong musk lolly flavour/aroma. It does dissipate a little with age and oak but I find it weird and not to my taste.

Still have 25kg of heavy peated malt which i plan on using up soon. I wasn't overly impressed with these spirits fresh but age and oak changes them completely and 2 years down the track i am getting in to them a lot. I can now really see the potential and have slowed my beer consumption down to allow me a tipple more often. Yet to try hungarian oak but am curious as to how this imparts flavour. Also planning on playing around with oak from wine to see what impact that has. Lots of fun and like beer I'm learning a lot. The still dragon still is just so easy to use and the mate who owns it has really worked out how to use it to get the best flavour in to the spirit. Gin is on the list of things to try.

[CoGRedeMptioN]

Nice!