Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi wise persons. I'm doing 8kg dextrose and SS Classic Turbo yeast 25 litre washes (novice indicator number 46?) and when fermented I use the SS Turbo Clear as per instructions. Thing is, it says to firstly "stir the wash vigorously to remove all the gas" before adding finings A. Well, I do and today for about 10 minutes or so I reckon (till my arm almost stopped working :( ) but it still seems to fizz for a little bit on the suface every time I stop stirringl Do you really have to keep stirring until the slight fizz stops? I assumed today (and on the previous wash) that the bloody stuff would keep fizzing a bit if I belt it around with a stirring spoon regardless of duration......but we all know what happens when we assume :) All tips/timings (even jokes at my expense) etc welcome
Thanks...Frank

Hi Frank,

Everything you said sounds about right, I doubt you'll ever stir all the fizz out, it's just de gassing and eventually you'll be stirring more air back in and aerating it.

Just give it a brisk quick stir to degass most of the gas out then stick your turbo clear in.

An even better solution if you've got time is just let it clear over time, you can pour everything except the sludge (this is called racking) into another container and just leave it for a week and it'll clear all by itself.

Also you'd be better off if you absolutely must use turbo's too back off on the sugar/dextrose, say for a 25L wash use 5kg sugar and cut the turbo pkt in half, it wont ferment out in 48hrs but you'll end up with a lot better product, even if your yield is down a bit...... but I aim for quality, not quantity.

You should try the tomato paste wash, it's heaps cheaper and gives you a great product, much less off tastes than the turbo's.

Cheers.

Hi Frank,
How did this turn out? Do you normally use dextrose or sugar, if you have used both, have you noticed any or much difference in the time taken for fermenting, or the final product. I am keen to hear your experience. I have my first ever batch in the fermenter right now using dextrose and triple distilled turbo yeast, but bought 6 kilos of normal sugar today for my next run. I haven't decided yet which yeast to try, possibly the alcotech vodkastar.

Regards

Hi Audistiller (and a belated welcome to this fine forum BTW :oops: )

mate when I did Turbo washes it was with dextrose mainly as 1. thats what the LHBS said/sold and 2. at the time, I was very much a Learner, so WTF.....

For the little while I used Turbos, I wasn't aware of too much diff re sugar vs dextrose except sugar is less $ and a bit harder to dissolve. They both took similar ferment times (given set temps) and smelt/fizzed/'worked' similarly. Mind you, I am not into this for the science, perhaps others can clarify specifics???

Anyway, (as McStill says here and MANY others on similar forum threads) however you go, the 'idea' IMHO is to not stress the yeast too much during its fermentation period. This means low/medium temps, reasonable sugar/dextrose to water ratios and :whistle: considering yeasts that take time to fully complete their job.....that means, whilst the fermented wash may be a little less ABV% and/or volume when finished and take a little longer, the 'quality' (ie smell, taste profile etc) is usually much better, everytime.

FYI, for a long while now I have used TPW or DWWG or WPOSW recipes with white sugar and, mainly Lowans Red bakers yeast and its all more than fine IMHO and relatively inexpensive too. I know Qld.Andy used/uses VodkaStar lots and he's happy with the results (cue: Andy comments ;-) ) so your call
....and perhaps consider searching old threads here on this subject ....they sure can help too, much more than I.

Hope this answers ya question anyhow.............. :think:

Hey Frank,

Thanks for that. I know there are quite a few variables when using either sugar or dextrose, different yeasts, temperature etc, but I just wanted to see how yours turned out. As a beginner, I am going to start at the bottom, and work my way up once I have a grip on various things. Today I bought a sachet of the VodkaStar Turbo yeast to try, going on what I have read here, although I was told today the VodkaStar has trouble with anymore than 5 or 6 kilos of sugar. I will try the TPW and other variations in time, but I want to master the basics first.

I have 6 kilos of dextrose, and the Triple Distilled Turbo yeast fermenting right now, and I bought 6 kilos of white sugar yesterday, so I will start another run tomorrow with the white sugar and the VodkaStar, as I bought another fermenter today also.

Edit: I actually added a bit more dextrose than 6 kilos, after nothing happening with my fermenter after 6 hours, I decided to try something to kickstart it, so I added about 250 grams of white sugar, and then about 500 grams more of dextrose. It appears to be fermenting away fine now, so I think it will turn out fine. I don't know about mixing dextrose and sugar, maybe I could be onto a new wild strain after fermentation. :laughing-rolling:

Regards

You need about 10% more dextrose than table sugar to reach the same gravity in my experience.

That's ok if you are getting dextrose cheaper than sugar, but if not then there is very little reason to use it. If you are paying brew shop prices then stop. There is nothing at all you need in a brew shop except hydrometers.

5Star wrote:That's ok if you are getting dextrose cheaper than sugar,

How does $39 for a 25kg bag of dextrose sound?
Yesterday I paid about $4.09 for 2kg of white sugar at IGA, so in my case it works out cheaper and better, though I do understand what your saying 5Star.

Dunno, i buy raw sugar in 25 kg sacks for $20-25 delivered.

I was getting dextrose for nothing, which was good for my kit and kilo beer but not worth chasing up now i'm doing allgrain 8-)

audistiller wrote:

5Star wrote:That's ok if you are getting dextrose cheaper than sugar,

How does $39 for a 25kg bag of dextrose sound?
Yesterday I paid about $4.09 for 2kg of white sugar at IGA, so in my case it works out cheaper and better, though I do understand what your saying 5Star.

$39 is pretty good I reckon, cheapest I have seen it is for $50 for 25kg from beerbelly in Adelaide, old mates at Brewshaft want $60 for a 25kg bag.

Malthouse on Welshpool Road in WA currently has 25kg bags of Dextrose on special until the end of April for $39.

Thats a pretty good price for Dex over here, Sugar is still cheaper!

I used Dex for a while but gave up on it, no better IMHO
I have tried most of the Turbos with varying amounts of sugar and settled on the Vodka Star with 6kg white sugar and 21lt water.
I also tried for a while the TPW but found the mouth feel too dry for my liking.
Edit to add: here are my thoughts; viewtopic.php?f=28&t=292

Have you tried reusing the yeast after fermentation finished from a Vodka Star wash to do a TPW.

No I havent, I dont think I would want to carry across the taste

My first 6kg White Sugar wash has just finished, and there is a dirty ring around the water level and above it, the wash I did before this was using Dextrose, it is much cleaner on the inside of the fermenter than the Sugar one and no ring around the water line, same yeast same process.

Stuffed if I know.

its just from the yeast bubbling up during the ferment ;-)

yeah it's mostly just a yeast ring

DEX "should" give a little cleaner ferment than white sugar as it's "purer" and been modified cleaner than sugar

but IMO it does not achieve a better result worth buying more expensive the DEX

The cheapest I can get 25kg bags of white sugar is $36.00 which is in Bayswater (Perth), but I can get 25kg bags of Dextrose for $39.00 and only have to travel half as far. So for only a $3.00 price difference, for me the Dextrose is a better option all round. From all the information I have read, and the cost of Dextrose aside, it is a better product for fermentation.

Like some of you have said, the cheapest you have seen Dextrose is $50 or $60 for a 25kg bag, if I had to pay that much, obviously White Sugar would be a far cheaper option, and that's what I would buy.

Something that you might like to know if you are in the Bayside Suburbs of Brisbane... The Home Brew Shop in Cleveland (4/69 Shore St West, Cleveland QLD 4161) is selling their 25Kg bulk bags of Dextrose for only $40.00 which breaks down to $1.60 per Kg and as that's not to much more expensive than buying plain old sugar from Aldi or Woolies I am happy with using Dextrose in my washes, you will also find that when using still spirits Turbo Power23 as directed on the packet you should be using dextrose and this will help you to achieve a wash that you can conservatively get 1100ml of 50% spirit or 1400ml of 40% base spirit. If you are able to buy your yeast in bulk from the Discount Home Brew Warehouse website like I do, I can get 10 packets delivered to my home for $70.00 with 10 packs of turbo carbon and 10 packs of turbo clear for 77.50 plus $27.50 postage so to break it all down and do some number crunching it would cost me (without electricity) $2.45 per litre of 40% base spirit (this figure uses current pricing from their website with shipping to postcode 4184 and pick up of dextrose from my local brew shop) naturally you will have to pay more to add various flavours to the base spirit and for filtering of the spirit but this gives you a brief idea of how cost effective it can be to buy in bulk.

Or you could pay $2 a litre for TPW, and not have to filter it...