Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Sitting here in a bit of a northerly blow I looked down at the beach and thought "Seaweed" - Lots of kelp being washed up

A bit of research on its makeup and I came up with a great idea - how would it work as a yeast nutrient along the lines of my spinach trial

Anyone tried it ? - I am not expecting much response from those inland on our "west island" (also known as Australia) but the Japanese love it for its nutrition so those of you on the coast may have considered it.

My only concern it the sodium.

Any thoughts?

Only one way to find out for sure mate ;-)

sodium you could take care of by fine chop and boil.

Residual flavour be my main concern perhaps on a dark rum but hey someone's gotta have a crack to know :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bt1

I know a guy that used seaweed in a beer recipe and it was foul.

I'm with the others, just have a crack and see what you think.

dried seaweed sold in Asian food supermarkets was recalled after it was found to have high levels of iodine

Why Iodine is vital to our life.

That is why all domestic salt has it

Trial is underway dehydrating a pile now ready to powder.

I accept the foul beer bit but I am hoping the flavour may not carry over via a double distillation.

Will report in due course

Good man, keep us posted

Glad you are doing this, I had heard mention of seaweed a few times on other sites a while back, but I don't remember anyone ever testing it

I do remember someone suggesting to blanch the seaweed in fresh hot waster to help rinse and salts prior to drying
but I have NFI myself

I plan to do two runs
One with the seaweed dehydrated after being rinsed in cold fresh water and the other with the seaweed being boiled for a short time before dehydrating.

Heat will destroy some vitamins and nutrients while others will stay active.

Further to that I have done a taste test prior to dehydrating
The unboiled weed was still salty and had a strong flavour to it.

However the other batch, boiled for 5 minutes then rinsed in cold water, had very little flavour - closer to spinach or lettuce. It also changed from the brown colour to a nice fresh green while the water became brown.

Both dehydrating now.


I am taking a lead from the Japanese who use seaweed widely in their cuisine - think sushi and miso soup.

Trial run is underway.

I had only enough sugar on hand for one batch so am running the boiled seaweed one.
Kept to same routine as my Popeye experiment.
I was a little concerned about the effect the iodine may have on the yeast but at this stage all is happy. (As the ladies may know Iodine is used to treat yeast infections)

It started very quickly (1st bubble though the airlock within 5 minutes and built up steadily.

Now after 24 hours she is producing a solid burp per second and a nice krausen cap has formed.

The weed powder, when rehydrated 10g in 100ml water, formed a thick paste about the consistency of Tomato paste.

It spread evenly through the wash with a dark green collar at the bottom. This seems to be to the liking of the bottom working yeast as there is a steady stream of rising and falling particles.

pH was a little low at the start at 3.9 so a bit of powdered egg shell was added to raise it.

Ist impressions are - a good ferment :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The real test will be how it finishes, clears and what flavour carries over. :happy-partydance:

48 Hours in and starting to slow

Cap has fallen Starting to lose colour

I wont test until bubbles slow right up but certainly look like a fast ferment at this stage

:puke-huge: i hate that iodine taste in my spirits haha.
there isnt any single malt Islay scotch that i can enjoy because of the iodine taste.
will be interesting to hear how this goes

Andy wrote::puke-huge: i hate that iodine taste in my spirits haha.
there isnt any single malt Islay scotch that i can enjoy because of the iodine taste.
will be interesting to hear how this goes

:text-+1: tastes like band aids to me :puke-huge:

But if it doesn't come over in the end it may be a winner :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Progress report:

The trial fermented dry to 990. It took longer than the spinach but kept plugging away to finish in just under 13 days.

Have racked it off and now letting it clear

A taste test reveals no discernible seaweed flavour although the larger trial to be done soon will be more revealing as the 4 litre ferment is a bit small to strip.

I have however proven that the nutrients are more than sufficient in the seaweed alone

I will keep progress posted.

Sorry to drag up a very old thread but umm, what happened here?

Teddysad what happened with SEAWEED?

Fermented a couple of full batches.
However the end result was not so good flavourwise and I moved on to other things FFV and spinach (popeye gin)