Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

hi all, im not sure what, or if, im doing anything wrong. My last 2 tpw washes have had quiet a harsh ferment and overflowed!!.
im following the tpw recipe exactly. im making a 25L wash in a 30L fermenter-
-84g of tandco yeast
-200g of the no added salt leggos tomato paste
-5kg of sugar
-1/2 tsp of citric acid.

I never seal the lids too tight otherwise it just blows the water out of the airlock, i generally tighten the lid until it bubbles once every 5-10 seconds.

but my last 2 washes have overflowed through the airlock overnight on the 1st day and made a horrible mess. the first wash i cleaned up the outside of the barrel and then gave it a good sloshing around to get all of the tomato paste foam back into the wash...2 weeks on and its still bubbling/fermenting away?? the second wash went down yesterday and exploded last night. the lid and airlock was completely full of wash from where it had overflowed. so again i cleaned up the outside and gave the fermenter a slosh around to get all the foamy stuff back into the wash.

i took my first wash off the heat pad at the end of 2 weeks, yesterday (still fermenting)
i keep them wrapped up in a towel on the heat pad, in my laundry for the first 2 weeks and then they come off to clear for the last week. could they possibly getting too warm with the towel on the heat pad causing them to have a somewhat explosive fermentation?

Looks like you have over filled it. You need to have 3-4" inches of headspace as the TPW tend to foam up
Don't use air locks or even the lids of fermenter mate just cover with glad wrap and poke a few holes in it :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I do this wash the same in 30L fermenters filled to 25L line and have no problem :think:

I use the 30 litre fermenter's as well and I use the glad wrap held on with the rubber seal out of the lid and I have no problem with overflowing fermentation. 25 litre total volume of wash in the 30 litre fermenter never had a problem. Mabey try Lowans red tin yeast not tandaco brand next time. I use it for every tpw and never had a problem.

How hot did it get?

Apart from having to clean up the mess it's not a problem, just means it is a strong ferment :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Well i use this exact same barrels etc too with lids and airlocks and never have an overdlow the only thing u use diffrent to me is i use the lowans yeast... maybe thats where its getting jiggy could give lowans a go next time if available and see what the result is... lol goodluck with the clean up

im not too sure exactly how hot it got, as it happened overnight. ive used the same ingredients and technique for 3 tp washes prior to the first one that overflowed? hence my confusion.

i know a drop of olive oil can be used in the still to prevent washes from bubbling/boiling over. would it possibly work the same in the fermenter?

I would treat tandaco like ec1118 and rehydrate a small amount. 85 grams may be to much and could put them in overdrive

I use the tandaco yeast and have never had a problem with overflows 25l in a 30l fermenter is just right maybe cut the heat back a lil bit. it will ferment hard when its hot my summer ferments are a lot stronger compaired to my winter ones

Also i have used it just by tippin it in and rehydratin its fine both ways


Happy stillin

yeah i normally just tip the yeast in once everything is mixed together. i just remembered that on my very first washes (not the affected overflowing ones) i didnt use the no added salt tomato paste, they still fermented ok (i had nothing to compare them to though, as they were my first tpw's), but no-where near as well as these last 2 lol :music-deathmetal: .

i checked the temp on the fermenter the morning it had overflowed and it was 34-36deg, 2 days later its now seeming to have very little, to no activity, and the temp is at 24 deg. i gave it a stir thismorning (day 4) but still not a whole lot happening tonight, im lucky to see the airlock bubble once every couple of minutes. i cant remember if my previous wash did the same thing- and then kickstarted itself later on, but at the moment its been 18 days since my first overflowing wash went down, and its now off the heat pad and still bubbling away. is this normal? the first washes i did without the no added salt tomato paste were all but clear by this stage.

ill be putting another wash down this weekend, so ill try it without wrapping it up in a towel. i may also ditch the lid+airlock and go down the gladwrap route :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Have you a hydrometer Test the SG that will tell you if it is done.
The bubbles you see now may be just the CO2 slowly coming out of suspension

nice new avatarTeddysad.
Teddysad looks like Teddydrunk lol looks happy drunk

ty

i checked the sg on both of my overflowed washes thismorning
wash 1 - 19 days, sg is 1000, moderate activity, no heating
wash 2 - 5 days, sg is 1015, low activity, currently on heat pad, took the insulating towel off last night and checked the temp thismorning, it was 22-24deg?

wash 1 only had a very small puddle around the airlock when i awoke to find it had overflowed
wash 2 literally filled the lid when it overflowed

Could wash 2 have got a little too hot overnight and killed the yeast resulting in its current state of very little activity, or could it have an infection? wash 2 has been done in a brand new fermenter which i cleaned thoroughly prior to mixing up the current wash in it.

I will be mixing up wash 3 on sunday in another brand new fermenter which has also been thoroughly cleaned. im a little hesitant to go down the gladwrap road with the next one given how explosive wash 2 was.

Here are the 2 fermenters i use and have no problem with




both filled to 25L line. My last washes were WBABW and i filled to 29L line and had minimal wash in the air lockbut i have hoses connected to these to take the smell outside so spillage isnt a concern really for me :D

What fermenter are you using? size or shape may play a part in this :think:

im using the exact same fermenter that you have shown in the second pic...just the generic HBS fermenter???

maybe there was an extra sachet or 2 of yeast in the 84g tandaco box? maybe my woolies homebrand $1.80 per kg sugar is like kryptonite? maybe im just being too nice to the wash by wrapping it up in a towel and keeping it in my laundry on a heat pad.

or...

maybe my pregnant wife is getting up in the middle of the night and spooning it into the airlock and lid, having high hopes that i will spit the dummy at having to clean up the mess of an unknown cause and then throw all my homebrew equipment in the bin!?!?! wife> :violence-stickwhack: <me

Turtl3 wrote:im using the exact same fermenter that you have shown in the second pic...just the generic HBS fermenter???

maybe there was an extra sachet or 2 of yeast in the 84g tandaco box? maybe my woolies homebrand $1.80 per kg sugar is like kryptonite? maybe im just being too nice to the wash by wrapping it up in a towel and keeping it in my laundry on a heat pad.

or...

maybe my pregnant wife is getting up in the middle of the night and spooning it into the airlock and lid, having high hopes that i will spit the dummy at having to clean up the mess of an unknown cause and then throw all my homebrew equipment in the bin!?!?! wife> :violence-stickwhack: <me

:laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:
Pregnant women do do strange things :teasing-tease:
If i ever had to choose fermenters in a line up the shorter ones are the go as in pic 1 of wtd. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

well yesterdays wash didnt overflow last night :handgestures-thumbupleft: .my guess is that having them wrapped up in a towel aswel as being on the heatpad might have got the first 2 wash's a little too warm with the added natural heat from the ferment causing the 'explosive' reaction. ive also used the gladwrap trick this time instead of the lid+airlock but i doubt that would have made a difference. so from now on, no towel for the first 3 days :-D

i dont wrap mine up untill the second or third night unless its cold. i also dont have heating pads. do you wrap yours up right away?

i did wrap them up straight away, but now i wont. it does get pretty chilly down this way, but they are kept inside. ambient temp inside wouldnt get much lower the 10-15c at most.