Recipe Discussion

[SBB]

Shaggs for what its worth ....I decant mine to another fermenter using a syphone hose......let it settle for a few days, two days was the least Ive left it, Then bung it in ya still. I'm sure it helps if you have the patients to let it settle longer but as yet I haven't.
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[Shaggz]

Thanks alot for the information,

I think I will leave it a few more days then transfer it to a new fermenter, and wait ... (waiting is not one of my good points) Seeing I am using an air still, (waiting for my other still to arrive, however I think its been lost in the post!) I am hoping that this may produce a nicer run than my first effort which had turbo yeast, carbon and turbo clear, and the dreaded smell, not sure how it will go, but there is no harm in trying.

I tasted the wash when I tested the SG, and seemed dryish tasing to me, which from what I have read is good. Time will tell.

[Heffers]

I have seen the light, and the light was bloody bright.

Put my first TPW through the still last night and although the yield is nowhere near what I'm used to with turbos (nearly half as much) the finished product seems to be so much nicer even with only 24 hours air time.

I made 2 seperate washes as per instructions but with dextrose instead of sugar ( had it here so I used it up ). They sat for a bit over three weeks and then got run together through my relatively new still. Couldn't say what ABV I was taking at because I busted my alcometer the day before :roll: . It was coming out at 77c and when lit, was burning on my spoon with a small amount of residue and minimal yellowing of the flame so I estimate somwhere between 88% - 91%.

24 hours later - at a sniff there seems to be very little heads (maybe one stubby) and a bit of tails (maybe three or four stubbies) out of a total of 12 stubbies + 1 stubby of discarded foreshots. ( I'm still to master the whole smell testing of my cuts yet :? )

Does this yield sound about right for a TPW? The stubbies were the smaller premium type, that would make the yield from a double batch a little bit under 4L plus 335mL discarded foreshots. I'm not complaining about the lower yield as I do this for a better end product; I just wanted to make sure that I'm in the ball park.

Cheers, Heffers

[maheel]

sounds about right, i am lazy at the tails end and often just stop :)

water down your cuts to 40 ish and re-smell the middle hearts should b very clean if your in the 92%+ range imo :)

[SBB]

G'day Heffers
Like you Im pretty new to all this and could be completely wrong but heres my two bobs worth.
Dunno what sort of still your using, but using my T500 and a 27 L TPW I usually take 100ml of foreshots...they get chucked out.
the first two jars I keep are 200ml each. To me these two jars smell very sweet and have a faint almost pineapple smell to them after airing for 24-48 hours. I consider these heads and they go in the feints jar. The third jar of 200ml sometimes suffers the same fate but not always. By the forth jar of 200ml it seems to be smelling pretty good. Like you I always seem to get a lot more tails than heads. As Ive said somewhere before I don't have a lot of faith in my sense of smell so I usually get the Mrs to have a smell as well.....mostly we agree on what we can smell. We dont agree on much else so my nose cant be completely rooted :lol: . I think as you do this more times you kinda learn what your looking for and can smell it easier........or it seems that way to me.
As maheel has already said watering down to 40ish % seems to make the different smells stand out more.

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[Heffers]

Well I watered down my spirit today and had a sniff.

I started at the third bottle in and was pretty disappointed. Whilst it smelt pretty good at full strength when I watered it down it burnt my nostrils and smelt like rancid wine. They all smelt similar but to varying degrees. I have ended up with about 4.5L of 40% which I have had to put on carbon to see if I can clean it up. I started with two batches.

I bought a new alcometer today and most of the cuts were at 92%, what could have I done wrong?

Cheers, Heffers

[maheel]

mate you might be better off running it through the still again 1st instead of carbon?
but sounds like it is on the carbon already?

i like to strip mine on the pot then back again through the boka the 1st run via the pot can have a sweet smell from the wash but goes after the reflux run...

don't be worried maybe try another batch and see if any changes or the same.

depending on your location temp stability of the ferment is the next issue to think about with the colder nights now here....

[Heffers]

Thanks Maheel,

Yeah it's already on carbon.

I'm picking up an old fridge shortly so I'll set it up for fermenting and have another crack at the TPW wash.

Do you normally strip a few batches and then run the low wines all together or just strip the one batch, water it down and then run again?

Thanks again mate

[maheel]

i try to get two batches stripped then run them. the lower yields of TPW sort of needs you to do the 2 i reckon

but like i say in other posts i am lazy in the tails, once i get a good solid yield i cut my time losses and just keep say 5L of great hearts from the two batches.

the carbon should clean it up but i can see how you would be disappointed as we talk up TPW so much. I reckon it's better than turbo hands down and since making savage cuts i don't bother with carbon or reckon it needs it. (i think i have gotten fairly fussy as well and not drinking the crap i once did years ago)

only other ideas i would say is can you control the temps and maybe can you slow down you take off (more refluxing) and see how that goes next time
try to get the wash really clear before you run it i reckon helps
and try try again :)

[Heffers]

Yeah I'll keep trying for sure.

That was coming out of the still at about a litre an hour so I'll slow it down next time and see if makes a difference, aswell as trying all your other suggestions.

I tend to keep at things until I get good at them so this will bug me now until I get it right :roll:


Cheers, Heffers

[RyanS]

it's been a while since I last visited, this forum has really taken off nicely.

I have one of those 50L glass demijohns, how much wash should I ferment, 40 litres? I know you need some head room for both fermenting and distilling (50 lit. keg).

Does this recipe scale up proportionally, like how much sugar, tomato, paste and yeast for 40L?

[MacStill]

it's been a while since I last visited, this forum has really taken off nicely.

I have one of those 50L glass demijohns, how much wash should I ferment, 40 litres? I know you need some head room for both fermenting and distilling (50 lit. keg).

Does this recipe scale up proportionally, like how much sugar, tomato, paste and yeast for 40L?

You can scale up or down to your preferred wash size no problem at all, a 40L wash is fine for a 50L keg but you could squeeze 45L out of your demijohn and still leave enough headroom.

Cheers.

[busman]

I made my first batch of TPW yesterday, shit is this stuff easy to make! I used:

11kg sugar
500g jar tomato paste
juice of 3 small lemons
140g Lowans bakers yeast

I inverted 9kg of the sugar in boiling water with the lemon juice, added the tomato paste, filled the fermenter to 40L, checked the SG (1.09), then added the remaining sugar and water to 50L. Checked the SG again (still 1.09), pitched the yeast at 30 degrees. It took straight off, an hour later had about 2 inches of foam on top :mrgreen:

Pretty cool in these parts atm, inside the house is only about 15 degrees so I expect this one will take a while to ferment out.

[Johnboy1234]

Hi Guys n Gals

My very 1st TPW is just about ready to be degassed and left to settle for 2 days before going in the still. I just have one question, the wash is still quite RED, will that clear away when I leave it to sit for a couple of days, or do I just pour it into the still and not worry about the colour? I really dont want to stain my nice new still with the red.

Cheers
Johnboy

[rumby]

I have never had TPW still red, when it is ready, maybe a real slight orange/yellow, but not red. How long has it been fermenting for, it is pretty cold at the moment.

[maheel]

this is about the colour i always get in my wash before i still it

let it clear a bit longer if you can, even rack it to a 2nd fermenter then let it settle again

[SBB]

I don't worry to much about the color....If Im putting them straight into my reflux I rack it off into a spare fermenter and let it settle a few more days. Ive done washes that were still very orange and never had them stain my boiler. If Im stripping them first before refluxing I dont worry to much about letting them settle.

[Johnboy1234]

Hi

Thanks for the quick replies people, much appreciated.
The wash I guess isn't really red, more like a pinky red colour, no where near as red as it was when I put in the tomato paste, but definitely not a clear colour. The wash has been in for 14 days now and is about 1/4 inch from the 990 mark.

Question 1:
What does 'stripping them first before refluxing' mean?
Question 2:
What does 'even rack it to a 2nd fermenter' mean

Normally when a wash is finished I just siphon the wash from the fermenter to the still with a hose, and leave all the crap thats on the bottom and maybe 1-2 litres of wash thats at the bottom of the fementer, is it OK to do it this way or is there a better method.

Question 3:
I read that you do not need to carbon filter TPW, do I have to re-distill it through the still a 2nd time if it tastes bad or has colours in it.

[maheel]

strip means something like using a pot still head to distill it quick and then you run it again through your reflux slow to get a very clean spirit, you might run a lot of wash through your stripper then one big spirit run

eg 5 25L strips yielding 5X 5L of 40% all tipped back into the keg and refluxed at 95%

(this is what i do) but normally just 10L of spirit watered down in the keg and reflux it


racking is when you "drain" your wash into another fermenter, leaving most of the yeast in the 1st and then letting it settle in the second even more.
it's more a beer thing than a distilling thing, can help some washes but

i run my TPW twice as i often can "taste" the TPW in only one reflux run, i strip it with a pot head then run it in my boka all in my electric keg.
you have to experiment to see what you like best, you can also carbon it but i dont any more but i make pretty savage cuts
out of that 10L of 40% in the keg on my reflux run i may only keep 5L of "hearts" but thats just me
i dont like to keep tipping heads and tails back into the next wash, i sort of keep some and tip them in once in a strip run then dump them after 1 recycle

plenty of ways to do this but you have to find what makes you the best product you enjoy

if i wanted to drink shit i woudl just buy johnny walker red....

[rumby]

Johnboy,

I have never done any stripping runs, I just run the TPW through my reflux still at 95% if you are getting 94-95 % you dont need to filter it, (just linning the HBS pockets). In saying that majority of the guys on this site do strip all their washs, which has been explained to me in a time management system, which does end up saving you time, which is what I am going to doing with my mollasses washes (pot still them) when they are ready and I can see the benefit of running them twice (cleans them up). With stripping the aim is run thewash as quick as possible dont reflux at all.
If you are mixing your neutral with essence one run will be fine. I dont take cuts of my neutrals, because unfortunately I am still using HBS rum essence and I dont need the hearts etc., but those days are nearly up (come on mollasses washs) and real rum will be consumed.

I found when sometimes I asked heaps of question, I only understood 80 % of what the guys meant, so you just keep asking, I hadnt read a post yet, that didnt keep helping explaining to someone that is starting new things.