Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hello, so I'm still new to all of this and I've been experimenting with yeasts.

How much yeast to use?
What type of Yeast to use?

I understand it all comes down to what you're trying to achieve but I understand it's important and don't want to get it wrong again.

I've been doing some research and I'm looking for a Yeast that's tolerant in cooler conditions as I simply don't have the heating available to maintain a higher temp and my location isn't at all conducive to warmer weather. Some of the yeasts I've found are:

- Still Spirits Power 23 Turbo Yeast
- Still Spirits Triple Distilled Turbo Yeast
- Still Spirits Classic Turbo Yeast

These all look like standard commerical yeasts that are popular. I'd like to know if anyone has had experience with using these yeasts in Cooler temps or if anyone can recommend other "underground/uncommon" yeasts that operate in a cooler environments.

Your help is appreciated.

I use bottom fermenting larger yeasts in un heated 60Lt fermenters in winter, simply wrapped up with a duna and let run.

Ambient in spare room mid winter 8 -12c. Yeast temp range 9 - 15c...takes longer but just stage 2 or 4 fermenters either a week or forntnight apart.

To reduce costs pull a litre from an active ferment and store in fridge, repitch or fire it up witha yeast bomb type starter....that way you'll get 4 -12 fermenter runs from single packet start.
bt1

Hey mate, depends what your brewing?. I do mainly the TPW and rum, i live in melbourne and its forever cold here lol. I've used nothing but lowmans bakers yeast with no additional heating, temps have been varying between 4c-20c and never had a problem. Takes a little longer to ferment but i think that can be a good thing in some instances as the yeast gets time to do its job completly. I use around 70-90g for 23L wash. When i was brewing beer i tried faster active yeasts and never got the same resolt as slower larger type yeasts, seem to get much more flavor and alc content. Good luck.

OK - so I'm using doing simple Sugar and Yeast washes for now. I did do a TPW using paste and the recipe also included Citric Acid. I used simple bakers yeast and took over 3 weeks to ferment. I'm really just putting together washes to get neutral so I can play around with Schnapps and other Liquors. I've got a 25 litre fermenter and the last few batches have averaged between 18-22c.

Most common yeasts are pretty good. If you use water that is in the mid to high 20's to start you wash, you will find it will keep going ok most of the time. Putting it in a warm room will help. Wrap in something- an old ski jacket works well for a 25 litre.
If you are off grid, you might even have a wood fire running when its cold, place the fermenter close by.
If you have power, a fish tank heater works well.
Turbo yeast may not be the best to use indoors- it stinks.

And if you are doing rum or UJSSM bourbon, the heat from the backset is about all you need to get the next batch up and dancing.

Thanks for the information. What I think I'll do is buy different types of yeasts and measure the results to see what works out better for me.

Howdy,

Some good info here to shortcut the learning curve

btw citric in a TPW is over kill tommy paste is acidic enough being around 4 - 4.5Ph....would stress the yeast by adding citric which mainly used only to invert the sugars or acidify a neutral Ph grain based wash to yeast pref around 5 - 5.5Ph.

save your self a dollar and drop turbo yeasts there's far better out there at a fraction of the cost.

enjoy!

bt1