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Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 5:51 pm
by hoochlover
Sam. wrote:I would love to see you try a 200L wash with scaled up ingredients to see the results :handgestures-thumbupleft:


My biggest brew pot is only 85 litres hehe. But if you want to try it make sure you record the first 30 minutes as that is the most active foam period. ;)

I've got a 16% ABV wash going right now (small batch like my other tests), it's already consumed about 6g of CO2 in one hour which is pretty good, similar to the 8% wash so far. I wonder when it's going to slow down. When it gets to ~52g of CO2 lost it should be finished, so it's already ~12% finished in one hour. Which is actually very similar to the 4% wash too. So it seems the sugar concentration is having almost no effect on early stage of production.

When the ethanol content goes up this must be when the production starts to slow. So you can throw one myth away already that the sugar concentration itself has an impact on yeast, at least when you pitch a lot it doesn't seem to.

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:17 pm
by Sam.
Give a 50L a crack then :D

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 11:15 pm
by Thelegion
here is a link to a neat little read on red star, who knew?

http://www.lsaf.com/who-we-are/history-red-star

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:52 pm
by hoochlover
I'm running a 16% brew atm using the same thing I used for my 8% brew, except just doubling the sugar. Some interesting things to take out of this so far.

1) At about 10-12% ABV the solution started to dissolve all the foamy shit on top. This amount of ethanol seems the right amount to quickly break down the E491 emulsifier which lingers on the surface of the brew, along with some dead yeast.
2) It was about 12% concentration when the yeast started powering down and the rate of CO2 release became slower and slower. Likely due to this increased dissolving. I think it got to 12% in 10 hours or so. And it needed another ~8 hours to get to 16%.
3) It finished consuming all the sugar in about 18 hours. So yes, 16% abv in ~18 hours at 30 degrees.
4) After finishing consuming the sugar the yeast are still going! How? Likely by eating themselves. The higher ethanol of the brew seems to be breaking down some of the yeast cell walls . This has kept the CO2 coming at a much lower rate now for an extra 6 hours, and doesn't seem like it's going to stop for at least another couple.

So the takeaway from just this one experiment proves a lot of what most distillers already know. Going to a higher ABV results in more fusels/esters because more yeast is destroyed which releases their unwanted contents in your brew. It also helps the fermentation linger longer than it needs to because the yeast are in this cycle of eating each other, increasing abv, more yeast die, they eat them, and so on. Which means it takes longer to settle, longer to settle also increases the chance of more yeast death and more unwanted crap in the brew.
At least for this bakers yeast you don't want to be going over 12% in my opinion, or even near 12%. This likely applies to all dried yeast in general because that E491 is going to get dissolved into your brew instead of just floating there, along with a bunch of other crap you likely don't want in there. Like most people on this site have already said many times it seems 10% is your safest top limit if you don't want so much extra crap dissolved. Even 10 may be too high. More investigation needed.

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 2:56 am
by hoochlover
It turns out 120g of sugar and 400ml of water isn't 16% like I thought but 14.9% according to wash calculators. I ended up with 15.35% according to the hydrometer.

120gsugar-alc.jpg

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 3:15 am
by hoochlover
Here is 120g vs 60g sugar. The 60g is tailing off due to lack of sugar and being nearly finished whilst 120g still going strong by 6 hour mark.

120gvs60g-co2.jpg

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:56 am
by Thelegion
how much yeast did you use?
(ok I see it in the second chart)

TL..

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 1:16 pm
by Aussiedownunder01
The bird in Coles checkout said you blokes must be baking a lot of bread :oops:

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 4:20 pm
by Thelegion
Aussiedownunder01 wrote:The bird in Coles checkout said you blokes must be baking a lot of bread :oops:


I just bought 6kg demerara and a pound of yeast and the 6 Chinese ahead of me all looked, the older lady in the family just looked at me said something in Chinese and smiled at me. Do you think she knew what I was up to?? :D

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 4:36 pm
by hoochlover
Thelegion wrote:
Aussiedownunder01 wrote:The bird in Coles checkout said you blokes must be baking a lot of bread :oops:


I just bought 6kg demerara and a pound of yeast and the 6 Chinese ahead of me all looked, the older lady in the family just looked at me said something in Chinese and smiled at me. Do you think she knew what I was up to?? :D


Haha yep. When you start buying odd amounts of certain things, and just those things people do give you a look. One time I went late-ish at night to woolworths to pick up a lot of bleach and a mop, "Have a good night....."

I bought about 40kg of sugar from woolies once and the people behind me seemed bothered by it. Donno, I can understand buying lots of sugar more than I can the people who buy 100xsmall tin cat food and take 15 minutes to process because they have all sorts of varieties of them.

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 4:38 pm
by hoochlover
Aussiedownunder01 wrote:The bird in Coles checkout said you blokes must be baking a lot of bread :oops:


I've gone through about 10x280g cans so far in testing. I donno I have this feeling Lowans or something is eventually going to catch onto what we are doing and up the prices or change their yeast strain. Maybe we'll eventually see the "metho" effect in bakers yeast, where they add something which when combined with 10% alcohol turns it into something undrinkable. The stuff they are doing to the natives in the Northern Territory is bordering on police state.

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 4:53 pm
by Thelegion
:laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:56 pm
by 1 2many
hoochlover wrote:The stuff they are doing to the natives in the Northern Territory is bordering on police state.


Yes and they have to. Very strict rules for alcohol in NT, must have ID to purchase alcohol only certain times to buy spirits. and the list goes on.

They even put additives in the petrol so it cannot be consumed.

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 8:58 pm
by hoochlover
1 2many wrote:
hoochlover wrote:The stuff they are doing to the natives in the Northern Territory is bordering on police state.


Yes and they have to. Very strict rules for alcohol in NT, must have ID to purchase alcohol only certain times to buy spirits. and the list goes on.

They even put additives in the petrol so it cannot be consumed.


Why do they have to? If people are dumb enough to drink and drug themselves into oblivion I'm not really sure why we should stop them. If anything we should help them achieve their goal of death sooner as it would cost less to the taxpayers. It's why I support legalization of all drugs ;) It's a shame the concept of self responsibility has disappeared, in the country you still feel that is alive but as a whole, the western nations of the world are turning into a bunch of flowers.

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 9:03 pm
by hoochlover
My epsom test on the new gear. Seems I was wrong about the epsom quantity contributing to speed. The epsom certainly helps keep the foam down, I've witnessed this in the last test. The bubbles with anything that has epsom in it are bigger, whilst the no epsom test had very fine bubbles that quickly grouped together into a foam mountain. However if you could keep the foam similar among all batches all the time I have a feeling in this test there would be little difference between 0.0g epsom and 0.25g epsom. So it almost seems an unneeded ingredient when you use so much yeast....besides the help to foam it brings which can help speed if you aren't stirring it constantly.

Some new things to ponder.

epsom-test-30gsugar.jpg

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:14 pm
by 1 2many
hoochlover wrote:
1 2many wrote:
hoochlover wrote:The stuff they are doing to the natives in the Northern Territory is bordering on police state.


Yes and they have to. Very strict rules for alcohol in NT, must have ID to purchase alcohol only certain times to buy spirits. and the list goes on.

They even put additives in the petrol so it cannot be consumed.


Why do they have to? If people are dumb enough to drink and drug themselves into oblivion I'm not really sure why we should stop them. If anything we should help them achieve their goal of death sooner as it would cost less to the taxpayers. It's why I support legalization of all drugs ;) It's a shame the concept of self responsibility has disappeared, in the country you still feel that is alive but as a whole, the western nations of the world are turning into a bunch of flowers.



:angry-tappingfoot: Straight over your head, :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead:

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:19 pm
by hoochlover
Here are a couple more pics from my latest test.

The wash colour differences

epsom-test-washcolor.jpg


Foam breakdown

washbreakdown.jpg


Bubble difference with epsom

epsombubbles.jpg

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:26 pm
by TasSpirits
hoochlover, just wondering if you have considered a micro still for testing final product of all these experiments? Maybe a small lab still or something. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:51 pm
by hoochlover
TasSpirits wrote:hoochlover, just wondering if you have considered a micro still for testing final product of all these experiments? Maybe a small lab still or something. :handgestures-thumbupleft:


I have considered it yeah. But I'll be doing most of my taste/flavour tests with bigger batches. I feel like you can't get a good representation of that with smaller batches. I'm basically looking to maximize the hearts and minimize heads and tails. I can learn so much more about the whole process by doing so many tests that would take me a lot longer if I just did large, slow batches.

Until I'm well experienced with my SS rig I'm not going to be making any judgements about a wash. It's quite possible none of what I'm doing with the yeast will matter on my still. When it comes to the art of distilling I'm still quite a newbie so I don't want to step into commenting on the quality of a wash until I have more experience. Right now I'm just measuring performance and doing some basic tests on the quality of the wash. I just have a curious mind and when I can't find the information through other sources I just like to find it out another way if I can. Yeast is good because it's relatively cheap to experiment with it.

Re: Lowans bread yeast

PostPosted: Sun Oct 18, 2015 11:17 am
by Thelegion
Here is a yeast only ferment just started an hour ago.

sg is 1.08+, 1 cup fleichman's (quick rise) pitched @ 40c