by Stoney » Sat Sep 06, 2014 12:20 am
I have only looked at the recipe and read the first couple of pages. I started with rads gerber? wash using a baby porridge from coles, turned out ok but after that I started using weetbix as I had a stale box in the cupboard.
Been running 2 a week for the last 6 weeks or so, tried more sugar, more yeast, more TP but the one I keep coming back to for speed and simplicity ..
I am on rain water here, ymmv..
10litres hot tap water in bucket/fermenter.
chuck in 4 weetbix, don't even crush em any more.
1 tbsp TP (aldi stuffs cheap)
1 tsp epsom salts (very soft water here)
3kg sugar
give it a good paddling to dissolve sugar, then add cold water to about 17 litres total (bunnings 20l bucket)
then i hit for a few minutes with a stick mixer, keeping it close to top to aerate.
check temp is around 30C
add 4 tbsp bakers yeast, then i usually trickle some more warm tap water on yeast to knock it under, find it sticks to stirrer otherwise.
I have an old fridge with an iron in it, kept at 30C, ready to run in 5 days. SG usually right on 1.000 plus or minus a tad.
I run it for vodka, get around 1.2 litres at 95%, the real neutral mid run goes into a flagon for liqueur making, the last decent har before tails has more of a whiskey taint, I put that in a seperate neutral bottle for adding flavour to liqueurs as needed.
I have tried it with more sugar, end up with twice the heads and tails and far less neutral. Have to run the still slower. more weetbix gives more flavour but I like it at 4.