Infected booze ?

[QLD.Andy]

OK, so Mum brought around some stuff out of her air still during the week and I was just about to run it threw the carbon filter.
I noticed a funny smell coming from the booze and its not the normal smell from air still hooch.
If this wash was infected and I filter it will it be OK to drink?
Or is it best to ditch it and start fresh?

[maheel]

1st i think it's cool your mum has a still 8-)

an infected wash should not worry the resulting product apart from giving it a smell / taste i would think
if you ran it up a reflux it should clear most the smell out, pot stilling you would get the taste / smells

can she describe what the smell of the wash was like ? normal or sour or any left ?
ask her if it had any "spider web" like stringy shit floating around in it etc.

depending on the infection it might cut back on yields etc.

some beer is made on "souring yeast" to give it that unique flavour like Lambic's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambic

[QLD.Andy]

She didnt notice anything wrong, it was me that smelled it.
The distillate is clear'ish like normal but it stinks like a rotten vinegar.
I have run it through carbon once and it still smells

[MacStill]

She didnt notice anything wrong, it was me that smelled it.
The distillate is clear'ish like normal but it stinks like a rotten vinegar.
I have run it through carbon once and it still smells

Have you checked the ABV?

Could well be that the wash had turned to vinegar :think:

[QLD.Andy]

Its a little lower than normal, I put that down to forgetting how much water to add.
She started the ferment then went on holidays so the fermenter stood for about 9 weeks in total.
I think we will start fresh and send this one to the fish's, then I will go over the basic's once again.

[maheel]

IMO give the fermenter a good bleach soak for a few days

[QLD.Andy]

I finally got to the bottom of this problem this morning.
Turns out Mum decided to give a TPW a go, I had given her the recipe a few months ago.
She had lost the list of ingredients and thought she could remember what went in.
She put in 6kg sugar, 21lt water and 4 tea spoons of Lowans yeast, nothing more :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead:
So its education time :idea:
This is her first fail and she's done a few wash's, wont be the last :clap:
At least it wasnt an infection and we do know what went wrong, now to fix it so it dont happen again.

[Sam.]

Its a little lower than normal, I put that down to forgetting how much water to add.
She started the ferment then went on holidays so the fermenter stood for about 9 weeks in total.
I think we will start fresh and send this one to the fish's, then I will go over the basic's once again.

I think the problem would be the 9 weeks in the fermenter, old Mr yeatie is still in there doing his thing starting to eat itself a few weeks after it finished (autolysis) and I guess it finished at a low ABV from the low yeast pitch making it more susepctible (is that how you spell that?) to infection

At the end of the day it wouldn't be posionous to drink as long as it was run right, just another one of those lessons that are learned ;)

[QLD.Andy]

It would have been drinkable but it would have been less than enjoyable.
Its all gone to the fish's and a new batch has been started with the correct ingredients.