Fermenting, continued
Fermenting, continued Prestige Batch Yeast or Black Label Yeast
Turbo Yeast – Page 2 of 7
Use Prestige Batch yeast or Black Label yeast to make 14% ethanol in 3 days, use 1 sachet + 6 kg sugar in 25 liters or use 8 sachets + 48 kg sugar in 200 liters (or anything in between e.g. 5 sachets + 30 kg sugar in 125 liters etc).
Use Prestige Alcohol yeast 18% and Distillers yeast 18% to make 18% ethanol in 7 days, use 1 sachet + 8 kg sugar in 25 liters. We recommend you do not scale up to larger volumes unless you have good control of liquid temperature.
Prestige Batch yeast or Black Label yeast instructions for 25 liters.
1. You need a 30 liter sized plastic bucket. Clean it with hot water (it does not need to be sterilized unless it is very dirty).
2. Calibrate to 25 liters if it is not already graduated.
3. The point of this step is to end up with a final volume of 25 liters which contains 6-kg sugar and has a start liquid temperature of around 25-30°C.
4. First add either 5 liters boiling water or 10 liters hot water into the bucket. Add 6-kg ordinary white granulated sugar (sucrose) and stir until completely dissolved (about 2 minutes). Now top up to 25 liters with cold water and stir well for 2 minutes to ensure an even sugar solution. Ideally the cold water used for topping up should be between 15-20°C although water as low as 5°C can be used, this will just make the fermentation 1-2 days longer.
5. Add the sachet contents and continue to stir until no more particles of yeast are visible to the naked eye.
The liquid should have a milky appearance with no bits in it.
6. Now leave it at warm room temperature (around 20-25°C is best) to ferment for 3 days.
7. Any air temperature between 18°C and 30°C can be used but the time taken for fermentation will be different. At 30°C it will take only 2 days (but make more volatiles!) and at 18°C it will take 7 days.
8. After fermentation this “mash” should be distilled, diluted to 40 – 45% ethanol then passed through activated carbon to remove volatiles before adding essences. See elsewhere for further details.
A super trick to improve quality
When the mash has fermented completely (use a Hydrometer to check), wait until it is crystal clear. Then draw out the mash with a siphon, leaving all yeast and impurities in the fermentation vessel. By using this method you have a crystal clear mash without yeast to distill.
The mash should clear by it self in a day or two. You can speed this up by adding a clearing agent for wine or by placing the mash in a cold place. The mash must have fermented out completely before clearing.
If the mash is cloudy, it produces badly “off” taste when the cloudiness is heated, in contact the high temperature near the heather. To avoid this bitter taste, use crystal clear mash.
Heating more gently by adding 1-2 liter of rashig rings in the boiler to divide the heat can reduce the bitter taste. It can also be avoided by heat by a hot water jacket on the boiling vessel. This has the principle of a water bath, by using a jacketed tank for heating. It is the hot water that heats the mash, not the original heat source. The common is to distill a crystal clear mash.
