I’m gonna give you my super cheap recipe for 100% success. This is for a 1000L mash that will yield 130-140L of 95.8% etoh. Adjust upwards or downwards accordingly. I use a 1000L ibc tote (should only cost you $100 used).
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Buy a sous vide cooker off Amazon (cheap is fine) set it to 28c and have your water prewarmed. If you have enough hot water in your tank/on demand then you can save the warming step. It’s good to actually heat your water gradually as it allows for the chlorine to evaporate. Put 850L of water in.
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Add in 200kg sugar (Costco is cheapest I could find), dissolve it well and stir vigorously (I use a wooden oar from an outdoor sports place). Then top up with your water to about 950L. (Leave enough room at the top so it doesn’t froth over)
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buy 10lb of redstar active dry yeast from Costco (should only be 5$/bag. Significantly cheaper than brewing/wine yeast). Since we’re not particular about flavour this will do just fine, also using a large quantity like this will give you a 3-4 day full ferment!
Also buy a:
A) yeast booster (photo attached). This one requires 4g/1000L
B) Some diamonnium phosphate (nitrogen booster). (10g/1000L)
C) 2L tomato paste (yes actually, and not sauce, paste. Try and get it with the highest nutrient content, it’s good for b vitamins as well as some vitamin c and iron)
D) 500ml fresh lemon juice (pH adjust primarily)
E) 200g Nutritional yeast (nootch!) (optional) any off the shelf vegan stuff is great. It should be pretty cheap. It provides some extra nutrient and also floats on top which helps to prevent foaming.
Your Ingredients per batch should run you about $250 total including sugar and boosters.
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Add in nutrients first, stir thoroughly.
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Add in yeast slowly, it will be very active and can froth up quite quickly. Stir.
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once yeast is fully added make sure the sous vide is in to maintain temperatures, also provides some agitation. During the summer this probably isn’t necessary and you might actually need a chiller to make sure it doesn’t get over 34c
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add an additional 20kg of sugar after day 3 or once you notice the ferment start to slow. This will give it another quick boost and allow for full flocculation
This will get you really high proof, really fast ferment, and super cheap $$ per litre. I used to use lots of off the shelf turbos and expensive yeasts, but ended up saving hundreds of $$ per month by switching my recipe over.
If you’ve got a proper bubble plate setup you can easily rock your ethanol up to 95.8% on your first pass! Enjoy!
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