Talk to me about turbo yeast

It's a good while since I dropped by,so first,hello!

My brewing is basically from kits ( not as advanced as some of you chaps),wine and beer. I also make fruit wines and WOW.This past few months I have been making what you guys call a 'sugar wash'. It is a recipe from Andy Hamilton's ' Booze for free' called ' Holy Water '. I have tweaked it to suit me.Basically,5kg sugar dissolved in hot water,topped up to 25 litre cold,yeast nutrient,citric acid and 5 teaspoons of marmite.Wilkos wine yeast.It ferments steadily over 4 weeks in a back bedroom, and the results are consistent.Mixed with fruit juice,its not bad ( to me!). Quite passable .

So.We are now in isolation,and it looks like we have both had mild symptoms of the virus,and cannot venture out.I have in stock 5kg of sugar and an alcotec T3 classic turbo yeast...that's it. I bought the turbo yeast to have a play at some time.Yes,I know what it is used for,so won't mention that.I have searched the threads about turbo yeasts,and I am led to believe that it may leave a rough taste? A few other questions: The instructions say I should use 6 to 7 kg sugar; I have 5.Does that mean it will brew quicker? Also,it says that the fermentation temperature should be 25 c ideally.I have no heater,and just that back bedroom which is about 12 c ,so would that work? I also read that these yeasts produce a fair heat,so perhaps a blanket wrapped around the fermentation vessel would work? I'm not looking to brew it out in 3 days,but it would be interesting to see how quick it works!

Any advice or comments? Thanks in advance.

12c will be very low for a turbo.
it should be around 22- 25c
Providing you are a very young person you might live long enough to see it ferment out.at 12c

Joking asside you need a heater.Simples.!!!!

Or wait till the weather warms up.

Turbo ferments are far less forgiving of incorrect proceedures and conditions,Than other ferments wine/beer,ect

Also your sugar needs to be brewing sugar

Any old sugar just will not do.
If you dont have brewing sugar you will need to use less,as it wont ferment out. %alcohol will also be lower.

20-25% alcohol claims that these tubo kits make are true Provided temperatures,methods,ingredients, are followed to the letter.
No ifs
No,Buts
No or`s.----------To the letter.!!!!.

First a link about turbo yeast

It says "Turbo yeast ferments sucrose". This is important. So called "brewing sugar" is dextrose (also called glucose). Sucrose is a chemical combination of dextrose and fructose (a variant of dextrose).

Dextrose and fructose are the simple sugars that are converted by the yeast into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Where do you find sucrose? Castor sugar, cane sugar, demerera sugar, all forms of crystalline sugar are forms of sucrose, and thus eligible for fermentation by turbo yeast.

Sucrose has to be split by the yeast,This costs energy that the yeast can ill aford to spare in the enviroment of high alcohol fermentations .
At beer or normal table wine strengths i would agree the difference is accademic.

That is why turbo yeast manufactures say if you cant get the correct sugar and have to use common granulated you can forget about top end ethenol concentrations.

Of course in the future yeast and techniques may change to allow the use of ordinary sugar.

chthon said:

is dextrose (also called glucose). Sucrose is a chemical combination of dextrose and fructose (a variant of dextrose).

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Dextrose is an optical isomer of glucose which has a linear structure while fructose has a ring structure. Not that any of this matters to the yeast, who chew it up and spit out ethanol.
Invert your table sugar by boiling a thin solution with half a teaspoon of citric or tartaric acid for 15 to 30 minutes. Find something to flavour your drink with and stick in the turbo yeast. It'll go fine. Turbo is distillers' yeast. It's a mixture of high alcohol tolerance yeast- champagne for example and a blend of nutrients that'll get the best out of it in an otherwise neutral "wash".
There's no good reason at all why you can;t use it to make "lesser" tipples.

temp. will be a problem as turbo yeast needs to be in the 20-25 range. if the right temp is achived it will ferment 5kg of sugar in a 20litre wash in 5 or so days. table sugar is good to go too. ive used it many times

It's time to crack out this beauty again.



I brewed with Turbo yeast to make sugar wash just before I started making beer. I did it at room temperature and used enough sugar to get it to 20% and it took ages. You're much, much better off doing it to 14% or under because that last 6% takes longer than the first 14.

It really isn't the greatest flavour. You're much better off using wine or beer yeast or Allinson's bread yeast with nutrients (you can use tomato puree n stuff) and waiting a few weeks more. You can suffer with it stalling if you don't keep the pH abouve 3.5 but you can buffer this by putting in egg shells you've baked in the oven to sterilise them, or do the same with clam shells, oyster shells, chicken grit made from oyster shells. I did 50 litres that finished in 10 days just in a room, no heating recently at 8.7%. The last one I did about a year ago took about 6 weeks I didn't know about the pH problem back then or have a meter.

Drunkula is pretty much right,it mirrors my experiance.

If its a "lockdown" brew thats required a WOW might be a better choice.

Thanks to you all for that information. I am now a lot more educated. There’s more to this brewing lark than meets the eye. I think I will pick up a heater ( any recommendations please?), and stick with standard yeast when I can get hold of some, just for the time being.

I use tropical fishtank heater/stats (from pet shops) for 25l brews
Also heat pads for demjohns,But i prefer the fishtank heaters.

I think you are making the right choice going for a WOW
Quick and cheap, Also tastes as good as supermarket wine.

Sugar wash tastes horrible when not carbon filtered and then you know what. (the D word)
Its also salty cos of the huge amounts of turbo nutrient.

johncrobinson said:

I use tropical fishtank heater/stats (from pet shops) for 25l brews
Also heat pads for demjohns,But i prefer the fishtank heaters.

I think you are making the right choice going for a WOW
Quick and cheap, Also tastes as good as supermarket wine.

Sugar wash tastes horrible when not carbon filtered and then you know what. (the D word)
Its also salty cos of the huge amounts of turbo nutrient.

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Thanks for that.I will look into it.

johncrobinson said:

I use tropical fishtank heater/stats (from pet shops) for 25l brews
Also heat pads for demjohns,But i prefer the fishtank heaters.

I think you are making the right choice going for a WOW
Quick and cheap, Also tastes as good as supermarket wine.

Sugar wash tastes horrible when not carbon filtered and then you know what. (the D word
Its also salty cos of the huge amounts of turbo nutrient.

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I'm sure I'm being thick here, but what's a WOW? Can't find it in the glossary!

An Ankoù said:

what's a WOW?

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Wine made from supermarket juices. Stands for Worzel's orange wine.

An Ankoù said:

I'm sure I'm being thick here, but what's a WOW? Can't find it in the glossary!

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This - Supermarket Juice Wine Recipes and Wurzel's Orange Wine (WOW) .....

Hi @Chippy_Tea and/or @Cwrw666

I don't suppose either of you can either confirm or counter my suspicion that that(link) is the Wurzel and the forum posted recipe after whom/which this stuff is named? ... are you aware of any "WOW" references earlier than Aug 2008?

Not important, I just find the way these "tried and tested" recipes come about, then get re-posted across the forums and gain "legend" status very interesting ... e.g. I've not been around this forum so long, but I think I've seen enough mentions of "Foxbat Bitter" for it to be vying for the position as THBF's equivalent

Cheers, PhilB

I don't suppose either of you can either confirm or counter my suspicion that that(link) is the Wurzel and the forum posted recipe after whom/which this stuff is named?

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I can indeed and even he admits -

This is an adaptation of a recipe by B.C.A. Turner.
It is a very simple and cheap recipe but I was sufficiently impressed with the end result that I would like to share it with you all.

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