Alcotec 48HR cockup

[Salan]

HI all

Ive made many ales and wines from kits and scratch, but never made a wash.

I pitched 8kg of home sugar with water to make 20litres and to make a 20% wash. using Alcotec 48hr.

Now this is when i noticed a problem OG.. 1150.

3 weeks later FG.. 1050.. Stuck.

I added a high grade champagne yeast with some yeast nutrients as the abv is calculated to be 13.2% so it should survive. NOTHING.. stuck.

22Degrees normal temp upto 26% during the day..

What the hell do i do?? bin it.. add more sugar.. shove some more super yeast in it?

Can anyone help me please?

 

[BIGJIM72]

Waiting to do one myself- but there are a few things in your post:-

You used "home" sugar-I think these prefer brewing sugar.

There is some variation in temperature that might be a cause.

It might well be the case that all the sugar in at once was too much, & maybe a few kilos could have gone in a little later.

The yeast can deliver 20% ABV but only if conditions are spot on it seems.

Ask Falafel- he has done a few of these before.

 

[Moley]

Firstly, there's something wrong with the maths. Sugar bulking is approx. 600ml per kilo so if you add 8kg to 21 litres of water you will have 25.8 litres of wash = 310g of sugar in the litre = O.G. 1.112

If you have 8kg sugar in a total of 21 litres that would still only give 1.137

Either way, if you try to ferment that with champagne yeasties the sugar shock could kill them, or they will take one look at what you have offered them and tell you to get stuffed. Wine yeasts like an amiable balance of sugars, acids and nutrients.

If you want to ferment a sugar wash then you have to use Turbo yeasts. These are thugs with no self respect or finesse whatsoever.

 

[BIGJIM72]

The Alcotec 48 should cope with that-

turbo yeast alcohol 48
Alcohol in 48 hours - or 5 days?

The Alcotec 48 turbo yeast is a "dual recipe" yeast. You can choose wheter to produce moderate alcohol (14%) in 48 hours, or high alcohol (20%) in 5 days.

Two turbo yeast recipes

You can choose whether to go for 14% (fast) or 20% (in 5 days) simply by adding different amounts of sugar. The standard dose of 6 kgs of plain sugar into 25 litres total will give you the 14% recipe. If you instead go for 8 kgs of sugar the turbo yeast will automatically go for 20% in 5 days.

Temperature tolerance

This turbo yeast is considerably more tolerant to high temperatures than the Alcotec 24, or any older recipe such as the Alcotec 6 or Alcotec 8. The optimum is still ambient (and liquid) temperature around 25 C, but it is no disaster if the ambient temperature shoots a bit over 30 C.

 

[Salan]

HI

I added another batch of Alcotec 48 and at first it was fizzing nicely. After 4 days, it's now stopped.

FG READS 1050!!!!!

Is it time to bin it or do i add some finings and see what happens?

The smell is a knockout! It makes you drunk just smelling in and my wife compared it to smelling salts so its definitely alcoholic!

Any advice is welcome as I don't fancy going blind either!

 

[Moley]

Are you certain it has stopped, and how is its temperature?

Gravity is still very high and sickly sweet, I would try to get temperature somewhere in the 25-30C range and leave it alone for another week.

It's way too soon to be thinking of finings or ditching the brew.

 

[Salan]

Hiya and thanks for your reply.

Temp in the house is 22degrees and the wash is on a heat pad at about 28degrees..upto 30 when it first began to fizz 3weeks ago.

I can take it off the heat pad and let it drop down to 22degrees or put it in the cold room which drops down to between 5&10 degrees

There's no evidence of fizzing or movement anymore in the bin its just a cloudy sickly smelling ALCOHIOLIC liquid!

 

[Moley]

Sorry, I thought it was a new batch 4 days in.

Too much other **** hitting the fans around here at the moment so I hadn't read your post properly.

It is beginning to sound like a lost cause, unless you're doing that thing we aren't allowed to discuss.

 

[Salan]

Im not sure what that thing is??

Enlighten me lol

 

[BrewWoo]

Distilling.