Ran a Sugar and tomato paste wash yesterday, took 11 1/2 hours in the BH PS2 refux still.

EDIT1/4/13 : Note: DO NOT REHYDRATE A TURBO YEAST JUST PITCH IT IN AT THE RIGHT TEMP. I was just informed by Rick that rehydrating a turbo can kill it off pretty darn quick.

Started the wash with
11 LB white sugar
1- 6 OZ can tomato paste
Juice of 1 lime
All thrown in the pot with 2 1/2 Gal h2o and cooked until sugar dissolved.

Poured the contents into 3 Gal of h2o that I had boiled the day before, cooled over night and had been aireating for 3 hours with an airbrush pump and fish tank bubbler.

Had pre hydrated my 48 hour turbo yeast a couple hours before.
Chilled it down to 80 degrees and pitched the yeast.

Let it ferment for 3 days then cooked 2 LB of sugar in 1 QT of water, cooled it down to 80 degrees and added it to the wash along with a tablespoon of nutrient, gotta love that fizz.

Let it ferment for 2 more days and added another 2 LBs sugar in the same manner with nutrients. and let it ferment and settle for another 5 days then racked it off into a secondary tank that I kept cold for 2 days.

Tried something a little different for during my run. Instead of settleing my reflux at 150 to 155 degrees at the beginning I decided to settle the column at 169 degrees to see if I could pull the foreshots and heads off before stabilizing the column.
Well the tower head liked 169.5 degrees but not 169. Thats Ok. So I pulled off 150ml of what I deem to be foreshots and about a pint of heads by the time the tower head stabilized. So that part worked.

Held it in total refux for an hour before cutting the water back a hair and giveing the flame a nudge and restabilized the tower head at 173.8. Ran is there for 4 hours collecting about 3 to 4 drops/second. Temp held steady at 173.8 with no fluctuations.

Nudged the flame up a hair an brought the temp up to 174.2 because my dripping had slowed down to 1-2 drops/sec. Temp held steady for another 3 hours. and drips increased to 3-4 drops/sec.

After 3 hours the temp started to rise and I let it run up to 179.5 degrees before shutting down. I never run past 180 except when Pot stilling.

Ended up with a little less than a gallon of neutrals at 92% less than a pint of heads and about a pint of tails.

I think I will continue to stabilize my tower head just below 170 from now on as it seems to make compressing the fractions in the column easier and more defined without haveing to hold a total reflux for 2 or more hours.

Just thought I'd share.

Have Fun.

I'm estimating you started with around +17% in the wash? Is that normal using the Turbo yeast? I've not tried the turbo but have been able to get 15.68% wash using 3 pkg's of EC-1118 to 10 lbs sugar though the ferment time was 19 days. I've ordered some Red Star champagne yeast to try. Says it's can withstand a higher alcohol content.

Hi Bushy,
Very nice tutorial. Are you using the PS2 HC or just the PS2?
Maddawgs

Hi Bushy,
If I have the totals right, it looks like your total run was just under 6 gallons and you were able to get a gallon of 92% plus just under 2 pints of heads/tails mix and 150ml of fores in 11.5 hours with the PS2. If that is true then I should be able to get a gallon and a third or so from a 10 gallon run in about 5 to 6 hours with the PS2HC. If all that is true then I think I'm going to be pretty happy when my system arrives and I start using it. Is there a great benefit to aireating the the water? Let me kno.
Thanks, Maddawgs

I built a reflux or maybe close to a fractionating still and with a sugar ( 8 Kg ) water ( 25 L ) and turbo yeast ( fermention 7 -10 days ) I will distill for about 3hrs. This will give me no less than 93% (tails ) but on avg. 96% . yeald is on avg. 5-5.5 Lt . this is sweet loveable vodka and can has to be cut down . I use essence flavering to make whisky,rum ,etc. I don't think I can use this still like a pot still . I guess I will have to make a pot still so I can try some different mashes and get a home flavour. Just thought I'd share a bit so have your self a merryxmas and agreat new year ..

Good luck Maddawgs. Can't wait to hear how your run goes. I am inching closer to ordering the same still.
Happy Stillin' New Year

"

I think you need to build a different tower....what you built is doing exactly what its supposed to do (reflux or strip the alcohol from the wash). If you want more flavor then go with a shorter tower in the gooseneck fashion, what you've got is a reflux or stripping tower, the boiler has no effect on the finished product its the tower that does the work."

"No you dont have to have one...if you want one then go with it. Most folks dont use them today. I know you saw that on tv but dont be fooled its not all its cracked up to be. If you run your still in the proper fashion you wont need a thumper but if you decide to add one thats ok too.
What I'm trying to say is...its not a must but if you want it then make one."

Hi googe, sorry for being so late to reply but been to busy for the forums lately.
When I first started brewing I did'nt aeriate because I was'nt boiling my water. But the first time I boiled and did'nt aeriate my fermentation got stuck and I could'nt get it started again. So now I aeriate and have had no problems since.

There are many write ups about turbos giveing off bad flavors. I believe it's because folks are useing to much sugar at the start and by doing so createing fermetation temps that are to high. Start with 10 to 12 pounds of sugar and when the fermentation starts to slow down add a couple more pounds of sugar and some nutreints. Repeat this untill you've reached your total amount of sugar. Works for me.

Hi Jctab, that's a total of 15 pounds of sugar, 11-2-2. You can go as high as 18 pounds of sugar but that kind of stresses the yeast a little. Because of all the nutrients you need to add as you add sugar you may end up with off flavors in your end product. That's why I don't usually go over 15-16 pounds of sugar. When I use 16 pounds the sequence is 10-3-3.

Hope that helps.