I have made several batches of "pure corn whiskey" with the recipe from Ian Smiley's book. I have had good results, and have experimented with thin mash. I follow his recipe and use prestige whiskey yeast with AG. My question is, am I getting the best fermentation possible as far as the yeast? I don't believe the whiskey yeast is made to ferment plain sugar. I may be way off, but from what I've read you need a turbo to ferment sugar. Obviously I don't want that in my corn mash,or do I? Would I benefit from adding a different yeast with the whiskey yeast, or yeast nutrients to help the whiskey yeast with the plain sugar? Any advice is appreciated. I've been in the hobby for a while, just experimenting a bit with different washes and now finding out I don't know as much as I thought. BTW, I've been reading this forum for a while even though I recently just joined and yet to post. This is an awesome place to research. There is a hellofa lot of knowledge floating around this place.

I think the whiskey yeast will ferment granulated sugar to a certain finished alcohol content, to the point as where it would kill itself off. To check your on results you should have tested the finished frement of your wash or wart, whatever you want to call it, with a hydrometer. The reading would be self explanatory, if there was still sugar present the reading, Specific Gravity(SG) wouldn't be 1.00.

As far as turbo yeast, I feel there are better tasting yeast, goes the same for cheep baker's yeast.

Thanks for the replies guys. I will try some added nutrients to help the yeast with the sugar. Im having trouble getting a hydrometer reading because of the floating maize and how thick the mash is. Is there a way to get a accurate reading?

I have been using turbo yeast and bakers yeast. Turbo Yeast does a great job however, when using bakers yeast,I supplement the bakers yeast with the old tried and true recipe of tomato paste and a lemon or lime cut into. No problem works fine, may take an extra day or two!