The first blessing, a sugar wash

Let us pray.. "Oh Holy Father, bless our carbohydrates and nutrients, that they may yield a great bounty of mind altering substances, so that we may worship in your name, forever and ever. Amen."



That out of the way, here is my first wash experiment! I am using a blessed 8 gallon (30L) fermenting bucket lined with a food grade poly bag for this first prayer of thanks. Let us hope that we do not end up with sour wine in our cups!

By the way.. if you use tap water for this.. let it rest for a few hours with agitation (go to an aquarium store and get an air pump and a glass or wood airstone). If you are unfortunate enough to have chloramine instead of chlorine in your water (as are most folks in the U S of A) then you need to run it through activated carbon in a serious way to get rid of it. I don't know that I would trust the chemicals they give for fish tanks. You need to get it out of there or it could kill your yeast.

So, lets commence with thee recipeee...

This is ingredients per fermenter, or about 6kg of sugar per 25L of water

Sugar - 6kg
Molasses - 550g
DAP - 38g
Yeast Energizer - 10g
Yeast hulls (bakers yeast) - 6g
MgSO4 - 6g
One A Day vitamin, crushed to a powder - 1
water - 25L

Yeast - 2 packets of EC-1118 ( you can use 1/4 cup baker's yeast here if you like, but cut back on the sugar by 1 kg)

DAP is Di Ammonium Phosphate, and is available online. If you dont want to use this, then substitute in a bunch more baker's yeast (like, 50g or more) that you boil in the starting brew.

MgSO4 is epsom salt.

Yeast energizer is a commercial product you can get from a brew shop. Again, you dont -need- this. Add an extra one a day vitamin if you don't use it and more baker's yeast.

EC-1118 is a champagne yeast that tolerates up to 18% alcohol. You can use live baking yeast as well, but it will only go to 12% alcohol, so you'll want to drop the sugar content of this recipe by 6/18 of each ingredient. Use your hydrometer to figure out how much sugar you have in your mix.

Water - Basement well (ice cold and clear.. some sediment)

Add all ingredients except the live yeast, and add only 1kg of sugar to 4L of water. Boil for 15 minutes. Stir it up really well.

While this is boiling, add the remaining sugar to the remaining water, in the fermenter, and stir it up very very well. Make sure it is all dissolved in there. If you have a hydrometer, take a reading. If it is over 1.090 or so, thats a bit high. When you add the contents of your pot it will go over 1.100 so you'll want to dilute it a bit. At the end, have it at 1.090 (regardless of the above, good advice.. I commenced at 1.110 just to give it a try and see what would happen. I can always dilute it down if it hates me)

Let your 4L of brew cool to 25 - 30C. Rehydrate your yeast per manufacturers instructions (50ml per packet/5g of yeast at temp 40C for 15 minutes)

Add your nutrient and sugar/molasses brew to the main fermenter. Check pH. Adjust to 4.5 or so using whatever acid you have at hand, but NOT VINEGAR. Use lemon juice if you don't have a brew shop nearby.. brewer's like using lactic acid. Let rest. Stir it again. Stir it some more. If you don't have a pH meter, skip this.

Stir up the now puffy yeast ball in your water glass so it suspends in the water, and then toss it into your fermenter.

Every hour, for 3 hours, agitate the mix well until your arm is tired. :) Or, use the above aquarium pump and stir once every 3 hours. If you want to do this overnight, just give it a good stir in the morning.

After 9 hours have passed, cap and airlock the mixture and let ferment. Check each day with hydrometer and record measurements, including pH.

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As I said above, I got a little overzealous with the sugars and it came out a bit high. We'll see what effect that has on the wash.. I expect to have trouble because of it, but that is all a part of the learning process!

I also placed an electric heating pad on the fermenter on low, as its temperature was a bit chilly. I have read that this yeast likes slightly higher temperatures, so I'll try leaving it on overnight and see what happens.

Pax Vobiscum.