Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Well, after only 2 years of distilling I had my first BIG fermentation fail on sugar wash.

I was set to run the first of four 30L barrels (~23L of wash) today. They'd been fermenting for 6+ weeks. I gravity tested and only saw a very minor variance. After I did the smell and finger-dip test I knew something was wrong - full of sugar. I actually have RAPT pills floating in each barrel - see here if you don't know what they are: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=14658 - but I thought I'd stuffed up configuring them and assumed they were misreading. Turns out they are reasonably accurate and it is indeed fermentation that has stalled.

I tried to salvage by adding re-activated distillers yeast into two of the barrels but after 4+ hours there's no activity. I'm thinking I'll just ditch the 4x fermenters down the drain and start again... unless the brains trust has another suggestion?

Check PH level ?
Temp drop ?
What was the wash and please don’t say sugar wash :laughing-rolling:

What was the wash and please don’t say sugar wash

The wash was WPOSW. I've run it many, many times and never had a fail.

Check PH level ?

No. Probably should have.

Temp drop ?

My guess is temp was too high. It's been super hot here. I reckon I pitched the yeast too hot and it never got started. I also didn't spend long enough reactivating the yeast in the first place. A few months back I started using Distilamax LS instead of bakers yeast. Previous batches were fine but weather/temperature was more stable and consistently warm but mild.


I decided to ditch it all and start again (now trialing Safspirit HG-1 yeast for the first time). I took more time to reactivate the yeast and made sure temp had dropped before pitching. This morning I have four fermenters bubbling away. I'll keep a closer eye on temps. The weather has cooled so if barrel temp drops I'll dust off the heat belts. And if all that again fails I'll check PH levels, but so far so good.

I found WPOSW to be a dud and never worked out well. I went back to tpw without incident.

I would've been tempted to toss some tp in to it and repitch lowans yeast.

I’ve never done that wash .
If the temp was high , I would have tried adding more yeast before dumping it

I would have tried adding more yeast before dumping it

I did. Several hours after pitching new yeast it was still flat. I probably could have tried other things to re-suss it, but I cracked the shits and ditched the lot. In hindsight, I should have just ditched one or two and experimenting with the others. I have 4 fermenters because I stagger the runs. They're not usually ready to run at the same time.

And thanks for the heads-up on WPOSW. Come to think of it I think TPW was better in hindsight. Never had a fail and ever wash/run was great. I had my rose-coloured glasses on because WPOSW is a lot easier and less messy to brew. I'll go back to TPW and see how that goes. Now that I have bought Safspirit HG-1 I'll experiment with that. I also saw others were combining a bit of Lowan's in with distiller's yeast. I'll also give that a go.

I welcome any tips or advice on how much Safspirit HG-1 vs Lowlans, or ratio to combine both.

Take ph=adjust with shells or calcium carbonate(always better to buffer then try revive...)

Take temp.
cold = heat up

Add yeast...give it a good stir first leave see if fires up if not add a strong yeast you may end up with something useable.

Check gravity, way to high, more than 1.070 split ferment in two stir up and or add yeast...