Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi All, First time poster. I made my first TPW last weekend with 7kg Caster Sugar, 250gm tomato paste and 75 gm Bakers yeast, all in at about 28 degrees. First day the wash was foaming up madly as it normally would in fermentation and slowly settled over the preceeding days. I have checked the SG with an Alcometer (shows Alcohol % not SG) and it has an alcohol content of 0, zero, meaning it hasn't fermented. Any help would be appreciated. I have previously used Dextrose, turbo yeast and turbo clear for good results. Cheers Bents

Gday mate moved it here as it’s your first post, so welcome :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Your alcometer is useless in your wash it is only useful once you have distilled it into spirit.

You need to take a starting specific gravity with a hydrometer and then a final specific gravity with a hydrometer to work out alcohol content of your wash.

If you don’t have a hydrometer yet have a taste, if it’s sweet it isn’t done if it’s dry then close enough.

Also plain sugar will be cheaper than caster sugar normally. Caster sugar is white sugar ground finer.

Also congrats on ditching the turbos you won’t look back ;-)

Thanks Sam.

My Alcometer has always been fine to use with previous washes (Turbo's) normally is about 15% when its finished fermenting, so thats what has me a little confused.
The Alcometer I'm guessing works on SG just has a scale that is in % instead of SG. It is the same process in terms of a Hydrometer (weighted glass floating scale)
Cheers

i have only ever run 2 turbo's - but if it was a 20% turbo thats reading at 15% on the alc meter - its not accurate at the low end for our purposes?

What size wash did you throw the 7kgs at? the 1kg per 5 litres is about as far as you want to push the bakers yeast, otherwise undesirable flavours can creep in for a neutral, rum is a different story in that respect from what i have read

G'day RC, Thannks for the info. 21 litres of water went in but in the first couple days it was foaming up good and proper so assumed it was fermenting.

You cant use a alcometer to test a wash :handgestures-thumbdown: you need a hydrometer..

Bents wrote:Thanks Sam.

My Alcometer has always been fine to use with previous washes (Turbo's) normally is about 15% when its finished fermenting, so thats what has me a little confused.
The Alcometer I'm guessing works on SG just has a scale that is in % instead of SG. It is the same process in terms of a Hydrometer (weighted glass floating scale)
Cheers

I am aware of how they work mate ;-)

Alcohol that is distilled is a lower SG than water, the higher alcohol content the lower it is.

Wash is generally higher SG than water until the point it is fermented dry and there is enough alcohol to drop the density below water where you can have a wash finish at 0.990

Therefore your alcometer is useless in a wash for determining alcohol content. You could theoretically make your own graduations on it but why bother if there is a tool already cheaply available to do the job?

G'day mate welcome aboard :greetings-waveyellow:

If your going to rely on your alcometer for fermenting you may as well just use taste, it will be less confusing.

Thanks for all the replies. Hydrometer it is then :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Welcome to AD Bents.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Welcome, lots of great info on here. Check out the newbies corner. :handgestures-thumbupleft: