Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I've been experimenting with a few fruit mashes and have found that they tend to stall at some stage due to the PH becoming too acidic, add a neutralising solution and Bam fermentation kicks off again.

However different Alkaline solutions (just like acidic solutions) add different flavours to the end product and my question to all the fruit fermenter's is,

What is your favourite Alkaline solution in terms of either neatural or enhanced flavours?

No one got any thoughts or preferences on the use of alkalines to either improve our have neautral impact on flavor of final product?

Hava........never had reason to add it to a fruit wash....but then again, only recently got a pH meter.
I have used crushed Caltrate tablets ( Calcium Carbonate) to pH correct a sugar wash I addd to much citric acid to
But I found I had to use quite a lot of them for a small pH change so maybe next time calcium hydroxide as it is a much stronger alkali

I just use plain old bricky's lime
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_hydroxide

I just use bicarb from Woolies. I think its just sodium bicarbonate but it could be sodium hydrogen carbonate. I've never noticed poor flavours but I have read some posts that say otherwise.

What fruit are you using Hava if you dont mind me asking?

All I can say is that its not plums :teasing-neener:

Hava wrote:All I can say is that its not plums :teasing-neener:

Being vague doesn't really help people to answer your question mate :think:

Ok no jokes.

Mango and lychee! In various combinations

Kimbo wrote:I just use plain old bricky's lime
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_hydroxide

:text-+1:
used some today to raise the PH of a gen 5 wash. once the PH was right it started up straight away, no additional yeast. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Hava wrote:Ok no jokes.

Mango and lychee! In various combinations

Hearing you...got 23 liters of Mango cracking at the moment..Lychee addition..Hmm might have to wait a few more years.....trees still too small.

Curious though.I slipped with the citric acid...well actually the fricken lid came off while I was inverting the sugar and a clump fell into the mix.....couldn't nelieve it after just telling you the other day how I had slipped with the same shit in a Sugar wash...bloody hell
Tested pH and was still only 4.8 so wondering why you would want to raise it?

Fermentation stalled, checked the ph and it was under 4, just used lime and it kicked off again and suspect it affected the taste.

Mostly just curious as to others experience with alkalis and impact on flavour, if any.

The theory to my madness is, it should have some impact like different acids do. Rum made with hydrochloric acid versus citric acid taste very different in my experience.

Ok hopefully not going too OT now but I have ben doing some Rum clarifying expwriments recently that involved adding hydrated lime and Hydrochloric acid and yes it does effect the flavour .Very keen to hear why you were adding HCl to rum as its not normally needed when dunder is added.We could go PM on this as I'm very intereed unless you think its relavant to keep here.

BTW .in my experience with fruit and its only been with wines mostly , I have never had one stall but tjey do slow down quite a bit at the end. As I say my experience is mostly with wines so I expect a slow fermentation unlike Rums where it takes off and its all over in several days .

Fruit wine book I was reading recently reconded a start pH of 3.5 was ideal..maybe for a fast wash to distillthis os not the case

Try sodium carbonate, commonly sold as soda ash.
This is the salt of a strong base and weak acid, you won't need much.

As an example of its use, to shift 25L of pH <6 strippate to pH>9 requires less than a tablespoon.

Cheers,

Mech.