Birdwatcher's Sugar Wash

From Distillers Wiki

This is taken straight from the homedistiller forums, as posted by birdwatcher. It is meant to be a generic sugar wash for the production of neutral spirits.

Ingredients

My recipe for an 80 liter wash. Ingredients as follows:

3 cups tomato paste

Juice 3 lemons

Approx. 18 kg sugar

225 grams fresh regular bakers yeast. Buy in bulk at any good health food store.

water(I use spring well water)

Procedure

Keep careful notes from start to finish for future reference.

Carefully mix paste, juice, say 14 kg sugar with 60 liters water at 30C. Measure SG. (you are aiming for 1.09)

Carefully add water and sugar to bring mixture to 80 liter, WITH A SG 1.09. Temperature of finished mixture should be 30C-35C to start.

You should now have 80 liters of mixed ingredients.

Carefully sprinkle 225 grams of yeast over surface, stirring in. Place cover loosely, to let CO2 escape, keeping flying nasties out. There is so much CO2 coming off; there is no need to worry about oxygen coming in contact.

Place bottomless styrofoam box over fermenter. Dangle lit lightbulb through small hole in lid. Bulb must be strong enough to keep the mixture at a steady range of 30C-35C for entire fermentation. Size of bulb depends on room temperature. Stick your digital thermometer through side of box to track inside temperature.

{A good idea would be to set up with water a day before you begin wash to determine the size of light bulb to maintain water/wash in the 30-35C range.}

Check SG and temperature daily

Stir daily

On day three, siphon contents evenly into four 23 liter airlocked carboys. (This step may not be necessary and I may at some future date simply take the wash from start to finish in the unairlocked storage container)

Check SG and temperature daily

Shake carboys gently daily.

After a total of 7-8 days SG should be .995. If not, wait until completion.

Note: After ten years of making 95% ethanol, and fine tuning my recipe after lots of suggestions from people on this forum, this is what works for me. I'm always fine tuning and welcome any comments or suggestions.