When Dunder Goes Bad

edited December 2021 in Recipes

So I started two dunder pits at the same time.

My thinking was to have a back up for if a pit when "bad". This was inspired by the sad ending of The Big Dunder Pit Thread (I still morn its passing @FloridaCracker).

I now have two very different dunder pits. Even though they both have the same ingredients the one pit smells like fermented oranges/citrus. The other pits is earthy/moldy. Neither smells bad or rotten. There is no sewage smell which is what i read is when its too far gone.

My question is do I try a batch with each? What sort of flavors should I expect from the earthy/moldy one?

And I know @punkin you will say through both and leave the bugs alone.

Comments

  • edited December 2021

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  • edited December 2021

    @punkin is that you coming over to the dark side?

    OK so I took photos of the two pits. The dark one is the citrus smelling pit (was a greyish colour but topped up with backset) and the white fluffy one .... yes you guessed it.

    These two pits are sealed all the time. Should I be leaving the lids off to let them breath or carry on keeping them sealed?

    Should I scrape off the cap on the earthy one and see what she does or keep the protection?

    On a side note, do you use dunder and backset or either dunder or backset? Currently I use 10L backset and 3L dunder on a 70L wash.

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  • Too much headspace

  • @grim

    That's an easy fix, as I have lots of spent wash and some yeast solids from a run.

    I was reading that the muck pits are controlled using the ph and salts. do you know of any articles on this topic?

  • I just kicked off a 135L batch with 16L of dunder pit, normally Id use 20L hot dunder backset and 12.5L dunder from the pit but I used what I had available

    Pretty sure my dunder pit needs restarting, im going to toss the old fermenter I had it in as it has hairline cracks and the mold/smell and sediment etc was pushing it for me this time round

    Hoping I haven't wasted 50kg of molasses but the ferment is smelling ok so far so fingers crossed

    Need to order some more molasses so when I run this batch I can start another one off and redo my pit

  • edited December 2021

    @RumBumm said: I was reading that the muck pits are controlled using the ph and salts. do you know of any articles on this topic?

    Sure, Cousins Process, but that's closer to chemical engineering than it is to craft distilling.

  • edited December 2021

    @grim said: Sure, Cousins Process, but that's closer to chemical engineering than it is to craft distilling.

    I would think this closer to biological understanding than chemical engineering? Its more a way of keeping the good bug happy and the bad bugs dead! :)

    I was looking at what would the PH Be. at this stage I try to keep it around the same mark as the wash. seeing that Jamaica is an island they would have no shortage of calcium in sea shells but could you just use course sea sand? has anyone ever tried this? would it be a good Ph balancer?

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