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Yeast Nutrients

edited January 2022 in General

What yeast nutrients are people on here using when fermenting rum?

I'll be fermenting from cane molasses.

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Comments

  • edited January 2022

    Good quality cane molasses doesn't need much, you have a good portion of micronutrients covered.

    If you are planning to use backset in your rum fermentations, this will further enhance the nutrient blend, and you shouldn't need any additional external nutrient.

    If you aren't using backset (you should be using backset), something like DAP can help ensure a fast and vigorous fermentation so that you outcompete any bacteria.

  • @grim

    Thanks. Backset/dunder won't be available for the first distillation, but I plan on using it after that.

    How about washes that are not pure molasses, say a mix of molasses and refined can sugar?

    As you know, refined sugar has no nutrients for the yeast.

    I have some DAP, anything else I should add?

  • I think DAP should be enough with the raw sugar. Every situation is different, you just have to try it and see.

  • DAP was all i ever used, raw sugar and molasses ferments.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited January 2022

    Got gifted some Bundaberg molasses. Wonder what it will taste like when I ferment it? Same I suppose. I'm up to make a rum wash today. Punkins suggestion is what I will use with some dunder. Finally hot enough.

  • A pure sugar ferment without molasses needs nutrients other than DAP. You would not feed your child candy bars to grow up strong and healthy, would you? Pure sugar ferment is the most difficult for yeast other than Mezcal/Tequila base. You should us a larger amount of yeast AND a complete complex nutrient designed specifically for pure sugar ferment IF you want the yeast not to stick and to complete the fermentation quickly and cleanly.

  • @grim

    @punkin

    What was your dosage on DAP, in grams per litre?

  • @DeltaArtisan

    Yes, I know, no nutrients in pure sugar.

    I'm really referring to a mix of molasses and sugar, say 50/50.

    I don't think there is enough nutrients in the molasses alone if mixing with cane sugar.

  • @Homebrew said: grim

    punkin

    What was your dosage on DAP, in grams per litre?

    Not sure mate, mental note book has been lost for a few years now. :))

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited January 2022

    @Homebrew said: Yes, I know, no nutrients in pure sugar.

    Is this actually true? There are different types of sugar with different levels of refinement? WPOSW is 6 gallons/ teaspoon and that is what I make.

  • edited January 2022

    Refined white sugar (think grocery store sugar) is nearly 100% pure, it’s often cited as one of the purest food ingredients you can buy.

  • @rossco said: Is this actually true.

    Yes, if white refined sugar (pure sucrose).

    Other sugars, like muscovado, will contain some nutrients.

  • edited January 2022

    Hi @grim, yeah that's the point I was making. 'Raw sugar' that we use for rum is less processed and has other things in it. I always just assumed the yeast fed on that. Funny thing was yesterday I put DAP and epsom salts in, just in case I'm going mad.

    Had a bonus, the dunder drum had grown a huge lacto infection during the year, think like white floaty paint. Dunder smelt awesome, sweeeet. Chucked it out but regretting it now. Rossco

  • edited January 2022

    Yeah, problem is there is little data and standardization around raw sugars. On one end you have “brown” sugar, which is just refined white sugar with a little molasses added, and at the other you have evaporated (non-centrifugal) juice like piloncillo/panela/jaggery. In between you have various styles like muscavado, Demerara, and Turbinado which are more processed, but still retain some trace impurities (aka nutrients).

    In that middle ground, you’ll need to test and trial runs to figure it out, or send a sample to a lab to analyze fan/yan. Also worth noting, color is not always indicative of nutrient content.

  • edited January 2022

    @grim said: In that middle ground, you’ll need to test and trial runs to figure it out, or send a sample to a lab to analyze fan/yan.

    I was thinking about the SG/FG reading and ferment time as reasonable indicators. Here we are usually two weeks to go 1090 to 1000. If the current batches do better than that then call it an improvement with nutrients. I put down 2 X 100litre packs.

    By comparison I've been making some AG bourbon style ferments and they can do those numbers in 72hours. They are much more aggressive.

  • the OP is fermenting rum from molasses, which is never going to get to 1.000 lots of non-sugar, non-nutrient stuff in there.. I use .3-.5% by weight of ammonium sulfate and citric acid(some use sulfuric) and .05% of calcium monophosphate. these are used because they are a fraction of the cost of something like fermax or fermaid

  • Just one clarification above, I am talking about backset and not necessarily any kind of funky dunder. Clean, sterile backset. Worth calling out, only because you can interpret dunder in wildly different ways.

  • edited January 2022

    @CothermanDistilling said: the OP is fermenting rum from molasses

    OK.

  • edited January 2022

    @grim said: Just one clarification above, I am talking about backset and not necessarily any kind of funky dunder. Clean, sterile backset. Worth calling out, only because you can interpret dunder in wildly different ways.

    I intend to use backset after the first initial stripping run.

    i.e. start a new ferment with the backset while still hot. Will help dissolve the molasses for the next fermentation.

  • @Homebrew said: i.e. start a new ferment with the backset while still hot. Will help dissolve the molasses for the next fermentation.

    If you have an issue with pH dropping like a rock and fermentation stalling, it is likely bugs in the molasses winning out over the yeast for eating the sugars. if that happens, try heating your molasses to 175-180 for an hour... I use steam, and backset will get it partway there, but probably only 120-140... not enough to kill the lacto..

  • edited January 2022

    @grim said: Clean, sterile backset. Worth calling out, only because you can interpret dunder in wildly different ways.

    Yeah @grim that is a point. We use both dunder and backset. For rum it us usually cellar aged and I have had dunder pits in the past. I was able to save some of the lacto and will add it to the dunder drum when I stash it till next ferment.

  • edited February 2022

    @CothermanDistilling said: is never going to get to 1.000 lots of non-sugar, non-nutrient stuff in there.

    Update on this.

    We are 9 days into 2x100l ferments, that started with a OG of 1090 & 1095 respectively. The fermentation will continue for approx 5 days more and the current readings are 1.008 & 1.005 (11.6% & 10.6%). Both frements are approx 70% molasses 30% sugar. Sugar was added as an adjunct with approximately half post-pitch. Dunder was low at 8% but that was all I had.

    The nutrients I added as a result of this thread were two pinches of epsom salts and three tea spoons of DAP per fermenter. The measurements above are unremarkable for our situation here and I would conclude that the nutrients made no difference. Also while I think of it yeast was Lowans bakers yeast. I've read elsewhere it is not alcohol tolerant, I guess that depends how you define tolerant...

    Just a note, results may vary boys. Your molasses will be different, climate, ferment size... We do have washes stall as well I pump them in the sewer. Will post a couple of pics of FG if people are interested.

    Rossco.

  • what type and brand of molasses? I do a stepped molasses addition but total additions if added all at once would be a 1.140-1.150 OG with finishing at 1.025-1.050 depending on the molasses... which is theoretically about 13%, which would I guess theoretically yield 130LAL in a 1000L batch... I get 40-50ProofGal with the refiners grade( / 0.52589 = 76-96 LAL) If I lower OG, I can get more alcohol per lb of molasse and batch size is smaller, but I have to balance labor cost against efficiency and this seems to be a good point.. Thinking, I will try to find time tweak my database to make a report with more data regarding efficiency and cost. we could also use a thread on maximizing hearts yield...

  • Yeah my feed grade molasses only ever used to get down to 1030 or so.

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  • edited February 2022

    @punkin said: Yeah my feed grade molasses only ever used to get down to 1030 or so.

    Yeah @punkin that was us as well, but we also had a high proportion of stalled washes. So we looked at using beer brewing methods. We don't distill anything stalled because of the effect of the pH on the final product.

    I dilute and add the molasses first then use raw sugar to make the OG as close as I can get it to 1.090. This is why I'm a bit vague on the sugar use, it varies depending on how much dunder is used and the amount/ gravity of molasses. Same as beer brewers use concentrate if the miss their markers. That gravity is about all bakers yeast can use (12%), I think CD will be able to use more with specialised yeast.

    Bundy use water-cooled pacs to control the speed of the ferment. I suspect that this is because of the potential affect on pH. If the speed is slower the pH is less likely to crash. Anyway that is why some sugar is added post pitch. I think our stalls were always because of pH crashes.

    @CothermanDistilling said: If I lower OG, I can get more alcohol per lb of molasses and batch size is smaller.

    Looking at your gravity readings I recon you're figures match mine. You start 0.030 higher and finish the same amount higher, give or take. Yeast alcohol tollerance? Possibly you could delete the final step addition with no effect on output?

    In reference to the OT I think yeast must be able to use something in there because the nutrients I added made no difference. Final thing for low dunder batches we use a pH buffer of citric acid/ sodium citrate, I didn't realise yeast can potentially use that as food.

    R

  • edited February 2022

    @rossco said: Bundy use water-cooled pacs to control the speed of the ferment. I suspect that this is because of the potential affect on pH. If the speed is slower the pH is less likely to crash. Anyway that is why some sugar is added post pitch. I think our stalls were always because of pH crashes.

    If this is the case, they are reducing the temperature to minimize yeast stress. Yeast stress results in more acid generation, and causes pH to fall to a given point faster than it would have under less stressful conditions. If they are dosing additional sugar and creating a very high alcohol concentration, this is even more of a reason to keep yeast stress very low. The triple threatof high temp, high alcohol, and high sugar (osmotic stress) is a brutal situation. As alc concentration increases, the potential for stall does as well.

    IMHO, in the real world, slow ferments are actually more prone to crashing than fast ones, but that's usually only because of bacterial concentration. In a sterile environment, it's the other way around. Unless of course you aren't fermenting fast enough to blow off dissolved co2.

    Interpreting pH is tricky, because under normal circumstances, pH is going to drop to almost the same level as it would in an abnormal condition. So many factors are influencing pH, it's very very difficult to point to a single one. Well controlled beer fermentation can easily get down to 3.8 without bacterial influence, and that's considered normal.

    pH is like a kids seesaw, except balanced on a pin point, with 8 seats around it. Figuring out which kid is the problem, that's usually learned through experience.

  • edited February 2022

    @rossco said: We are 9 days into 2x100l ferments, that started with a OG of 1090 & 1095 respectively. The fermentation will continue for approx 5 days more and the current readings are 1.008 & 1.005 (11.6% & 10.6%). Both frements are approx 70% molasses 30% sugar. Sugar was added as an adjunct with approximately half post-pitch. Dunder was low at 8% but that was all I had.

    Did you only put the nutrient addition into one of these, or both? 8% dunder/backset along with molasses is a pretty good nutrient starting point, you aren't coming into this being very deficient.

  • Reading back, doesn't seem that it's the case.

    The only way you are going to tell is to mix a single 200l batch, split it across the 2 x100l, and dose the nutrient into one of them. I wouldn't even trust mixing up two "similar" batches with a trial like this.

  • Hooollllld the line.

    3 teaspoons into 100l? That's 0.09g/l additional, that's almost completely inconsequential.

    A minimum dosage for a boost would be around 0.25g/l - that would be around 8 teaspoons.

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