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Understanding Higher ABV in Fermentation: Concepts and Ideas to Consider
By all standards I am a novice distiller with about a year of experience.Based on my equipment, space available and related factors I have settled on the following distillation approaches…•20 gallon HDPE fermenters – use a brew belt heater with a temp controller for the yeast to maintain appropriate temperature.•YLAY is my ‘go-to’ ingredient for everything. It is easy to handle, and with a 20 gallon fermenter it produces about 15 gallons of distillable output after settling. YLAY needs to be kept at about 90℉ for the fermentation period. https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/ … calculator is a web site I use to tune the mash bill and determine its ABV. Seems to work well.My current fermentations have been kept at the 5% ABV level.So now I want to increase the ABV to gain more output from the results of a 2X distillation.Obviously, I could add more grain – YLAY seems able to handle grains mashes up to about 16% or so according to their web site. Do any members have opinions regarding increasing the grain bill?Any advice or cautions about this approach?
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4 Replies
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Try 8%.Going too high might give you off flavors, but what the limit is I wouldn’t know.It might have been discussed here. viewtopic.php?t=76531If nobody else has pushed its limits, you might have to be the first.
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There is a recommended ration of grain/ YLAY/ water, are you sure it will fully convert all starches to sugar and ferment to finished if you interfere with those quantities?The ratios on every pack I’ve bought has been.250-300L water / 500 grams yeast/ 100kg grain.
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Saltbush Bill mentioned the recommended quantities. Good caution.When I started using YLAY I emailed back/forth with the Angel Yeast Co. and subsequently developed a fairly elaborate spreadsheet based on the amount “of stuff” (their nomenclature for grain) in the fermentation vessel. The manufacturer suggested dosage is between .3% and .6% of material weight. The variability is apparently based on the type of grain and has quite a lot of latitude. Since we are talking 18 gallons water and about 40 pounds of grain, the difference is measured in teaspoons. I have settled on .45% and that seems to work well for the last eight batches. Possibly I could save a bit but it does not seem worthwhile at this time. More importantly, Saltbush Bill stuck my nose into the actual water recommendations, which I had ignored. Based on the YLAY recommendations my current grain bill of about 40 pounds requires between 12 and 14.4 gallons of water. The upper limit is what I can actually get into my 20 gallon fermentation vessel when the grain is added and still have some freeboard space for fermentation activity. I have updated my spreadsheet and using the range of amount of water recommended. The spreadsheet helps me with the conversion of metric to English units — in America the typical usage is in pounds and gallons. If anyone is interested, PM me for the spreadsheet. It seems that the best I can get into a 20 gallon fermentation vessel with the minimum amount of water is about 50 pounds before all the freeboard is eliminated. My question was focused on flavor versus higher ABV potential mash bills. Turns out that may have been the wrong question and instead I should be looking at the fermentation vessel capacity. NZChrsi indicated stopping at 8% — a reasonable approach. Using the 50# measure cited above the ABV would come in around 7.2% — certainly within his suggested max. Any more grain would require a larger fermentation container — not what I was looking for. Still looking for a variety of views — no answer is wrong and hopefully somebody has some actual experience.
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Why? Can you not adjust the ratio of water to grain while leaving the total volume the same?Learn from the past, live in the present, change the future.
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