Love this channel, I wish that I had George as a teacher in school. I am getting ready to do my very first run, have followed all of his instruction after hours of watching, which were never boring, of course I did look up the information on other channels as well along with google research. Collecting the equipment for ph, hydrometers , hygiene and of course the still itself. One improves opon a set of ever developing skills, Math, Science and resourcefulness. Love this hobby, you are always learning. Thanks George....
love the shows, all the way from south africa. Very informative explained well. You manage to keep me coming back to watch more and more. Still a novice but with the guidance you offer. I am sure ill be able to get some good product out. Thanks a bunch.
ty george my ferment went to 61f overnight and stoped fermenting i went to the pet smart and picked up a heater cant wait to try keep up the videos you teach us so much :)
This video wasn’t at all what I was looking for... BUT your energetic personality got me entertain so all I can say now.Very knowledgeable and great tips for whom ever need it.Thank you
A little trick I use to make sure there are no leaks is to squeeze the fermenter sides or push down on the lid enough to pop the airlock one time ( I use the S shaped air locks) when the pressure is then released from the sides or top of the fermenter then the airlock will show different levels in a negative way (wants to suck the airlock water back in) if the level in the airlock holds at this negative (uneven) level then you know there is no leak.
Another alternative is a carboy heater blanket. Just wrap, secure with a bungee and plug in. $25 from Amazon and is very versatile. I like the bulkhead connector idea you used on your lid. As always, another useful and informative video. Cheers my friend!
A bitter 50° in Texas. Ha! Woke up to 17° in Wyoming this morning. Typically we go subzero often in February here with wind that turns your clothes around. I understand why folks go south for the winter. Sitting in front of a space heater sippin some spirits learning from George...Nice!
Ive only recently started watching you. I gave u hell for the silicon seal on the ceramic coated pot and i dont appolagize for that.. how ever ive started watching u again since then. Ur very knowledgable and im learning from u. It amazes me how much we are alike. We must have read the same materials. I target 1.090 on the hydrometer just like u.. i use the aquarium heater just like u. Ive done this for yrs. I do use a 5 gallon water jug with water in it for my heater then float that in my fermenter. I use a 17 gallon rope handle tub as a fermenter. A 25lb bag of sugar and about 11 1/2 gallons of water comes to about 1.090.. . Ill be makeing a video for a group i think ull find interesting id like to share it with u when i do it. Maybe theres a place i can send it when i do it. Im stuck waiting on yeast right now. Every thing is slow moveing with the cov19 ... oh yea while i got u... the sediment in the bottom of ur wash when its done is called " spent mash" that ur Lees and ll that u said befor.. "spent mash"... ok brother shine bright
Thanks a million I’ve been struggling for weeks to get my fermentation’s to work here in South Africa and I just got my plugs so I can finely make banana mampoer again 🥳🕺🏻
I'm in the process of building a small room to do my fermentation in. My plan was to hook up a small heater in there plugged into the PID controller I built from your video. Is there any reason this wouldn't work? btw love this channel. You've taught me so much. And its extremely helpful and easy to understand. Thanks again and keep the great videos coming.
very timely video. just did my first ferment with aquarium heaters. also just had my first stuck fermentation. had a ph problem but don't think that was the sole culprit. wondering if the heaters (100w in 7gals ea) coming in contact with the yeast could have killed the little buggers?? after 12 days (no movement in sg in three days) i pitched another starter. after 15 days sg had come down very slightly from the 12 day mark but not what it should have. useing DADY yeast. ferment temp maintained at constant 75deg. measured by independent digital thermometer in each fermenter. any thoughts about the heaters causing problems??
Star San in a shower hmmm... Learn something new every day! I maintain a couple properties and if it gets rid of mildew, AWESOME! About the fish tank heater, you can fully submerse it in the mash bucket?
ive been brewing british bitter for a while now and i am using fish tank heaters to maintain 26 degrees C or fermentation stops , the instructions to the kit say 18 to 20 degrees C , my home is heated by a gas boiler to 18 degrees C in the winter time , so im wondering if the ambient temperature of the room is affecting fermenttation. I have been adding an extra pound of sugar and raising the potential alcohol from 4% to 8% with very good results . with my heaters I am using two 25 watt heaters per 25 litre barrel I drilled the lids with two side by side 3mm holes for each flat cable threaded the leads through the holes and sealed them with sanitary silicone , they have never leaked and i didnt need to cut the cables. i cleaned everything with ethanol before using the. sealent. it helps if your making your own ethanol.
Hi George from Ontario , Canada. Love your channel and i'm playing catch up on your videos. I live in a farming community so wheat and corn are readily available and I'm looking at starting with Vodka. Thank you greatly for all your very informative videos and I want to stick to your high standards which differs from some of the sloppy messy fermentation set ups I've seen on other videos. Take Care
Great Channel. Question i have made many batches of beer. I use a wort made from a local brewery. I tried a red ale and this time my airlock keeps emptying from excessive bubbling. What's wrong here?
Instead of cutting the power cable and going thru all that electrical and mechanical work just create a water bath. Do this by setting your fermenter or several fermentors into a container filled with a sufficient amount of water to cover 1/2 to 3/4 high of the fermenters with water and use the submersible heater to control the water bath at 78 degrees F. Another advantage of using a water bath is that when the yeast are fermenting at a high rate they can cause the temperature in the fermenter to rise above 78 degrees F (this is very likely in the most active phase, 2-3 days) the extra water in the water bath will prevent the temperature from rising above 78 degrees F. The yeast will love it and so will you. This brand of submersible aquarium heater is preset for 78 degrees F and is not adjustable but does a great job at keeping the water at the preset temperature of 78 degrees F. NICREW Preset Aquarium Heater, Submersible Fish Tank Heater with Electronic Thermostat, 100 Watt, for 10 to 25 Gallon Tank, UL Listed.
Yes but if you put your vessel in a container with water and set it the warm air or hot will effect that water and differ up and down. If you doit the way me and george duncan doit it gets trapped into the vessel where it's sealed in and have good as 💯 accuracy and keep that temperature. So this method works so much better and I have been using this method for years and the yeast loves it and fermentation process is perfect. But good idea tho but hopefully you got success on your method. I use aquarium adjustable temperature which is a 100w and it tells you your temperature and you set it to the temperature you require and it never drops or go up got five of them and have never failed me
I watched a video where you added stabilizers I guess to keep the alcohol content from changing is my understanding. Do I need to use a stabilizer when making wine? And if not would it be best to if I'm trying to keep the same alcohol percentage?
I haven't gotten around to installing an element to my 5.5 gal. cookpot still. I'm using an 1800 kw induction cooking plate and would like to know if those alum. heating blankets with a foam sandwich would survive the cooking process and would it be an advantage to rap the pot? Since the induction cooker only heats the center of the pot, there seems to be little heat radiation coming from the edge of the cooking eye. So would it help to maintain equal heating from bottom to top of pot. Do you think it would increase efficiency and save time. Is it worth it? Thanks for all your help.
I have that same problem here in San Diego. I've mostly solved it with kveik. In broad strokes it will ferment from 39F up to 109F without any "off" flavors.
@@cliffp73 I've been running mine at around 88-93F and it's usually done in 4 or 5 days. I've never tried to ferment with kveik at regular temps. Maybe this winter when the avg temp falls into the 60's. I have a heating pad so I can keep stuff above room temp but I have no way to keep it below.
my lock wasnt bubbling on the apple juice ferment i started but i guessed why, too much headroom in my fermenter, few days later and the little plastic cup in the lock rose to the top of the lock and a day after that she started bubbling, but before that I put my ear to the bucket and could hear the foam breaking up at the top and figured I was all good, just took a little while for the gasses to build up enough to escape the lock (working on getting a hydrometer, i couldnt find the old one)
I am currently I the process of converting an old chest freezer to a fermentation chamber. Using a PID controller to run the compressor for cooling and possibly a small heater or heat matt for heating, (odd number of heat's). More for beer, keeping unwanted flavors from coming out.
I'm re-purposing an old chest freezer also. In my case, the freezer was left behind as a "gift" by the previous owners of my house and it would not cool. The compressor runs fine, but it turns out that because of a crack in the refrigerant return line, that had leaked out several years ago. I have mixed temperatures in "F" and "C" simply based on the markings or calibration of the parts, plus George's advice about optimum fermenting temperatures. I have the opposite problem to you and George - we have very long, cold winters, and the air temperature on the house's main floor stays at 68F-69F. In the basement, the ambient temperature is about 65F. We only have "hot" days for 7 or 8 weeks of the year, so the problem is keeping the fermenter temperature up, rather than cooling. The chest is big enough to hold three 5 or 6.5 gallon pails with air locks on top. I looked at putting an aquarium heater in each fermenter, but they run upwards of $50 each locally, so found another solution. I had removed the freezer's compressor, meaning to re-purpose it either as part of a small air compressor, or a vacuum pump (or both). This left the refrigerant piping - 1/8" i.d. soft copper - still in the freezer but open at both ends. I had a small (120 VAC 3 Watt 100 litre/hr) electric water pump in my box of parts, as well as a thermostat originally used for directly operating 240 volt electric baseboard heaters - with contacts rated for high voltage & high current. I also had a spare engine block heater element. These are installed in a car engine, replacing one of the water jacket freeze plugs, operating on 120 VAC at between 6-10 amps. After a little head scratching, I wound up with the following setup. The small circulating heater is connected to one end of the cooling coils on the freezer with flexible poly tubing and hose clamps. The engine block heater element is fitted in the lid of a steel pail in such a way that the actual element is submerged in liquid (in this case water). The "direct contacts" thermostat is mounted on the inside of the freezer compartment, and wiring runs out to switch both the heating element and the circulating pump on or off. (I had a spare PI controller, but the thermostat seems to work fine). When the temperature inside the freezer compartment falls to the lower end of the "optimum" range (about 26 degrees C), it turns on the circulating pump and the heater in the small liquid reservoir. There's no pressure relief valve, as the reservoir lid is not a tight fit. The water drains from the freezer's (former) "cooling" tubes into the reservoir with the electric heating element, and then is pumped into the other end of the freezer's piping. I added a couple of safety features - a "low water" cut-off switch in the liquid reservoir, and an "over-temperature" bi-metallic thermostatic switch (I think it came from an old coffee machine). That's mounted next to the heating element, and there's an inline fuse on the 120 VAC line, The heating element electrical terminals have an insulating cover, and the circulating pump is just wired in parallel with the heater. The total volume of water in the reservoir and the cooling loop is quite small - about 3 litres. If the pump stops pumping, the liquid in the reservoir will heat up quite quickly, and the over-temperature switch shuts off the heating element. I found a battery operated "fridge alarm" at the Dollar Store which, with a bit of massaging, sounds a buzzer if the temperature inside the freezer compartment falls below 20 degrees C. The compressor will be adapted to start vacuum transfers from one vessel to another - nothing fancy there. I hung a $10 block and tackle "Hunter's Hoist" above the chest freezer from the main floor joist, as my left arm doesn't have the strength to lift full buckets in or out of the freezer (my back doesn't like it much either). The freezer's copper coils are spread out and efficient, and I found I don't even need an air circulating fan inside. Even when the outdoor temperatures dip below -40 (C or F are the same), the "uninhabited" section of the basement basement might cool down to 63-64 degrees F, but the temperature inside the chest freezer stays right around 27C - 28C. I have a thermometer on each fermenter pail, but they track the air temperature pretty closely. With the freezer lid down, the heating element/circulating pump setup doesn't run for very long, or very often. Since the circulating pump doesn't run except when the heating element is turned on, there's very little loss by that route. I had about 2/3 of the needed pieces in my parts bin, and the freezer was free, so the total cost wasn't very much. If the freezer had still been working, I would have had someone come out to vent and collect the Freon refrigerant. But, that had vanished long before, so wasn't an issue. My initial idea was to insulate a closet and install a heating system, or bucket heaters, but this was simple, available, and cheap.
this is for the group. i'm within my first fermentation, a molasses mash. i live in the tropics so keeping the temp low enough is my challenge, i'm using a 7 gallon bucket with about 5.5 gal of wash (25% molasses/ 75% water). 5 days ago i pitched the yeast and yeast nutrient (DADY and fermax), the wash was 81 degrees F, SG 1.085 and ph of 5.0. immediately upon adding the fermax it exploded like adding vinegar to bicarb, losing about ½ gal via foaming, it settled down then i pitched the dissolved yeast, capped the bucket, w airlock a tshirt surrounding it, kept wet with a fan, and all sitting in a plastic wash pan. after about 6 hrs i saw my first bubbles, the next day a few bubbles but i added more water to the tshirt and pan along with ice on top of the bucket...... soon it stopped bubbling. the ice melted and i stopped the fan, then it started bubbling again. i don't think my effort with the ice had much temperature effect, but i would get no more bubbling, trying evaporation or not. now today i decided to fix what i thought was a stuck fermention, bringing me to this video. i took off the lid, temperature was still at 81.6, SG was....... 1.050, a 35 drop! like george says, i probably have some other leak and it seems to be fermenting on the right curve. i gave it a another drill/paint mixer stir, capped it, draped it and put ice in the base and on top.....at this rate in 2 weeks i should be fermented out. any thoughts about all of this, especially about when i added the fermax
Fermax instructions say 1 tsp per gallon. At that ratio, even vinegar and baking soda won't "explode" as you described. Seems to be some missing information. Regarding the lack of bubbles in the air lock: You mentioned putting ice on top to control temperature. Many types of seals will shrink and become ineffective at cold temps. Some also are critically effected by extreme temperature differentials. The ice possibly compromised the airtightness, so the CO2 escaped somewhere other than through the air lock.
Hi George I recently purchased three aquarium tank heaters for my fermentation barrels. My question is where can I find the waterproof connectors with the non solder type wire termination. I’ve searched Amazon but I’m not sure of the terminology to use in the description search soldering those pin connections is a pain a huge hassle when it comes to breaking it down and cleaning thanks for any help you can provide and thanks for all the info you share . Happy distilling!!!
Hi I have been brewing successfully for last eight months. I live in Cholistan desert in Pakistan (close to Indian border), our summers are very long and harsh, the temperature reaches up to 50 degrees celsius. During, my previous homebrewing experiences (wine/beers), the fermentation process ended in 17 - 19 days during summers. Winters are short but night time temperature drops a lot, this morning (December 14) when I checked my beer, there are very few bubbles, or I can say almost no fermentation, while it is only the 10th day today. I need to mention in the past, whether I brewed 5 liters, 7 or 10 liters, I have always used the dry yeast sachet of 10 grams regardless the quantity of liquid, but this time I have brewed 20 liters of beer and the amount of yeast I added was still the same (10 g pack). But anyway as it is the mid of winters and the temperature yesterday during the day time was 9 degrees c and during the night it was -1 last night so I need to ask: If this quicker completion of fermentation process is due to colder weather? Is it due to larger amount of liquid (20 liters) and less yeast (10 g)? Or shall I add some more yeast while the brew is already 10 days older? I thank you in advance, and hope that you would be able to answer as soon as you could. (whatsapp +923007003492)
just remember dont pull the fish tank heaters out of the brew whilst they are switched on , they overheat quickly and the glass is so thin it will shatter from the heat , leaving broken glass in your sediment at the bottom of the brew.
Can you do an experiment on beer yeast attenuation vs temperature? Yeast strains list attenuation and temperature range. What is the attenuation according to these low, med. high temperatures?
You should watch the Bacardi rum tour and could you build a miniature scale replica they triple distill through 3 different chambers of hot plates and ended up with 86-90% after could be quite a project very interesting for viewers
Hello everybody! i need help with rotten eggs smell comin from my destilation. It was my very first corn mash, i think i fail with lefting bucket small open. i was worry that fermentation will be agressive but it wasnt so maybe O2 couse the problem of that smell. Anyway i did have 21-22 Celcius of temp. durning the fementation process, i did destiled it but i didnt put copper to column and that smell come to whisky sadly. What can i do to make out off it? time? or other sollution? please help. Happy destiling!
My first batch of fermenting only got me about 60 proof because it stopped bubbling after about 3 days. The second batch (after watching this video) stopped bubbling after about 5 days. Each day I watch my temperature and stir it up to get the sediment on the bottom mixed up. Once I put the lid back on and seal it up it will bubble for about an hour. Not sure what I’m doing wrong...
Can I get a part number/manufacture's name on that plug in for the aquarium heater please I live in northern Ontario where winter is - 20c on a good day lol.
Great video George , 50 deg ahhh to be in Texas ! Up here in the North in Canada we dip down to a chilly -20 no no it's not Celsius either haha no igloos tho ,contrary to popular belief . It does help to have something to warm you up sometimes, it brings me to a very important question.....do you ship to Canada ??? I live about ten minutes over the border of Vermont . Thanks again George ,keep up the great work sir . Take care
I use food grade silicone around the outside where the airlock & cap screws into the jug or bucket. Works GREAT!! Never comes into contact with the mash or wash.
Hi George , love your videos ! They' very informative and entertaining as well. One question I have is, what is the name ( specifically) of the bulk head electrical connector you used on the aquarium heater for your fermenter? I'm having trouble finding one that is not hard wired, so it can be unplugged. Any help would be very appreciated. And please keep up the great videos !
I got a sugar wash on 25 litre vessel 8kg sugar 1 TableSpoon Wilko yeast for wine and beer 23 gallon water It's been fermentating over 3 weeks at 16 Celsius. What should my temperature be on a sugar wash??? Would be so appreciated so I can buy a aquarium heater to raise the temperature???
Also do you need to “filter” any sediment from the bottom before putting into your still if you don’t have a fermenter like the one in this video. I’m using the Chinese still like the one you demoed in your videos.
The heater I used is submersible and the temp control and LCD temp display is on the outside. I cut the cord on heater and squeezed the cord through a rubber burper grommet then re-atteched power plug.
All i wanna know is what that song is in the intro and where and how can I get it! I wanna play it over n over n over n over while i mash n wash n fermet n distil n.........
I run my cable through a rubber bung in the lid, the same type you’d use in the top of a gallon jar. Just need to cut the plug off the re connect once you’ve pushed the cable through the small hole in the middle of the rubber bung
With regard to the leak in the fermentation bucket... what’s wrong with that? My bigger question is what’s wrong with open air fermentation like some distilleries do? Thanks for all the great videos!
Probably nothing. Before I got the blue connectors George shows. I’d just hang the cord out of the side of the bucket... obviously it wasn’t air tight. Yeast isn’t a big fan of oxygen after the first 24 hours. Perhaps because they’re only trying to get 9-11% on their mash they can get away with it.🤷♂️ But I have a feeling that their mash is temperature controlled.👍😊🥃
Ive just started brewing and ive been keeping fish tanks for years , i said to my wife “ hey why dont brewers use a brand new tank heater to create the perfect temp “ she thought i was mad !
Still have a light ass aroma in the air...But little surface point action. My rubber glove ... with the poked middle finger must be leakin....reckon.... Thank YOU GEORGE
Ordering some Turbo Yeast on Amazon... Have been babysitting my 1st sugar wash.... Had the 1 inch yeast head the 1st day....and petered out after a day....Fleshmans....so....added a half gallon of hot water and added a tablespoon of fresh yeast....My room is 77 degrees. .Prayin 4 JESUS....Thank YOU GEORGE
