Workpress Posted February 10, 2022 Share Posted February 10, 2022 At the brewery we are making beer at 3500L per batch and I have been collecting the leftover sparge waters about 600L and fermenting them to capture the alcohol after I distill it to fill a barrel with a mix of different all grain spirit. I only get about 20L per run as the abv is low and I do not want to add sugar to boost it up at this point. My question is the last time i did this my mash cooled naturally and picked up a Brettanomyces, yes it smells like horse sweat not bad but not good, I pitched my yeast anyway to see what would happen. The SG started at 1.025 has not changed much after a week it is 1.020 and nothing appears to be happening apart from some froth on the top of the mash the ph is 3.8 low as heck... any ideas, would be helpful, however I may dump it and that would be no real loss, only time and yeast. cheers workpress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreshot Posted February 10, 2022 Share Posted February 10, 2022 For your direct question I don't have any advice. For the sparge water in general do what the Scots do and use that sparge water as the first water for the new brew. Then you're not wasting it. Getting 20l isn't really worth the time & energy usage is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Workpress Posted February 14, 2022 Author Share Posted February 14, 2022 So an update... I bumped up the PH to 5.6 and added 25 KG of sugar to the mix then I added 10 Gal of great yeast from the cone of a beer that is fermenting, so this morning the fermenter is warm and it is rolling beautifully. Foreshot I totally agree it would be really great to use the sparge water in my next mashes and in the near future i will try to see if I can do so. thank you for your comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreshot Posted February 14, 2022 Share Posted February 14, 2022 Here's a relatively good description of the process: https://www.whisky.com/information/knowledge/production/details/mashing.html It's somewhat predicated on continuously mashing which most of us craft folk don't do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silk City Distillers Posted February 15, 2022 Share Posted February 15, 2022 Probably not economical to try to concentrate it, by either boiling or reverse osmosis. Recycling is a really elegant solution. Brett and distilling don’t mix, sorry, and I love non-yeast microbes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Workpress Posted February 15, 2022 Author Share Posted February 15, 2022 I am almost positive that the Brettanomyces contaminated my wash because i let it cool naturally out in the open air, in the brewery and outside in the snow, but it was mostly uncovered for almost 24 hours... The next batch I ran through the chiller and pitched yeast within 2 hours of collecting the sparge water. The entire process is an exercise in recycling and testing ideas, it is not efficient at all but I am learning and that is good thank you Workpress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreshot Posted February 15, 2022 Share Posted February 15, 2022 10 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said: Brett and distilling don’t mix How does it come across? Concentrated horse? 2 minutes ago, Workpress said: I am learning and that is good Yeah I do the same. Not everything I do works but it leads to something better - even if that better is not repeating what I just did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silk City Distillers Posted February 15, 2022 Share Posted February 15, 2022 1 hour ago, Foreshot said: How does it come across? Concentrated horse? Surprisingly no, it's the phenol off-flavors that dominate and smear straight through hearts in a way that's uncuttable. While there might be lots of interesting characteristics, how to access them without the off flavor? I have similar complaints with yeast strains that are POF (phenolic off flavor) positive - like traditional hefeweizen strains. In some beer styles that clovey spice is desirable, in distillation it morphs into a kind of burnt bandaid, medicinal, plastic. You might be able to make it work in a smoked whiskey style, as some of those flavors are complimentary (or characteristic) to smoke. I did notice that it does get tamed a bit on oak, but not sure if it's just being masked by more dominant flavors, still highly recognizable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamOVD Posted February 15, 2022 Share Posted February 15, 2022 Do you have a hot liquor tank you use for sparge water for the next batch? If so the last runnings could get blended into there, and the temp would kill any microbes. Pretty interesting idea, but I wonder how much sugar you would actually reclaim, and if it would be worth gumming up the hot liquor tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Workpress Posted February 18, 2022 Author Share Posted February 18, 2022 the Brew Master here would kill me if I did that LOL The smell has mellowed but it still smells like my horse Jack after a good run... Distilling the Brett fun today, we will see how it goes... cheers Workpress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Workpress Posted February 19, 2022 Author Share Posted February 19, 2022 After distilling the slight nose of some barnyard smell is still there however the taste is pleasant enough, so I am adding it to my mixed run barrel to age for a few years and we shall see what we get. cheers Workpress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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