Beer Forum

Does anyone ferment in Igloo coolers? If you do is there any off flavors from the plastic?

I've never tried it, but it seems like it would be hard to keep the ferm temp down when fermenting in a cooler.

DannyW wrote:I've never tried it, but it seems like it would be hard to keep the ferm temp down when fermenting in a cooler.

It would work great for making washes in wintertime though. Turbo Yeast + Corn Sugar would give you 95 degree ferments easy.

jeremymm wrote:It would work great for making washes in wintertime though. Turbo Yeast + Corn Sugar would give you 95 degree ferments easy.

You'd still need nutrients, the yeast doesn't like a pure sugar wash. Other than that this would probably by fine if you had a reflux still, since it will strip all of the flavors anyway.

If you had a pot still, you'd be better off to go with grains to get your desired flavor. (ie. corn, rye, barley, wheat, rice, etc...)

Um.... not that I'd know. I think I read that somewhere.....

yeast_slurry_speech wrote:You'd still need nutrients, the yeast doesn't like a pure sugar wash. Other than that this would probably by fine if you had a reflux still, since it will strip all of the flavors anyway.

If you had a pot still, you'd be better off to go with grains to get your desired flavor. (ie. corn, rye, barley, wheat, rice, etc...)

Um.... not that I'd know. I think I read that somewhere.....

Turbo Yeast is a blend of active distillers yeast, diammonium phosphate, and yeast hulls. Everything you need for a pure sugar wash. You should try it sometime. %20 ABV in 48 hours. Then you can uhh, .... absolutely not run it through your "water purifier" because that would be illegal.

I drop the whole carboy in the cooler and fill the remaining space w/ water. The beer never touches the cooler and the water around the carboy buffers the ambient temp.

jeremymm wrote:Turbo Yeast is a blend of active distillers yeast, diammonium phosphate, and yeast hulls. Everything you need for a pure sugar wash. You should try it sometime. %20 ABV in 48 hours. Then you can uhh, .... absolutely not run it through your "water purifier" because that would be illegal.

Ahhh. Sorry, never used it. It's just too expensive for me for what it does. Crosby and Baker (Ironically from Utah) makes SuperStart in bulk (sold at Norther Brewer) at about the same price and you get a pound of it. It works for 500 to 1,000 gallons of "mash" while TurboYeast is only good for 13 lbs of sugar in a 6.5 gallon batch.

If you ever have a big beer you want to get up above 20%, this is the way to finish it after your flavor yeast has attenuated.

Red Star Premier Cuvee seems to be very effective in that regard as well. A few craft distilleries around pee-town are using it.