Started last night 2lts of base alcohol for an experiment
500grm sugar
yeast
nutrient
lemon juice
1 ltr water
i will top up with sugar syrup until i get to 2lts or the yeast fails me and then make a liqueur after charcoal filtering
Liqueurs
Re: Liqueurs
hint: google alcotec turbo yeasts
Re: Liqueurs
I knew there'd be another use for alcoholic water 
irigg - you can improve the performance of that base recipe by adding half a vitamin B tablet (B12 if you want perfection, but any B supplement will do).
As Dave suggests, you'll get to turbo yeasts soon enough. But they're not cheap and it ain't worth doing any less than 5 gallons at a time. Also, the really high-performance turbos are very temperature-sensitive - if you don't get that right, they perform only marginally better than ordinary yeasts. Even so, you can obtain up to 25% abv using them. They're designed to produce washes for distillation, but I have noticed several products on the market lately (described as one or another form of schnapps) which obviously use this as a base.
Keep up the good work
Mike
irigg - you can improve the performance of that base recipe by adding half a vitamin B tablet (B12 if you want perfection, but any B supplement will do).
As Dave suggests, you'll get to turbo yeasts soon enough. But they're not cheap and it ain't worth doing any less than 5 gallons at a time. Also, the really high-performance turbos are very temperature-sensitive - if you don't get that right, they perform only marginally better than ordinary yeasts. Even so, you can obtain up to 25% abv using them. They're designed to produce washes for distillation, but I have noticed several products on the market lately (described as one or another form of schnapps) which obviously use this as a base.
Keep up the good work
Mike
The secret of life is to aim below the head (With thanks to MMM)
Re: Liqueurs
Ooh, what do you do with base alcohol?
I changed my signature because it was rubbish; I like what you said
Re: Liqueurs
Where it's legal, you distil it and turn it into firewater. In the UK, where the unlicensed use of a still is illegal, you pass it through a charcoal filter (or it tastes like doggy dos) and then flavour it with anything you fancy.
Mike
Mike
The secret of life is to aim below the head (With thanks to MMM)
Re: Liqueurs
A charcoal filter in case you didn't know is just (food-grade) activated charcoal - it looks like black sugar. You can stick it in a coffee filter and pour /trickle the stuff through it - multiple times for best results. It is supposed to remove the dodgy by-products of fermentation and distillation, fusel oils and higher alcohols etc and it does (sniff it before and after). My water distillation machine uses a "tea-bag" charcoal filter for the same reason.
The turbo yeast people have lots of fluid dynamics type recommendations on the best way to filter it, to make sure the liquid passes through the most charcoal without sneaking down the sides.
It seems the purer the alcohol the less taste and smell it has ... so how does this "peaty" whisky taste come about then? They must add it back in somehow, I guess. Maybe they distill peaty river water, throw away the pure distilled water and use the remaining dregs as enhanced peat liquor for blending ... who knows? I'm guessing.
The turbo yeast people have lots of fluid dynamics type recommendations on the best way to filter it, to make sure the liquid passes through the most charcoal without sneaking down the sides.
It seems the purer the alcohol the less taste and smell it has ... so how does this "peaty" whisky taste come about then? They must add it back in somehow, I guess. Maybe they distill peaty river water, throw away the pure distilled water and use the remaining dregs as enhanced peat liquor for blending ... who knows? I'm guessing.