Kleer /

[rossbubbles]

First time poster long time reader...

I use a rotary evaporator to collect essence from herbs and flowers I collect through the year. (I'm a perfumer)

I create my own aroma and add this to a sugar wash with EC-1118 yeast and create it to come out at exactly 9.6% each time.

The strength seems to work best with my essence collection.

My sugar wash has a haze that will not clear and I'm struggling to find out why;
- I have used Lallzyme C-Max and BioKleer to create a clarity a few days after my hydrometer is showing 1.0 'bottle'
- The entire wash of 300 litres in one fermenting vessel is does not seem to have any difference in clarity from when I exhaust some from the bottom of the conical tank or take a scoop from the top
- The tank is sitting in 22*C consistently in a temperature controlled enviornment
- The sugar wash only contains castar sugar, ec-1118, Go-Ferm Nutrients, filtered water,
- the reason why I have such a big batch is my fermenting vessel was free so I'm having lots of playing around

What could I be doing wrong to have a hazey brew? Could too much BioKleer do this?

Do I need to wait longer than a few days with a temperature like this?

I'm based in London UK and I'd love to hear your thoughts

thank you

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome!

Do I understand you to mean that you previously have done this in smaller batches, and did NOT get the haze in those batches?

 

[rossbubbles]

Welcome! Do I understand you to mean that you previously have done this in smaller batches, and did NOT get the haze in those batches?

 

[rossbubbles]

Hey yes I can confirm I have had haze free batches in the past! Can you help?

 

[salcoco]

pectic enzyme would be my first choice

 

[Rice_Guy]

This batch of essence from the rotary still may be variable in how fat soluble and/ or polar soluble it is ,, The interesting fact is that this is a variably property in distillate product with a yearly production so I assume the feedstock will vary. Also This batch of essence may not be ethyl alcohol soluble.
Salcoco is suggesting a treatment which would be appropriate for fruit pulp with cell walls. As a distillate I assume you have a clean oil. I am not familiar with Bio Kleer, google lists it as a microbial grease cutting material, ,,, it may be variable batch to batch. As a guess microbial cells are not soluble but should settle with the yeast cells.

an interesting problem
As a test I would check a few drops of essence to see how soluble / hazy it is in ,,, 1) mineral spirits ..ie non polar 2) acetone .. ie fairly polar 3) grain alcohol 4) the water you are using .. ie very polar and 5) a mix calculated to be 10% alcohol with 90% water

Using dandelion flowers I produced a cloud that would not settle, would not bind to bentonite (ie a protein) and would not filter, wine has a number of clarification agents, it helps to know how positive or negatively charged the essence is to properly use them.

 

[Bossbaby]

Exactly what Rice_Guy said.

 

[sour_grapes]

Exactly what Rice_Guy said.

Wellll, I would say "saponify" rather than "soapanify."

But, correct me if I am wrong, @rossbubbles , but I got the impression that your haze occured before adding any essence to it. Do I have that correct? It is just the wash?

 

[rossbubbles]

The essence has not yet been added! I add this in one day before bottling

 

[Rice_Guy]

Interesting, ,,, so you are actually making a sugar wine which consists of water, nutrients and castar sugar. ,,, You ferment a few weeks, clarify, add the aromatics and bottle. Anything else in the wash as acid or back sweetening sugar?

The essence has not yet been added! I add this in one day before bottling

* My impression of London water was it was fairly clean plus you filter (for dirt, not RO taking minerals out like beer folks do). . . low risk
* sugar,, Google would tell me “caster” means powdered sugar. In the US market this would be very clean and create a transparent solution. Not knowing the grade (brown beet sugar, palm sugar) this could have contaminants. If short chain carbohydrates you would see turbidity when you start the ferment, however if protein you might not see it till the alcohol made the protein insoluble. If protein then bentonite clay should take it out.
* nutrients, go Ferm should settle out
* Lallyzime C-max is good on pectin but not very useful in a completely synthetic system ,, low risk
* seems like the only other choice is yeast metabolites, 1118 has a good reputation so again lesser risk but worth asking about since there aren’t a lot of other choices.

A diagnostic test to find out what the turbidity is. Take two 200 ml samples and dry it down on low heat on the stove (or use a 130C moisture oven) ,,, is the residue soluble in mineral spirits then it is lipid. ,,, if it is sweet it is a carbohydrate, from a finished gravity of 1.000 at a calculated 9.7% alcohol this is very likely.

At this point RO would clean up residual sugar, I have not played with clarifies enough to suggest if one would work. ... other opinions on clarifier?
If I had this in the pilot plant I would try pumping some through an activated carbon filter (you might find one for home water to take out off flavors)

off topic but the product sounds neat, where can one find essence in the States?

 

[cmason1957]

One thought I had was powdered sugar, at least as I understand it contains cornstarch. That probably would be a bad thing in wine, I would think.

 

[Rice_Guy]

good thought

One thought I had was powdered sugar, at least as I understand it contains cornstarch. That probably would be a bad thing in wine, I would think.

In the US powdered sugar does not have corn starch, ,,, but this is Britain, if it is there it should settle to the bottom of the fermentor, HOWEVER dextrans are used to cut sweetness and they would not settle out.
The treatment for dextrin would be amylase AKA beer enzymes or Japanese koji

 

[rossbubbles]

Interesting, ,,, so you are actually making a sugar wine which consists of water, nutrients and castar sugar. ,,, You ferment a few weeks, clarify, add the aromatics and bottle. Anything else in the wash as acid or back sweetening sugar?

* My impression of London water was it was fairly clean plus you filter (for dirt, not RO taking minerals out like beer folks do). . . low risk
* sugar,, Google would tell me “caster” means powdered sugar. In the US market this would be very clean and create a transparent solution. Not knowing the grade (brown beet sugar, palm sugar) this could have contaminants. If short chain carbohydrates you would see turbidity when you start the ferment, however if protein you might not see it till the alcohol made the protein insoluble. If protein then bentonite clay should take it out.
* nutrients, go Ferm should settle out
* Lallyzime C-max is good on pectin but not very useful in a completely synthetic system ,, low risk
* seems like the only other choice is yeast metabolites, 1118 has a good reputation so again lesser risk but worth asking about since there aren’t a lot of other choices.

A diagnostic test to find out what the turbidity is. Take two 200 ml samples and dry it down on low heat on the stove (or use a 130C moisture oven) ,,, is the residue soluble in mineral spirits then it is lipid. ,,, if it is sweet it is a carbohydrate, from a finished gravity of 1.000 at a calculated 9.7% alcohol this is very likely.

At this point RO would clean up residual sugar, I have not played with clarifies enough to suggest if one would work. ... other opinions on clarifier?

off topic but the product sounds neat, where can one find essence in the States?

Very Very interesting Rice Guy!

What does RO mean on your final statement?

I am going to run through a few through all of these factors and come back to you with my solution if I come to one.

I have a reverse osmosis filter fitted before a temperature controlled hose to ensure there is a fixed temperature that will ensure the yeasts cannot be damaged.

I use Tate & Lyle Caster Sugar

Your input is greatly appreciated, hopefully when I get some clarity on this matter I would be happy to send you some essence!

 

[Rice_Guy]

Some tools for identifying an unknown in wine:

 

[Rice_Guy]

We do not have Tate and Lyle sugar in the states, also the term caster sugar isn’t used here. To Craig’s comment on starch, you want a grade of material which is 100% sugar with no fillers. From what I know about Tate and Lyle products you should be 100%, and if an artificial they would have labeled it, ,,, and it is more expensive so you wouldn’t want to put 100 Kg in a fermentor.
RO is reverse osmosis which you just said you have. ie a very fine cartridge filter.

What does RO mean on your final statement?!

you have me curious ,,, I used to judge customers based on the questions they asked
You run RO with temperature control on the yeast tank, ? ? . . most folks on WMT are using carboys with room temp,, all the folks in the local vinters club are basement or garage wine makers. You are running a 300 liter tank which I assume means a 300 liter batch and are saying OH SH*T! ,,, at seventy five gallons you can’t use! . . and a distillation set up. . . these are some nice toys.

I am not picturing your set up. or the flow chart, ,,,,

At this point I am betting a yeast metabolite is the cloud agent, and it probably is lipid based. A test used in the milk industry to test fat is the “Babcock” test which is pulling the lipid out of the aqueous emulsion by shaking with a polar solvent (alcohol or acetone) and then pulling it out of that by shaking with petroleum ether, ,,, and then letting the two phases segregate in a sepratory funnel.
Another approach is try removing the haze with a two solvent system. You wouldn’t collect much but might have another clue about what it is.

While at it, other common analytical techniques are to “salt” out an unknown (protein) and to precipitate an unknown with solvents.

 

[rossbubbles]

Great! Thank you for updating me on this. Maybe I should get a little video together of my set-up - the RO filter is fantastic for a 41*C output ; I've been building production lines for years for clients as an assistant engineer so I've been able to dig out low cost set ups and install them but I'm still very new to it.

I have added Lllamyne C-Max and now Biokleer. I'll wait 48 hours, rack, then if needed I'll try and salt out the protein haze if it is still there!

 

[Rice_Guy]

Great! Thank you for updating me on this. Maybe I should get a little video together of my set-up - the RO filter is fantastic for a 41*C output ; I've been building production lines for years for clients as an assistant engineer so I've been able to dig out low cost set ups and install them but I'm still very new to it.

I have added Lllamyne C-Max and now Biokleer. I'll wait 48 hours, rack, then if needed I'll try and salt out the protein haze if it is still there!

Salting, Babcock are lab tests, ,,, not practical production tools.

 

[rossbubbles]

Thank you so much to everyone for your help, I used the haze identification technique by putting a small screw top bottle into a salad spinner and catching the residue on the cap. after some checking it was yeast... My refractometer was not collaborated properly so I have binned my test batch and now have a clear final batch after using C-Max and Kleer.

You are a very very helpful bunch, next time you're in london the milky bars are on me